A man shot six people dead, including his girlfriend and later killed himself, on Sunday, 9 May, at a birthday party in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
In a statement, the Colorado Springs Police Department said, “The suspect, a boyfriend of one of the female victims, drove to the residence, walked inside and started shooting people at the party before taking his own life.”
The shooting happened within the Canterbury Manufactured Home Community, a mobile home park of some 470 trailers and largely Latino residents on the southeast side of town, Reuters reported.
According to the police, none of the children inside the trailer were injured.
Investigation to determine a motive is underway. Yenifer Reyes, a woman who lived nearby was quoted as saying, “I thought it was a thunderstorm. Then I started hearing sirens,” Denver Post reported.
She saw the police taking the children out of the trailer and putting them into a squad car. Reyes added, “They were crying hysterically.”
Colorado Governor Jared Polis released a statement saying, “The tragic shooting in Colorado Springs is devastating, especially as many of us are spending the day celebrating the women in our lives who have made us the people we are today,” Denver Post reported.
He added, “Multiple lives were taken today by this terrible act of violence. Families torn apart, and at a birthday party no less.”
The United States has seen a series of mass shootings in recent months, including at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis where a 19-year-old killed eight people, including four Sikhs, another at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado where 10 people were killed, and another at several spas in Atlanta.
US President Joe Biden said last month that US gun violence was an "epidemic" and an "international embarrassment".
There have been more than 43,000 gun-related deaths in the United States last year, including suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
(With inputs from Reuters and Denver Post)
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