ORANGE, California — Four people, including a child, were
killed in a shooting at an office building in Southern California on Wednesday,
the authorities said, bringing a deadly close to a month consumed by a series
of high-profile cases of gun violence.
اضافة اعلان
The gunfire occurred around 5:30 pm in Orange, California,
about 48km southeast of Los Angeles, according to the police, who said a fifth
victim, a woman, was hospitalized in critical condition with a gunshot wound.
A suspect was also hospitalized in critical condition with a
gunshot wound, the authorities said, although they added that it was not yet
known if the wound had been self-inflicted.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the shooting, and
additional details about the victims and the suspect were not available from
the authorities. They said a firearm had been recovered at the scene, which
covered two floors and a courtyard area of an unidentified business.
Lt. Jennifer Amat, a spokeswoman for the Orange Police
Department, said at a news conference Wednesday night that officers had
responded to the area after reports of shots fired.
When officers arrived, the shots were still being fired and
the police found several victims, police said.
Emma Soto, 26, who lives in an apartment near the building,
said she was doing laundry when she heard seven to 10 gunshots.
Almost immediately, Soto said, several police vehicles
pulled up. She watched as officers emerged from the vehicles with their weapons
drawn. The officers ran toward the building, she said.
The beige, low-rise building houses several businesses,
including a property management company, an insurance agency and a consulting
firm. Residents said they believed the shooting happened at a real estate
office on the second floor.
This past month, two mass shootings — one in Atlanta and the
other in Boulder, Colorado — occurred within the span of one week. In Atlanta
on March 16, a gunman shot and killed eight people, six of them women of Asian
descent, at three spas. On March 22, a man stormed a grocery store in Boulder
and killed 10 people.
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