The gunman accused of killing five people Thursday in a southeastern United States town is a 15-year-old boy, local authorities said Friday, adding that he was hospitalized and in critical condition.
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“That’s enough,” responded President Joe Biden, renewing his call to ban assault rifles after this shooting, one of many that mourn the United States.
The victims of the shootings which broke out in Raleigh, capital of North Carolina, are aged between 16 and 52, said the chief of the police of the city, Estella Patterson. Among them is a policeman who was not on duty.
She did not specify the type of weapon used.
The alleged shooter also injured two other people, “a police officer […] who was treated and released from hospital” and another 59-year-old “still in critical condition,” she added at a press conference.
The shooter opened fire, for an as yet unexplained reason, shortly after 5 p.m. (local time) on a walking path in this city of nearly 500,000 inhabitants.
A large contingent of security forces was then deployed to find the perpetrator of the shooting. No explanation was given as to how he obtained his weapon.
“We were bereaved and we prayed alongside too many families who had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings,” Joe Biden said in a statement.
“Americans are in favor of this common sense measure of removing weapons of war from our streets,” said the American president.
The 79-year-old Democrat would like to reinstate the ban on owning semi-automatic weapons, as it existed in the United States between 1994 and 2004.
But this project is blocked by the Republican opposition in the name of the right to bear arms guaranteed by the American Constitution.
About 49,000 people died from firearms in the United States in 2021, compared to 45,000 in 2020, which was already a record year. This represents more than 130 deaths per day, more than half of which are suicides.