US police have arrested a female suspect at Atlanta’s international airport, ending an hours-long search after shootings in the city center left two dead and a third wounded.
Responding to a report of a shooting on Monday at around 1:45 PM (1745 GMT), police said they found two people at an office and shopping complex in Atlanta’s Midtown area. One died and the other was taken to a hospital, police said.
The Atlanta Police Department said the shootings were not random and the victims were likely targeted.
TaQuanda Alexander, 35, a cook who just moved to Atlanta, was at Colony Square hoping to fill out some job applications at some of the restaurants when she heard the police sirens.
“The policemen came and told all to get inside,” she said, adding, “There were sirens and a helicopter and all that. We were shaking. All we heard was that people got shot.
US general public desensitized to mass shootings and gun violence
The Gun Violence Archive announced that the combined total gun-related deaths and injuries in the US have surpassed 25,000 since the beginning of 2022.
Before the suspect was located at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and taken into custody, police blocked off multiple blocks in Midtown, and people in some buildings were directed to shelter in place.
The new incident came after a spate of mass shootings across the US in past months and amid an outcry from rights activists, urging the government to take immediate action to curb the rising mortality rate from shooting sprees.
According to the independent data collection non-profit organization, Gun Violence Archive, the US has witnessed over 380 mass shootings this year alone.
In late July, the US House of Representatives passed legislation to revive a ban on certain semi-automatic guns, the first vote of its kind in years amid growing outrage over rising incidents of gun violence.
US gun epidemic: Mass shootings in Michigan, Florida leave 1 dead, scores injured
In the latest case of gun violence in the US, at least one person was killed and seven others were wounded in Detroit, the largest city in the state of Michigan, on Sunday.
President Joe Biden hailed the vote, saying the majority of the American people agree with it while urging the Senate to “move quickly to get this bill to my desk.”
Biden had earlier said a flood of guns was turning American communities into “killing fields” and vowed to reinstate a ban on assault rifles.
The remarks came at a White House ceremony to mark new gun control legislation that Biden signed on June 25, hailing it as the first significant progress in 30 years.
Dubbed Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the bills are the most significant federal legislation to address gun violence in the US since the assault weapons ban of 1994.
However, the US president has acknowledged that the law falls far short of what he and his party had advocated for to stop the alarming frequency of shootings in the US.
Press TV
