New gun drama in the United States. A man opened fire on Monday morning, April 10, in a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, killing at least four people and wounding at least eight before being shot.
"We do not know at this time the condition of those who were transported" to the hospital, Paul Humphrey, a police official in the city, said at a brief press briefing. "The lone gunman is dead," police wrote on Twitter, after saying he had been "neutralized." "The population is no longer in danger," she said.
"Here's what we know so far: calls reported an assailant in action around 8:30 a.m. (Monday) morning" (12:30 GMT) at a downtown bank, "officers arrived at the scene within minutes," she added on the social network.
Some survivors managed to find refuge in the safe room, a CNN reporter said.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced that he would immediately go there.
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A witness told local station WHAS11 he saw a man with an "assault rifle" shoot at a bank.
Another witness, named Debbie, told local broadcaster WDRB she saw a victim on the ground outside a hotel as she stopped at a red light at the wheel of her car. That's when shots rang out. "I detached," she said. "When I turned around, I saw that one of the bank's windows had been broken." The police presence was quickly massive, she describes. "They were coming from everywhere. The police were getting out of their cars with assault rifles."
More individual guns than people in the U.S.
On March 27, a person opened fire at a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, killing three 9-year-olds and three employees before being shot dead by police.
The United States is paying a very heavy price for the spread of firearms on its territory and for the ease with which Americans have access to them.
The country has more individual weapons than inhabitants: one in three adults owns at least one weapon and nearly one in two adults lives in a household where there is a weapon.
The consequence of this proliferation is the very high rate of firearm deaths in the United States, without comparison with other developed countries.
About 49,000 people died from gunfire in 2021, up from 45,000 in 2020, which was already a record year. That's more than 130 deaths a day, more than half of which are suicides.
With AFP
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