At least two people were killed and 28 others injured, police said, in a shootout overnight from Saturday to Sunday in Baltimore, on the east coast of the United States.
Police said they received numerous calls shortly after midnight (0400 GMT Sunday) reporting that people were being shot at in the Brooklyn neighborhood, Police Chief Rich Worley said at a press conference.
“When they arrived on the spot, the police found many people hit by bullets”, he added, specifying that an 18-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man had been killed, and that nine other people, seriously injured, were transported to the nearest hospitals. Three of the injured are in critical condition.
The other injured were sent to more distant hospitals, he added.
Authorities are trying to figure out what happened, identify a suspect and understand his motivation.
“This is a tragedy that should never have happened,” said the mayor of the city of Brandon Scott during a press conference.
“It again highlights the consequences and the need to combat the proliferation of illegal firearms on our streets and the possibility for those who should not have them to succeed in obtaining them,” he said. added.
“We will never stop finding these cowards who decided to shoot dozens of people just like that, killing two,” he promised.
With more guns than people, the United States has the highest gun death rate of any developed country. Some 20,200 people were killed by firearms in 2022, according to the association Gun Violence Archive (GVA). Not to mention 24,000 suicides.
The Baltimore shooting is the 337th mass shooting in the United States since the start of the year, according to the GVA, which defines mass shootings as attacks with firearms in which at least four people are injured or killed. .