A shooter opened fire on Monday April 10 in a bank in Louisville, Kentucky’s main city, and killed “several victims” before being shot, authorities in this central-eastern United States said. “Five people died in total,” police wrote on Twitter. This report includes the shooter, shot by the police, and four people who succumbed to the suspect’s shots. Six other people were injured, including a law enforcement officer. “We do not know at this time the condition of those who have been transported” to the hospital, Paul Humphrey, a city police official, said in a brief press briefing.
According to the police, “calls reported an attacker in action around 8:30 a.m. this morning” (2:30 p.m. in Paris) in a downtown bank. “Officers were there within minutes,” she tweeted.
Some survivors managed to find refuge in the vault of the bank, said a CNN reporter.
A witness told local channel WHAS11 that he saw a man with an “assault rifle” shooting into the bank. Another witness, Debbie, told local channel WDRB that she saw a victim on the ground in front of a hotel when she stopped at a red light while driving her car. It was then that shots rang out. “I scampered off,” she said. “When I turned around, I saw that one of the windows in the bank had been smashed. “The police presence was quickly massive, she describes. “They were coming from everywhere. The police came out of their cars with assault rifles. »
One in three adults owns at least one weapon
On March 27, a person opened fire at a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee (southern United States), killing three 9-year-old children and three employees before being shot dead by police.
The United States pays a very heavy price for the dissemination of firearms on its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them.
The country has more personal weapons than people: one in three adults owns at least one weapon and almost one in two adults lives in a household with a weapon. The consequence of this proliferation is the very high rate of death by firearm in the United States, without comparison with that of other developed countries.
Around 49,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021, compared to 45,000 in 2020, which was already a record year. This represents more than 130 deaths per day, more than half of which are suicides.
