A bloody act with six dead left the southern English port city of Plymouth in shock and sadness.
As Police Chief Shaun Sawyer said on Friday, a 22-year-old killed two men and two women and a three-year-old girl before shooting himself.
Two other people were seriously injured.
It is the UK's most shot dead incident in more than a decade.
The authorities initially did not provide any information about the motive.
British media reported that the alleged perpetrator was part of the so-called incel scene. The abbreviation comes from the English term "involuntary celibate" and primarily describes men who involuntarily abstain and develop hatred of women and sexually active men. Women accuse them of denying them closeness and sex when they are entitled to do so. As a result, there have been several murders in recent years, for example in Canada.
Some criminalists also assign the Norwegian mass murderer and right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik and the assassins from Christchurch and Halle to the Incel movement. The PA news agency reported that Jake D. made corresponding statements in social networks. But he seems to have chosen almost all of the victims arbitrarily. His accounts on Facebook and Youtube were removed after the fact, as PA reported.
It is six minutes that could permanently change Plymouth, the main base of the British Navy. MEP Johnny Mercer speaks of “one of the darkest days in many, many years”. The Bishop of Plymouth, Mark O'Toole, called people to pray for victims and loved ones. There is a "deep sense of shock and sadness" over the city, he said. Police Chief Sawyer said, "The impact on the local community of Keyham, the city of Plymouth, and many communities across the country where relatives of the deceased live will be felt for many months and years."
Shortly after 6 p.m. (local time, 7 p.m. CEST), a resident told the BBC, an attacker kicked the door of a house in the Keyham district and started shooting. Sawyer later confirmed that Jake D. initially shot and killed a 51-year-old woman in a cul-de-sac. As the police later announced, it was the shooter's mother. Outside, Jake D. kept firing. First, he targeted the girl and her 43-year-old father - both died. The perpetrator then seriously injured a 33-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman. Then he fled through a park, where he shot a man (59) and injured a 66-year-old so badly that she died in the hospital. When the police showed up, he shot himself.
It is still unclear whether Jake D., a crane operator, knew the other victims personally or by sight.
The bloody act also causes horror nationwide because gun violence is rare - according to the National Crime Agency, it is as low as in a few countries worldwide.
The gun laws are strict.
The most recent case of amok was a good eleven years ago: In June 2010, a man in the north-west of England's Cumbria region shot his twin brother and a lawyer to death, apparently triggered by an inheritance dispute.
He then killed ten other people and injured about a dozen before shooting himself.
The perpetrator had a gun license.
According to the police, Jake D. also had a corresponding permit for at least 2020.
The police later announced that he had acquired the murder weapon legally.
The people in the neighborhood were "devastated" by the brutality of the attack, said Plymouth MP Luke Pollard to Times Radio. "Keyham is a really close-knit community - it's the kind of place where you know your neighbors and take care of each other." Third division football club Plymouth Argyle canceled a press conference and lowered the flags at the stadium to half mast. Prime Minister Boris Johnson offered his condolences to the families of the victims. The British Home Secretary Priti Patel called the act "shocking".