At least four people, including three children, died and eleven others were injured in shootings during a birthday party Saturday evening in California, police said. This suggests a ‘targeted’ killing.
The tragedy took place in Stockton (west), a city of around 320,000 inhabitants located an hour and a half drive east of San Francisco.
The four deceased victims were aged 8, 9, 14 and 21, Heather Brent, a spokeswoman for the San Joaquin County sheriff, responsible for the investigation, told AFP on Sunday.
Eleven other people were taken to hospital, she added, without further details on the seriousness of their injuries.
According to the first elements of the investigation, the shooting was ‘targeted’, the spokesperson confirmed. The killing took place during a ‘children’s birthday party, with between 100 and 150 people in attendance’.
At this stage, investigators do not exclude the possibility that there were several shooters, according to her. But ‘we don’t think there is any danger to the public,’ she added.
All avenues explored
Asked about the possibility of a settling of scores linked to gangs, the spokesperson said that investigators were ‘exploring all avenues’.
With more guns in circulation than people, the United States has the highest gun death rate of any developed country.
Killings are a recurring scourge that successive governments have so far failed to stem, many Americans remaining very attached to the carrying of weapons, guaranteed by the Constitution.
In 2024, more than 16,000 people, not including suicides, will have been killed by firearms, according to the NGO Gun Violence Archive.
Recent American history is punctuated by killings, with no place in daily life seeming safe, from the business to the church, from the supermarket to the nightclub, from the public highway to public transport.
Among all these massacres, those committed in schools or targeting children have a stronger impact on the collective memory. In 2022, the town of Uvalde in Texas (south) was deeply mourned by a shooting in an elementary school, during which 19 students and two teachers died.
/ATS
