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Crime scene in Yakima (Washington State)
Photo: Evan Abell / dpa
In another gun attack in the United States, a 21-year-old apparently killed three people indiscriminately.
After the night's bloody crime around a grocery store in Yakima, Washington, the shooter apparently called his mother and then shot himself, police said.
A total of 18 people were killed in gun attacks in the United States on Monday and Saturday.
"It appears to be a random situation," said Yakima City Police Chief Matthew Murray, describing the crime in the city of 100,000 southeast of Seattle.
There was no apparent conflict between the three fatalities and the perpetrator.
According to video surveillance images, the first fatal shots were fired in a grocery store, Murray said.
Then the perpetrator left the store and shot another victim.
Finally he crossed the street and shot someone again.
According to Murray, the alleged 21-year-old perpetrator then fled in a stolen car.
Police launched a massive manhunt for the shooter.
She warned the public that the suspect was "armed and dangerous."
Another case of rampant gun violence
After a few hours, the police received an emergency call from a woman whose cell phone the shooter had borrowed.
"Then he called his mother and made some incriminating statements like 'I killed these people,'" Police Commissioner Murray said, citing the cellphone owner.
In addition, the 21-year-old said several times that he would kill himself.
When rescue workers arrived at the scene, they heard the shots that the young man aimed at himself.
"They provided medical assistance to save his life, but he was later pronounced dead," Murray said.
The Yakima shooting is another instance of rampant gun violence rocking the United States.
18 people were killed in two incidents in California on Monday and Saturday.
In the attack on Monday, a man shot and killed seven farm workers on two farms south of San Francisco.
The shooter was arrested.
"What the hell is going on here?"
On Saturday, a 72-year-old man opened fire on those present in a dance club in the greater Los Angeles area, killing eleven people.
The bloodbath in Monterey Park, a community populated by many Asians, occurred during Chinese New Year celebrations.
The alleged perpetrator shot himself in his van while fleeing from the police.
The governor of the US West Coast state is now calling for stricter gun laws.
"What the hell is going on here?" Gavin Newsom asked Tuesday in Northern California's Half Moon Bay.
That would only happen in America, the country with the highest number of gun owners and gun deaths, the Democrat said.
Joe Biden also commented.
After the crime in Half Moon Bay, the US President spoke of a “senseless act of armed violence”.
"The scourge of gun violence across America" requires stricter gun laws, the 80-year-old wrote.
bam/AFP
