LOS ANGELES, April 3, 2022 (AFP) – At least six people were killed and 10 injured in a shooting in Sacramento, California, early Sunday morning, police said.

Kathy Lester, head of the Police Department in the California capital on the west coast of the United States, confirmed the death toll. No one has been arrested so far.

The attack took place in downtown Sacramento, where many bars and restaurants are located close to the local Parliament and the arena where the Sacramento Kings of the NBA play.

Shortly after 4:00 am local time, authorities urged the public to avoid the attack area via Twitter, as “there will be a large police presence and the venue will remain active”.

According to the police chief’s statement, the agents, who went to the scene after hearing the gunshots, patrolled the area.

“There was a large crowd in the area. We don’t know if the crowd was at a nightclub or at an event,” he said.

The Sacramento Bee newspaper reported that there were shards of glass at the scene and banners demarcating the police investigation area for two blocks. Investigators use these marks to indicate items of interest, such as shell casings or other types of evidence.

Sources cited by The San Francisco Chronicle stated that the shooting started in the context of a fight between people leaving the bars.

“It was horrible,” community activist Berry Accius, who arrived minutes after the attack, told local station KXTV.

“As soon as I arrived, I saw a chaotic scene, with police everywhere, victims in blood, people screaming, people crying, ‘Where is my brother?’ “Mothers are trying to determine who their children are by crying.”

Speaking to the Sacramento Bee, Accius said eyewitnesses told him “Suddenly there was trouble elsewhere, there was a fight, and then there was shooting, and it wasn’t your normal pop-pop-pop.” …he was a high-powered artillery piece,” he said.

The Chronicle, meanwhile, cites an unidentified woman who said her husband was said to be among the dead at the scene.

She explained that a stranger answered her husband’s phone when she called the girl, but despite waiting hours for the police to inform her, she could not find out what had happened.

“A lot of innocent people seem to have lost their lives tonight,” the woman told the Chronicle. “We didn’t get an answer.”

– “Hard to understand” – Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he was having trouble finding the right words to describe the tragedy.

“The number of dead and wounded is something difficult to understand,” he complained.

“We are waiting for more information on what exactly happened in this tragic event, the increase in gun violence is the scourge of our city, state and nation and I support all actions to reduce it.”

According to the Gun Violence Archive website, this is the latest mass shooting in the United States, where firearms cause nearly 40,000 deaths a year, including suicides.

Despite surveys showing that the majority of the population advocates tighter controls, flexible laws on securing the right to access and possession of guns thwart attempts to reduce the number of guns in circulation.

75 percent of homicides in the United States are committed with firearms. And the number of pistols, revolvers and other firearms sold continues to increase.

A record-breaking 23 million guns were sold in 2020, and 20 million more were sold last year, according to data compiled by the Small Arms Analytics website.

The data does not include “ghost” weapons that are sold disassembled, have no serial numbers, and are heavily used by criminals.

According to a Pew poll, as of June 2021, 30% of American adults said they owned at least one gun.

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