Two gunned down, dozens hurt in Baltimore mass shooting

Two people were killed and 28 others were injured, including four children, in a mass shooting on Sunday in Baltimore, Maryland, according to police and hospital officials.
An 18-year-old woman and 20-year-old man were killed and three victims were still in critical condition as of morning yesterday, according to police in Baltimore.
At least four victims were treated in the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Pediatric Emergency Department, the hospital said, without providing details on their ages.
The suspect or suspects were still at large.
“This investigation is ongoing, and we will not rest until the people responsible are held accountable,” Mayor Brandon Scott and the police department said in a joint statement.
“This is an absolute tragedy that did not have to happen,” he said. “It again highlights the impacts and the need to deal with the over-proliferation of illegal guns on our streets and the ability for those who should not have them to get their hands on them.”
The tragedy rattled the city at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, when Americans typically gather for parades, barbecues and fireworks.
The shooting occurred shortly after midnight at the “Brooklyn Day” block party in the Brooklyn Homes neighbourhood of Baltimore, which hundreds of people attended, local media reported.
Police received multiple calls about a shooting in the city’s Brooklyn neighbourhood just after 12.30am (0430 GMT) yesterday, acting Police Commissioner Rich Worley told a press conference.
“Upon officers’ arrival we located multiple victims suffering from gunshot wounds,” he said.
A witness told TV station Fox 45 that they had heard 20-30 shots fired.
A local reporter posted an image to Twitter showing police tape, cups and other litter strewn across a yard that appeared to be the crime scene.
Nine people were transported from the scene to local hospitals, while 20 others affected walked into hospitals in the area, police said.
Worley said authorities were working to identify a suspect and determine a motive for the shooting.
“This is an extensive crime scene, our detectives are going to be here quite a while,” he said.
With more firearms than inhabitants, the United States has the highest rate of gun deaths of any developed country – at least 44,357 in 2022, including 24,090 suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA).
Yesterday’s incident was at least the 338th mass shooting to occur so far this year, according to the GVA, which defines the term as a gun-related incident in which four or more people are wounded or killed.
Earlier this year, Scott penned an editorial in the Washington Post in which he said his city “has over-relied on the three Ps – policing, prosecution and prisons – to reduce violence”.
“An act of violence doesn’t start or end when someone pulls a trigger. There are countless points along the way where we can intervene,” wrote the mayor, who was elected in 2020 on a pledge to reduce gun violence.
That includes access to “behavioural health services, housing support, life coaching, case management and other resources to ensure that a situation never gets to the moment at which a person harms another human being”.
Baltimore, a city of about 575,000 located 40 miles (65km) north of the US capital, has one of the highest murder rates in the country.