A shooter opened fire on Monday morning in Louisville, the main city of Kentucky, and caused “several victims” before being “neutralized”, announced the authorities of this state in the central eastern United States. “It is confirmed that five people have been killed” and “at least six people have been taken to hospital” including a policeman, a police official said on American television, the shooting having taken place in a bank according to witnesses.
There is no longer an active aggressor threat. The suspected shooter has been neutralized.
— LMPD (@LMPD) 10 avril 2023
The suspect, designated earlier as an “assailant in action” causing “several victims”, was finally “neutralized”, said the police on Twitter. Six people were hit by the shots, according to CNN, including a police officer. The local press reports a massive police presence in the area.
Assault rifle
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced on going there immediately. City Mayor Craig Greenberg called on residents to avoid the area. A witness told local channel WHAS11 that he saw a man with an “assault rifle” shooting into a bank. Another witness, Debbie, told local channel WDRB that she saw a victim on the ground in front of a hotel when she stopped at a red light while driving her car.
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It was then that shots rang out. “I took off,” she said. When I turned around, I saw that one of the windows of the bank had been broken. The police presence was quickly massive, she describes. “They were coming from everywhere. The police came out of their cars with assault rifles,”
Many killings
On March 27, a person opened fire at a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee (south), killing three 9-year-old children and three employees before being shot dead by police. The United States pays a very heavy price for the dissemination of firearms on its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them.
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The country has more individual weapons than inhabitants: one in three adults owns at least one weapon and nearly one in two adults lives in a home where there is a weapon. The consequence of this proliferation is the very high rate of death by firearm in the United States, without comparison with that of other developed countries. Around 49,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021, compared to 45,000 in 2020, which was already a record year. This represents more than 130 deaths per day, more than half of which are suicides.
