2023-10-26 02:33:00
At least 22 people died in several shootings in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday evening, according to multiple police sources.
• Read also: Killing in Lewiston: the population terrified and looking for answers
Between 50 and 60 people were injured in the incidents, but it is unclear how many of them were shot, the sources told CNN and NBC.
One suspect remains at large, the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.
“We encourage all businesses to close their doors while we investigate,” the sheriff’s office said Wednesday evening.
The Sun Journal reported that law enforcement responded to Sparetime Recreation, a bowling center on Mollison Way, and Schemengees Bar & Grille restaurant on Lincoln Street.
Lewiston spokesman Derrick St Laurent told the same outlet that another shooting was reported at the Walmart distribution center on Alfred A. Plourde Parkway in Lewiston.
This city is approximately 36 miles north of Portland and is the second largest city in the state.
Police are asking for the public’s help in finding the shooter’s vehicle.
The governor of New York reacted a few minutes following the unveiling of a first assessment.
“My thoughts are with the residents of Lewiston tonight, the latest community to suffer the damaging effects of gun violence. Weapons of war have no place in the United States. How many more deaths will we have to have before this country understands,” we can read in his publication.
My heart breaks for the people of Lewiston, Maine tonight — the latest community mourning lives lost to gun violence.
Weapons of war have no place on America’s streets. How many more gun deaths must we suffer before this country comes to its senses?
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) October 26, 2023
Public schools will be closed Thursday, a school district official said on X (formerly Twitter).
“I am horrified by the events in Lewiston tonight,” Maine Rep. Jared Golden said in a statement.
The United States is paying a very heavy price for the spread of firearms on its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them.
The country has more individual weapons than inhabitants: one adult in three owns at least one weapon and nearly one adult in two lives in a home where there is a weapon.
The consequence of this proliferation is the very high rate of firearm deaths in the United States, incomparable to that of other developed countries.
Excluding suicides, more than 15,000 people have died in gun violence since the start of the year in the country, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) association.
However, it is the mass shootings that stand out the most, while illustrating the ideological divide separating conservatives and progressives on the question of how to prevent such tragedies.
Recent American history is indeed punctuated by killings, with no place in daily life seeming safe, from the business to the church, from the supermarket to the discotheque, from the public highway to public transport. common.
But, despite the mobilization of more than a million demonstrators, the United States Congress has not adopted an ambitious law, many elected officials being under the influence of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), the first American gun lobby.
In fact, in a country where the possibility of owning a firearm is considered by millions of Americans as a fundamental constitutional right, the only recent legislative advances remain marginal, such as the generalization of criminal and psychiatric background checks above all. purchase of weapons.
Do you have any information to share with us regarding this story?
Write to us at or call us directly at 1 800-63SCOOP.
1698291513
#Active #shooter #United #States #dead #injured #Lewiston
