One person was killed and 12 others were injured, three of them by bullets, in a series of attacks allegedly committed by an armed driver while driving in Arizona, police announced on Thursday, which clarified that they have arrested the suspect for them.
The man opened fire, apparently by chance, in at least eight different locations on the outskirts of Phoenix. The attacks followed one another, they took place within a period of one and a half hours. A total of four people were injured by bullets, one of whom succumbed, while the other nine victims suffered minor injuries, some from broken glass.
“We do not know what the motives were, nor do we have any idea what the man was thinking when he committed these acts,” said Brandon Schefert, a police spokesman for the Phoenix suburb of Pioria. “Obviously we want to investigate the case, as a lot of people are scared, a lot of people were injured,” he added during an in-house press conference due to the heat (48 ° C) yesterday afternoon in the Phoenix area.
The suspect was arrested after firefighters located a vehicle that met the description given by several eyewitnesses. The man behind the wheel did not resist when police arrested him and found a gun in the car.
The incident follows a series of recent shootings using firearms in the western United States, such as in California, where a former employee executed nine of his former colleagues last month, or in Colorado, where ten people were killed inside a supermarket in March.
So far in 2021, a total of 279 people have been killed in select mass shootings – gun incidents that have killed at least four people as defined by US authorities – according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive.
At the same time, the number of gun incidents has risen across the country this year: more than 20,200 deaths since January, including suicides.
