A new drama after a shooting. At least three people died, shot dead, around 3:30 a.m. near a grocery store in Yakita, a town of 97,000 people two hours’ drive from Seattle.
The suspect is on the run and “poses a threat to the public,” local police chief Matt Murray told the press, adding that investigators had “no motive.”
“It seems out of nowhere, there was no apparent conflict between the people,” explained Matt Murray. According to CCTV from the grocery store, “The man just walked in and started shooting. “Then he came out of the store and shot a victim before crossing the street and apparently shooting another person,” the police officer summarized.
Three shootings in a few days
The suspect, whose identity remains unknown, then stole a car to escape. This new murder mourns the western United States, already shocked by two killings in California in the Asian community since Saturday.
On Monday, seven farm workers died on two farms in Half Moon Bay, near San Francisco. An eighth person was seriously injured by a 60-year-old named Chunli Zhao.
A former employee of one of the two farms, he was arrested by authorities with a semi-automatic pistol in his vehicle. On Saturday night, Chinese New Year celebrations in Monterey Park near Los Angeles turned into carnage when a man in his seventies of Asian descent, Huu Can Tran, killed 11 people, mostly elderly, at a dance hall popular with Asian patrons.
He then attempted to attack a second ballroom before committing suicide in his van surrounded by police. Investigators were still busy Tuesday determining the motives behind those two attacks. After these tragic events, Joe Biden urged Congress to act “quickly” to limit access to assault rifles.