Shootings on Juneteenth Weekend Leave at Least 12 Dead, More Than 100 Injured
CBS, June 19, 2023
Mass shootings in communities across the U.S. have killed at least 12 people since Friday and injured more than 100, CBS Chicago’s Charlie De Mar reported.
The shootings follow a rise in homicides and other violence over the past several years that experts say accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic. Shootings with multiple people killed or wounded happened in suburban Chicago, Washington state, central Pennsylvania, St. Louis, Idaho, Southern California and Baltimore, among other places.
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One of the weekend’s shootings took place in Willowbrook, Illinois, where at least 23 people were shot, one fatally, early Sunday in a suburban Chicago parking lot where hundreds of people had gathered to celebrate Juneteenth, authorities said. The DuPage County sheriff’s office described a “peaceful gathering” that suddenly turned violent as a number of people fired multiple shots into the crowd.
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In Washington state, two people were killed and two others were injured when a shooter began firing “randomly” into a crowd at a campground where many people were staying to attend a nearby music festival on Saturday night, police said.
The suspect was shot in a confrontation with law enforcement officers and taken into custody, several hundred yards from the Beyond Wonderland electronic dance music festival.
In central Pennsylvania, a state trooper was killed and a second critically wounded just hours apart on Saturday after a gunman attacked a state police barracks. The suspect drove his truck into the parking lot of the Lewistown barracks and opened fire with a large-caliber rifle on marked patrol cars before fleeing, authorities said Sunday.
Lt. James Wagner, 45, was critically wounded when he was shot after encountering the suspect several miles away in Mifflintown. Later, Trooper Jacques Rougeau Jr., 29, was ambushed and killed by a gunshot through the windshield of his patrol car as he drove down a road in nearby Walker Township, authorities said.
The suspect was shot and killed after a fierce gunbattle {snip}
Another shooting unfolded in a downtown St. Louis office building where a social gathering was being held early Sunday, killing a 17-year-old and wounding 11 other teenagers, the city’s police commissioner said. {snip}
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In all, 19 mass shootings were reported in the U.S. between Friday and Monday evening, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
