Shooting kills five people in North Carolina, shooter arrested
A gunman was arrested on Friday in Raleigh, in the southeastern United States, after killing five people including an off-duty police officer, authorities said.
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AFP
The suspect, about whom no details have yet been provided, also injured several people, including a police officer from a dog team. However, her vital prognosis is not committed, the mayor of the municipality, Mary-Ann Baldwin had indicated a few minutes earlier, deploring a “sad and tragic day”.
The first shots rang out shortly after 5pm (11pm in Switzerland), on a footpath in this city of nearly 500,000, the capital of North Carolina.
A large contingent of security forces was then deployed to find the perpetrator, local media reported.
“I saw him pass in front of my house, in the garden. He had a long-barreled shotgun and was dressed in camouflage, “a witness who refused to give his name told local WRAL channel.
During an evening press conference, Mary-Ann Baldwin explained that “around 8pm, the Raleigh police (had) indicated that they had surrounded a suspect at a residence in the area.” “The suspect was arrested,” the city police tweeted shortly after.
“Immense mourning”
The shootings regularly mourn the United States, which pays dearly for the spread of firearms on its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them.
Faced with this scourge, “we must do more”, the mayor of the capital of North Carolina was visibly upset. “We must end this unbridled violence in America. We need to respond to gun violence. Our task is immense. And tonight our mourning is immense ”.
About 49,000 people died from firearms in the United States in 2021, up from 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. However, it is the shootings with many casualties that streak the most spirits, as they illustrate the ideological divide between conservatives and progressives on the question of how to prevent such tragedies.
Recent American history is in fact dotted with murders, without any place in everyday life appearing safe, from the company to the church, from the supermarket to the nightclub, from the public road to common public transport.
A Florida high school massacre on February 14, 2018 in Parkland sparked a vast national movement, with young people at the forefront, to demand stricter oversight of individual weapons in the United States.
But despite the mobilization of more than a million protesters, the United States Congress has not passed ambitious legislation, many elected officials have been under the influence of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), America’s first weapons lobby.
In fact, in a country where the possibility of owning a firearm is considered by millions of Americans a fundamental constitutional right, the only recent legislative advances remain marginal, such as the generalization of criminal and psychiatric controls, especially the purchase of weapons.
AFP
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