Six Killed in Latest Mass Gun Violence in U.S.

Date: 29 February 2020 - 00:59

News ID: ۷۶۶۴۶

MILWAUKEE (AFP) -- A gunman killed five co-workers at one of America’s best-known breweries on Wednesday before turning the weapon on himself in the latest burst of mass gun violence in the U.S.
More than 1,000 employees were at the Molson Coors brewing complex in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when the early-afternoon tragedy occurred, the city’s police chief Alfonso Morales told reporters.
He said officers found the suspect, a 51-year-old local man, dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Morales later said the suspect was a Molson Coors employee.
Mayor Tom Barrett said five other people, all workers at the facility in the northern US state’s biggest city, were killed.
U.S. media including ABC News and the local Fox affiliate reported the shooter had been fired earlier in the day from the beer giant, which owns the Coors and Miller brands.
The local CBS affiliate said the shooter appeared to have stolen the nametag of another employee, then returned to the office complex with a gun. But The New York Times quoted Representative Gwen Moore, a Democrat whose district includes Milwaukee, as saying the gunman was an employee who was in uniform.
The scene of the shooting is known locally as the "old Miller” brewing company, Morales said, and has been around for 165 years, according to Barrett.
It was the latest in a long list of gun-related violence in the U.S., which saw a record 417 mass shootings in 2019, according to the research group Gun Violence Archive.
A more narrow definition, a database maintained by The Washington Post, lists 175 mass shootings in which four or more people were killed since 1966. Incidents have become more frequent and more deadly, the data show.
Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, made gun control one of their priorities but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would only bring a gun bill to the floor if it has presidential backing, but Trump has given no clear preference.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered condolences to the Milwaukee victims and called out McConnell.
"The American people are tired of Leader McConnell’s deadly obstruction,” Pelosi said. "House Democrats will continue to join them to advance a drumbeat of action across the country until McConnell takes up these critical bills and we end the gun violence epidemic once and for all.”
Democratic presidential hopefuls including Pete Buttigieg and Senator Elizabeth Warren also weighed in with renewed calls to end to gun violence.