Horror scene in the small Californian town of Goshen. Six people, including a six-month-old baby and his 17-year-old mother, were shot dead Monday morning, the local sheriff said, suspecting an attack linked to gang activity.
Shortly before 4 a.m. local time Monday morning, police responded to a shooting in a residential area of this small town in the central valley of the west coast state.
Arriving there, she found two dead bodies in the street before discovering four other people hit by firearms, who all succumbed to their injuries, said the sheriff. The six-month-old baby and his mother were hit by headshots, he added.
“We believe this is not a random act of violence,” but that this “family was targeted,” said Mike Boudreaux, sheriff of Tulare County in central California, during a briefing. “A message has been sent,” he added.
Two suspects wanted
Two suspects are wanted. “It was not indiscriminate violence,” continued the sheriff, without giving further details on the two suspects sought and their motivations.
The house in which this “terrifying massacre” took place, in the words of the sheriff, had been the subject of a search in a narcotics case a week before. “Gangs”, possibly involved in drug trafficking, “are linked” to this attack, estimated the sheriff.
About 49,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021 in the United States. This represents more than 130 deaths per day, more than half of which are suicides. The country matters more individual weapons than inhabitants : one in three adults owns at least one weapon and almost one in two adults lives in a home where there is a weapon.
In early January, a first-grade student at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia (east), seriously injured his mistress Abigail Zwerner, 25, with a gun legally purchased by her mother.