(Los Angeles) A father killed his three minor children and a fourth person on Monday before committing suicide at a place of worship in the Californian capital Sacramento, police said.
Posted yesterday at 10:19 p.m.
“At 5:07 p.m. this afternoon we received a call about a shooting at the church,” Sacramento Police Sgt. Rod Grassmann said at a news conference.
“We discovered an adult man, a father who opened fire and killed his three children, aged under fifteen,” he explained, adding that a “fifth person had also died” without being able to say. whether she had a connection to the other victims.
After the tragedy, the shooter turned his gun on himself.
“As far as I can see, this is a kind of domestic violence incident at this point,” Grassmann said.
Sacramento Sheriff’s Department was unable at this stage to clarify why the shooter and victims were in the small building serving as a Christian place of worship, whose religious affiliation remained unclear as of Monday night.
The governor of California deplored on Twitter the “absurd” murders.
“Another senseless act of gun violence in America, this time at home. In a church where there were children”, wrote Gavin Newsom, saying he was “absolutely appalled”.
Shootings, particularly in schools, shopping malls or places of worship, are a recurring evil in the United States that successive governments have been powerless to stem, in particular because of the provisions of the Constitution protecting the right of American citizens to hold a weapon.
Gun violence has increased since the start of the pandemic in the country. They killed more than 44,000 people in 2021, the majority of them suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.