Gunman kills five in North Carolina
Five people were killed by a shooter who opened fire along a walking trail in North Carolina’s capital yesterday and eluded police for hours before he was cornered in a home and arrested, investigators said.
An off-duty police officer was among those killed by the suspect. His identity and age have not been released. Gunfire broke out along the Neuse River Greenway in a residential area northeast of downtown, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. Officers from numerous law enforcement agencies swarmed the area, closing roads and warning residents to stay inside .
Two people, including another police officer, were taken to hospitals. The officer was released, but the other survivor is in critical condition.
“Tonight terror has reached our doorstep.
“The nightmare of every community has come to Raleigh. This is a senseless horrific and infuriating act of violence that has been committed,” Governor Roy Cooper said.
Authorities didn’t offer any details on a motive, but Baldwin joined Cooper in decrying the violence.
“We must stop this mindless violence in America, we must address gun violence,” the mayor said. “We have much to do, and tonight we have much to mourn.”
Brooke Medina, who lives in the neighbourhood bordering the greenway, was driving home at about 5.15pm local time when she saw about two dozen police cars race toward the residential area about 14km from Raleigh’s downtown.
She then saw ambulances speeding the other direction, toward the closest hospital.
She and her husband reached out to neighbours and realised there was a shelter-in-place order.
The family closed all of their window blinds, locked the doors and congregated in an upstairs hallway together, said Medina, who works as a communications vice president at a think tank. The family listened to the police scanner and watched local news before going back downstairs once the danger seemed to have moved further away from their home.
She described the neighbourhood known as Hedingham as a sprawling, dense, tree-lined community that’s full of single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes that are more moderately priced compared to other parts of the Raleigh area.
Medina said she often takes her kids on bike rides along the greenway during the day, but typically brings pepper spray along just in case.
The Raleigh shooting was the latest in a violent week across the country. Five people were killed on Monday in a shooting at a home in Inman, South Carolina. On Thursday night two police officers were fatally shot in Connecticut after apparently being drawn into an ambush by an emergency call about domestic violence.
It followed shootings of police officers this week in Mississippi; Decatur, Illinois; Philadelphia, Las Vegas and central Florida. Two of those officers, one in Greenville and one Las Vegas, were killed.
Thursday’s violence was the 25th mass killing in 2022 in which the victims were fatally shot.