Updated at 10:40 p.m. ET

Nine people have been hospitalized following a stabbing attack at an apartment complex where refugee families live in Boise, Idaho, according to the Boise Police Department. Six of the victims are children.

"We haven't had anything involving this amount of victims in a single attack in Boise in the history of the department," Boise Police Chief William Bones told reporters following the Saturday evening attack.

The Boise Police Department said four of the victims are being treated for life-threatening injuries. The people injured include members of the refugee community.

Police responded to reports of an incident on Saturday evening at 8:46 p.m., as Bones described, and a 30-year-old man was taken into custody minutes later at gunpoint after he fled the scene.

On Sunday, police identified the suspect as Timmy Kinner of Los Angeles, Calif. In a statement, police said that, "Preliminary evidence shows the suspect was a temporary resident at the apartment complex on Wylie Ln and State St. until he was asked to leave on Friday."

His precise motive is unclear. This attack is "not a symbol or a representation of our community in Boise, but it's a single evil individual who attacked people with no provocation that we are aware of," Bones said.

Kinner is being questioned by authorities. He has been booked into jail on nine counts of aggravated battery and six counts of injury to a child.

The police found victims of the attack both within apartments and in the complex's parking lot. "And it's affected all aspects of the families within the apartment complex," Bones said. "At this point we haven't lost anybody but as I said, the injuries are very, very serious."

Bones described the apartment complex as a "tight-knit community." According to Idaho Statesman, "Wylie Street Station Apartments offers low-income family rentals under a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program that limits rent payments to 30 percent of a renter's income."

Police said that they secured the scene, and The Associated Press describes that early on Sunday "there were still dozens of police cars and officers at the apartment complex, with yellow evidence markers placed around the parking lot."

The wire service adds that "Officers told some residents of the complex who were trying to go home that they should either find a motel or go to a nearby church for shelter, because the complex wouldn't be opened to residents before daylight."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.