A series of mass shootings and weekend violence across the United States has killed at least six people, including a Pennsylvania state trooper, and injured dozens.
The shootings follow a rise in homicides and other violence in recent years that experts say has accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic. They performed in suburban Chicago, Washington, central Pennsylvania, St. Louis, Southern California and Baltimore.
“There’s no question 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 appear to be just arguments, often between teenagers, and those arguments are with guns, not fists.”
Researchers disagree on the cause of the increase. Theories include the possibility that the violence is driven by the prevalence of guns in America, or by less aggressive police tactics or a drop in prosecutions for gun crimes, Nagin said.
On Sunday evening, none of the weekend’s events met the definition of a massacre, as fewer than four people died at each location. The figure does not include the shooter. However, the number of injured in most cases meets the widely accepted definition of mass shootings.
Here is an overview of this weekend’s shoots:
WILLOWBROOK, ILLINOIS
At least 23 people were shot, including one fatally, early Sunday in a parking lot in suburban Chicago where hundreds of people had gathered to celebrate June 19, authorities said.
The DuPage County Sheriff’s Office described a “peaceful gathering” that suddenly turned violent as a number of people fired multiple shots into the crowd in Willowbrook, Illinois, about 20 miles north. southwest of Chicago.
The motive for the attack was not immediately known. Sheriff’s spokesman Robert Carroll said authorities were interviewing “persons of interest” in the shooting, the Daily Herald reported.
A witness, Markeshia Avery, said the celebration was meant to mark June 16, the federal Monday holiday commemorating the day in 1865 when slaves in Galveston, Texas learned they had been freed, two years after the emancipation proclamation.
“We just started to hear gunshots, so we fell until they stopped,” Avery told WLS-TV.
The White House released a statement calling the violence a tragedy and saying the president was thinking of those killed and injured. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said in A declaration that he was overseeing the investigation.
“Getting together for a holiday gathering should be a joyful occasion, not a time when gunfire erupts and families are forced to run for protection,” Pritzker said.
WASHINGTON STATE
Two people were killed and two others were injured when a gunman began shooting ‘randomly’ into a crowd at a campground in Washington state where many people were staying to attend a music festival in nearby Saturday night, police said.
The suspect was shot in a confrontation with law enforcement officers and taken into custody, several hundred meters 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 through Sunday morning, Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Kyle Foreman said. Organizers then posted a tweet saying Sunday’s concert was cancelled.
CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA
A state trooper was killed and a second seriously injured 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 Sunday.
Lieutenant James Wagner, 45, was seriously injured when he was shot after encountering the suspect several miles away in Mifflintown. Later, Trooper Jacques Rougeau Jr., 29, was ambushed and killed by a shot through the windshield of his patrol car while driving on a road in nearby Walker Township , authorities said.
The suspect was fatally shot after a violent gunfight, said Lt. Col. George Bivens, who boarded a helicopter to coordinate the search for the 38-year-old suspect.
“What I witnessed…was one of the most intense and unbelievable shootings I have ever seen,” Bivens said, praising the soldiers for launching an aggressive search despite a weapon that would “destroy any bulletproof vests they had. them.”
A motive was not immediately known.
ST. LOUIS
A Sunday morning shooting at a downtown St. Louis office building killed a 17-year-old and injured nine other teenagers, the city’s police commissioner said.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Commissioner Robert Tracy identified the victim who was killed as 17-year-old Makao Moore. A spokesperson said a minor who had a handgun was in custody as a person of interest.
Teenagers were partying in an office when the shooting broke out around 1 a.m. Sunday.
The victims were between the ages of 15 and 19 and had injuries, including multiple gunshot wounds. A 17-year-old girl was stomped on as she ran away, seriously injuring her spine, Tracy said.
Casings from AR-type rifles and other firearms were strewn on the floor.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
A shooting at a pool party at a Southern California home left eight people injured, authorities said Saturday.
Authorities were dispatched shortly after midnight to Carson, Calif., south of Los Angeles, KABC-TV reported.
The victims are between the ages of 16 and 24, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. They were taken to hospitals and two were listed in critical condition, the statement said.
Authorities said they found another 16-year-old boy with gunshot wounds when they responded to a call about a vehicle crashing into a nearby wall.
BALTIMORE
Six people were injured in a Friday night shooting in Baltimore. All had to survive.
Officers heard gunshots in the north of town just before 9 p.m. and found three men with multiple gunshot wounds. Doctors took them to area hospitals for treatment.
Police later learned that three other victims had entered area hospitals with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
The injured were between the ages of 17 and 26, Baltimore Police Department spokesman Lindsey Eldridge said.