Two teenagers were arrested Sunday in connection with a “targeted mass shooting” that killed five members of the same family and wounded two others in East St Louis, Illinois, according to state police.

The 15- and 16-year-old suspects were taken into custody at Holten State Park, a recreation area east of the city, Illinois state police director Brendan Kelly said at a Sunday news conference – but they had not immediately been formally charged with a crime.

“These alleged acts of horrific violence, taking this number of lives, here in this community, it’s terrible, it’s evil, but it will not keep this city down,” Kelly said.

Authorities said that at least one of the suspects is related to at least one of the victims but declined to comment further. Kelly said the shootings unfolded in three locations around East St Louis and remained under investigation. He declined to comment on how the teenagers may have obtained guns. Illinois has some of the strictest state-level gun laws in the US.

Two of the shooting victims were taken to a hospital in the neighboring city of St Louis, Missouri, after the attack. State police have identified the slain family members as Cherie L May, 49; Devin D May, 24; Patricia A May, 74; Quentin L Thompson, 21; and Shania W Thompson, 25.

There were no bystanders injured in the attacks, Kelly said. He said that quintuple shooting events had occurred in Illinois state history but nonetheless were “very rare”.

Sunday’s targeted killings fit the definition of a type of crime known since the 1980s as a family annihilation. Most of those cases involve a male armed with a gun who kills multiple close family members.

American communities have historically characterized family annihilations as isolated tragedies. But a July 2023 Indianapolis Star investigation found they were occurring across the US every five days on average, raising questions about why the country has not sought a nationwide strategy to dissuade that particular type of crime.

Many of the US’s mass murders – defined as cases in which four or more victims are slain – are family annihilations.

The killings in East St Louis were at least the 12th mass murders reported in the US so far in 2026, according to the nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive. At least seven of those fit the definition of a family annihilation.

Additionally, as of Monday morning, there had been more than 240 mass shootings across the US this year, records maintained by the Gun Violence Archive show. Mass shootings are defined as cases in which four or more victims are either wounded or killed.

America’s perennially high numbers of mass shootings have prompted calls from lawmakers and advocates for more substantial federal gun control. But Congress has not implemented such restrictions.

Illinois has some of the more restrictive state-level gun laws and requires gun buyers to carry a firearm identification card. Notably, East St Louis is right on the state’s border with Missouri, which does not require permits to buy or carry firearms, has no licensing system, and does not regulate the transfer or storage of private firearms.

Missouri also does not criminalize minors possessing weapons such as handguns, shotguns or rifles – but it is illegal to sell such firearms to them without their parents’ consent.