After shootings, Trump says 'hate has no place' in US
WASHINGTON, United States — President Donald Trump said there could no place for hate in the United States after two mass shootings left 29 people dead, but also blamed mental illness for the attacks.
"We have to get it stopped. This has been going on for years... and years in our country," Trump told reporters after the latest US mass shootings in the cities of El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.
Trump's critics have cited the violence as proof that the president's xenophobic rhetoric toward immigrants and prominent black lawmakers is poisoning the atmosphere in a deeply divided country that has seen a growing number of shootings in recent years.
Today’s shooting in El Paso, Texas, was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice. I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2019
The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio. Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton. Much has already be learned in El Paso. Law enforcement was very rapid in both instances. Updates will be given throughout the day!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2019
But speaking to reporters as he returned from a weekend away in New Jersey, Trump said: "Hate has no place in our country and we're going to take care of it."
Trump, who indicated he would make a presidential address on Monday, said he had spoken to Attorney General Bill Barr at length after the shootings and FBI director Christopher Wray, who has been among those warning of the increased threat from white supremacists.
The gunman in El Paso purportedly wrote a manifesto in which he railed against the Hispanic "invasion" of Texas as well as praising the deadly attack on a mosque in New Zealand earlier this year.
Rather than be drawn on the killers' motivations, Trump said they appeared to be suffering from mental illness.
"We're talking to a lot of people and a lot of things are in the works and a lot of good things. And we've done much more than most administrations and it is just not really talked about very much, but we've done actually a lot," he said.
"But this is also a mental illness problem if you look at both of those cases. This is mental illness. These are really people that are very, very seriously mentally ill."
A thread of alerts and updates related to mass shootings — mostly in the US, where about 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
A gunman killed two people and wounded six others at a building site in central Auckland Thursday, hours before New Zealand's biggest city was to host the opening match of the 2023 FIFA football World Cup.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the gunman died at the scene and there was no national security threat, so the marquee tournament would go ahead as planned.
The still-unnamed 24-year-old shooter tore through the waterfront property with a shotgun in the early morning, plunging the busy centre of New Zealand's largest city into lockdown.
A police officer was said to be among those seriously injured and rushed to hospital. His condition was said to be stable.
Little is known about the motive of the attack, but it is not believed to be directly linked to the World Cup or to have been politically or ideologically motivated. — AFP
A teacher was seriously wounded during a shooting at an elementary school in the northeastern Bosnian city of Lukavac on Wednesday, according to officials, who said a minor had been arrested .
"The child, who is not yet 14, is under police supervision at the premises of the Lukavac Police Department, while firearms and other discarded items are secured until the investigation begins," the interior ministry of Tuzla canton said in a statement. — AFP
Two people were killed and five injured Tuesday during a shooting near a high school graduation in the US state of Virginia, police said, the latest in an epidemic of mass shootings plaguing the country.
The shooting took place around 5 pm (2100 GMT) outside a theater in the state capital of Richmond, where students from a local high school were celebrating their graduation, Richmond interim police chief Rick Edwards told reporters.
The deceased included an 18-year-old graduate and a 36-year-old man, he added.
Of the five injured, one remained in critical condition.
"People scattered, it was very chaotic at the scene," Edwards said.
A nineteen-year-old suspect fled the scene, but was soon arrested and is to be charged with second-degree murder, Edwards said.
The official did not name a possible motive for the crime, but said the suspect knew at least one of the victims. — AFP
Gunmen killed at least five people and wounded eight Sunday in a home in the Ecuadoran city of Guayaquil, hard hit by violence linked to drug trafficking.
One of the fatalities was a policeman shot in the head, said police colonel Fabary Montalvo.
Witnesses said three men on a motorcycle arrived at a home in the impoverished Isla Trinitaria part of the city, went inside and started shooting, Montalvo said.
Guayaquil, on Ecuador's southern coast, is the Pacific country's largest city, biggest port and economic hub.
In recent years, it has become one of the country's increasingly bloody centers of a turf war between rival drug trafficking gangs. — AFP
An 18-year-old gunman killed three people and injured several others including two police officers during a shooting in a New Mexico city on Monday, law enforcement say.
Officers responding to multiple emergency calls found "a chaotic scene where a male subject was actively firing upon individuals," local police deputy chief Baric Crum told a press conference.
Four officers confronted the subject and "were able to stop his actions," Crum says,
"The suspect is deceased, but prior to that, we know that three civilians were killed by this person's actions," he says.
The shooting took place in Farmington, a town of 50,000 people located some 200 miles (320 km) from state capital Santa Fe, and close to Navajo and Ute Native American reservations.— AFP
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