Global Courant
At least six people, including a Pennsylvania state police officer, were killed and dozens injured in a series of weekend violence and mass shootings across the US.
The shootings in the suburbs of Chicago, Washington State, Pennsylvania, St. Louis, Southern California and Baltimore follow a wave of murders and other violence in recent years, which experts say has accelerated amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s no doubt there’s been a spike in violence,” said Daniel Nagin, a professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. “Some of these cases seem to be just disputes, often between adolescents, and those disputes are played out with guns, not fists.”
Researchers disagree about the cause of the rise. Theories include the possibility that violence is driven by the prevalence of guns in America, or by less aggressive police tactics or a decrease in prosecutions for gun crimes, Nagin said.
On Sunday night, none of the weekend’s events met the definition of mass murder, as fewer than four people died at each location. However, the number of injuries in most cases corresponds to the generally accepted definition of mass shootings.
Watch this weekend’s footage here:
WILLOWBROOK, ILLINOIS
At least 23 people were gunned down early Sunday morning in a suburban Chicago parking lot where hundreds of people had gathered to celebrate Juneteenth, authorities said.
The DuPage County Sheriff’s Office described a “peaceful gathering” that suddenly turned violent when several people fired multiple shots into the crowd in Willowbrook, Illinois, about 20 miles southwest of Chicago.
A motive for the attack was not immediately known. Sheriff’s spokesman Robert Carroll said authorities were interviewing “key individuals” in the shooting, the Daily Herald reported.
A witness, Markeshia Avery, said the celebration was intended to mark Juneteenth, Monday’s federal holiday commemorating the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned they had been freed — two years after the Emancipation Proclamation .
“We just started hearing shooting so we fell down until they stopped,” Avery told WLS-TV.
THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Two people were killed and two others injured when a gunman began firing “randomly” into a crowd at a Washington state campground where people stayed Saturday night to attend a nearby music festival, police said.
The suspect was shot in a confrontation with law enforcement and taken into custody several hundred yards from the Beyond Wonderland electronic dance music festival.
A public alert informed people of an active shooter in the area and advised them to “run, hide or fight”.
The festival continued into early Sunday morning, said Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Kyle Foreman. The organizers then posted a tweet stating that Sunday’s concert had been cancelled.
CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA
A state police officer was killed and a second seriously injured just hours apart in central Pennsylvania on Saturday after a gunman attacked a state police barracks.
The suspect drove his truck into the Lewistown barracks parking lot around 11 a.m. Saturday and opened fire with a large-caliber rifle at marked patrol cars before fleeing, authorities said on Sunday.
Lieutenant James Wagner, 45, was shot and seriously wounded after encountering the suspect several miles away in Mifflintown. Later, 29-year-old Trooper Jacques Rougeau Jr. was ambushed and killed by a shot through the windshield of his patrol car while driving down a road in nearby Walker Township, authorities said.
The suspect was shot and killed after a fierce exchange of fire, said Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens, who took off in a helicopter to coordinate the search for the 38-year-old suspect.
“What I saw… was one of the most intense, incredible firefights I have ever seen,” Bivens said, praising the troopers for launching an aggressive search despite facing a weapon that “ would beat all body armor.” that they had at their disposal.”
A motive was not immediately known.
ST. LOUIS
An early Sunday shooting at a downtown St. Louis office building killed a 17-year-old and injured nine other teens, the city’s police commissioner said.
St. Louis Police Commissioner Robert Tracy identified the victim who was killed as 17-year-old Makao Moore. A spokesman said a minor carrying a handgun was detained by police as a person of interest.
Teenagers were partying in an office space when the shooting broke out around 1 a.m. on Sunday.
The victims ranged from 15 to 19 years old and had injuries, including multiple gunshot wounds. A 17-year-old girl was trampled as she fled, severely injuring her spine, Tracy said.
Shell casings from AR-style rifles and other firearms were scattered on the ground.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Eight people were injured in a shooting at a pool party at a home in Southern California, authorities said Saturday.
KABC-TV reported that authorities broadcast shortly after midnight in Carson, California, south of Los Angeles.
The victims range in age from 16 to 24, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. They were taken to hospitals and two were admitted in critical condition, the statement said.
Authorities said they found another 16-year-old boy with a gunshot wound when they responded to a call about a vehicle crashing into a wall nearby.
BALTIMORE
Six people were injured in a shooting in Baltimore Friday night. All were expected to survive.
Officers heard gunshots in the north of the city just before 9 p.m. and found three men with numerous gunshot wounds. Medics took them to area hospitals for treatment.
Police later learned of three additional victims who walked into area hospitals with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
The injured ranged in age from 17 to 26, said Lindsey Eldridge, spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department.
