At least four people were killed and at least 18 were injured in what became known as the “shooting.”extremely violent night “over the American city of Cincinnati, according to local media and police.
The bloodshed in the city of Ohio of about 300,000 began when three people were shot dead on Saturday (at 05:00 GMT) near Walnut Hills.
Shortly afterwards, at approximately 12:30 a.m. (05:30 GMT) on Sunday, police were called to the Avondale area and found 21-year-old Antonio Blair with gunshot wounds. He was taken to University Hospital and died there, police said in a statement. Three other victims of shootings were also taken to hospital.
Officers then responded to a report of gunfire in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood at 2:15 a.m. (07:15 GMT) where 10 people were shot, police said. One man, 34-year-old Robert Rogers, died at the scene and another, 30-year-old Jaquiez Grantat, died at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
Local news reports reported that the shootings took place within 60 to 90 minutes of each other.
Assistant police officer Paul Neudigate told reporters they were “separate independent incidents, but horrific and tragic”.
Police did not immediately give details about the fourth fatal shooting, but confirmed it happened in the West End city, where television reports indicate that one person was shot later on Sunday morning and pronounced dead at the scene.
No suspicious information was immediately available in any of the cases.
‘Stop the murder in our communities‘
Neudigate described the series of incidents as “one extremely violent night in the city of Cincinnati”.
“Why? That will be the question,” he said.
Later in the day, Cincinnati police called the spike in violence “unacceptable.”
“I urge all citizens of this great city to say enough! We must not sit still and say we can do nothing to end violence,” Eliot Isaac said in a statement. “We all have a moral obligation to stop the violence and the killing in our communities.”
Police said the department would move officers from other missions to increase the number of uniformed officers in the affected communities and would call on federal prosecutors and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “to focus on repeat shooters and aggressive illegal gun bringing charges “.
Increase in 2020 violence
The New York Times in July reported that an analysis of 25 major cities in the United States found that although total crime dropped by about five percent in the first five months of 2020, compared to the same period last year, there were killers with about 16 percent going up.
Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley on Sunday called the most recent incidents “senseless gunfire that will cause life-destroying and relentless suffering” at a time when the city faced “unusual circumstances and challenges” in fighting crime during the coronavirus pandemic.
He said the city had seen an uptick in cases where people gather in private homes and public places as the bars close.
This must stop. pic.twitter.com/mwwUQd5tZ2
– John Cranley (@JohnCranley) August 16, 2020
“Guns are the most common at these meetings. Please do not attend meetings, as you could end up as an innocent victim,” he said in a statement.
However, he stressed that the fire was responsible for the shooting – which he called “attempted actual murder” – and obliged to bring them to justice.
“I also call on everyone to help put an end to this culture of resolving personal disputes with guns, as well as to reduce the far-reaching availability of illegal cannons on our streets,” he said.
“The very sad reality is that people get into trouble when they have nowhere to go and do nothing.”
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
.
