Baltimore Shooting: Three victims are in critical condition, and 14 injured are minors. The police are looking for more than one suspect in this attack, whose motivations are unknown.
Baltimore Shooting: At least two young people have died, and another 28 people have been injured in a shooting in a neighborhood in the city of Baltimore – about 60 kilometers north of the capital, Washington – this Sunday morning, as reported by the local police in a press conference and through a statement.
Among the nearly thirty injured, three are hospitalized in critical condition, and another six were still hospitalized this Sunday afternoon. 14 of the injured are under 18 years of age.
Baltimore Shooting, Amid a celebration, gunshots rang out
As explained at a press conference by the acting city commissioner, Richard Worley, the shooting occurred in the Gretna Court development, located on the avenue of the same name. At that time, the neighbors were celebrating a popular party on Brooklyn Day, the Baltimore neighborhood where the shooting occurred, a suburb on the south side of the Patapsco River.
After midnight (six in the morning in Spanish peninsular time), the police began to receive calls from citizens warning of a mass shooting.
When the agents arrived at the scene of the event, they found an 18-year-old teenager already dead and nine other people with gunshot wounds, whom the agents themselves transported to the hospital, Worley said. One of them, a 20-year-old young man, already died at the health center. The less seriously injured went by their means to various hospitals in the city.
The reasons for the attack, added the acting commissioner, are unknown, but the security forces have already identified a suspect who is being sought, as he has fled.
Worley said “at least” two people fired shots, but police were still investigating the total number. He said it is not yet known if the shoots were directed or the result of gunmen firing indiscriminately.
A witness cited by the local affiliate of the Fox television network said that the perpetrators of the shooting fired at the crowd gathered for the party between 20 and 30 times.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott later called the shooting “reckless” and “cowardly” in an appearance broadcast early Sunday on police social media: “This morning, all of Baltimore is in mourning for the lives we have lost here, and our hearts go out to all those who are still recovering as a result of this mass shooting.”
“I want those in charge to hear me and hear me very clearly. We won’t stop until we find you, and we will find you. Until then, I hope that with every breath you take, you think of the lives you’ve taken and those you’ve affected tonight,” Scott continued. “This is an absolute tragedy that did not have to happen. It re-highlights the need to address the age-old proliferation of illegal guns on our streets and the ability of those who shouldn’t have them to get their hands on them,” he added. At the press conference this afternoon, he repeated those messages.
“Treat this like family,” Scott said. “How would you want people to treat you if they were mourning if this was your neighborhood or an event in your community where this happened? We want them to treat him that way because that’s how we have to treat each other as Baltimoreans,” said the mayor, who asked for citizen collaboration to arrest the author.
Of all the victims, 19 were treated in the emergency department at MedStar Harbor Hospital, hospital spokeswoman Debra Schindler told the AP. All but one of those sent to MedStar were released. Nine of the seriously injured were stabilized and transported to Baltimore trauma centers.
Baltimore is the most populous city in the State of Maryland, with some 576,000 inhabitants in the municipality and some 2.3 million in the metropolitan area, with significant problems of violence and citizen security.
Police have reported nearly 130 homicides and close to 300 shootings so far this year, though this number is lower than in the same period last year. Authorities have vowed to crack down on repeat violent offenders.
According to the Gun Violence Archive platform, as of the end of June, there have been 20,910 deaths from gun violence in the United States this year.
The database collects deaths involving a weapon from various causes, from accidental shootings and suicides to mass shootings. So far this year, there have been at least 331 mass shootings.
This same night, a shooting in Kansas left seven people with gunshot wounds and two more hospitalized after being trampled when people ran out of a nightclub early Sunday, said the police of that place, as reported by the Wichita Police.
