Trump faces heat as US mourns two mass shootings
EL PASO: The United States was in mourning yesterday for victims of two mass shootings that killed 29 people in less than 24 hours as debate raged over whether President Donald Trump’s rhetoric was partly to blame for surging gun violence. The rampages turned innocent snippets of everyday life into nightmares of bloodshed: 20 people shot dead while shopping at a crowded Walmart in El Paso, Texas on Saturday morning, and nine more outside a bar in a popular nightlife district in Dayton, Ohio just 13 hours later.
HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah cabled Trump, expressing heartfelt condolences. The Amir wished the wounded quick recovery, affirming Kuwait’s strong condemnation of this criminal act that targeted innocent lives, in contradiction of human tenets and values. HH the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah and HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah sent similar cables to the US president.
In Texas another 26 people were wounded, and 27 in Ohio. In Dayton, the shooter, armed with a long gun, was killed by police in less than a minute. They just happened to be nearby and prevented a casualty toll that could have been many times greater, local officials said. Still, in those few seconds the shooter managed to mow down dozens of people. “You could see the bodies actually start to fall and we knew it was bigger than just even a shootout,” Anthony Reynolds, who was outside the Dayton bar when the shooting started, told NBC News.
Reynolds described the shooter as a white man dressed all in black, with his face covered and armed with an assault rifle. Police later named the gunman as a 24-year-old white man called Connor Betts and said that his sister was among those killed. In Texas, a suspect surrendered shortly after the massacre and was described in media reports as a 21-year-old white man named Patrick Crusius who was believed to have posted online a manifesto denouncing a “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. El Paso, on the border with Mexico, is majority Latino.
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