Category Archives: Gun crime

At least 12 killed and four wounded in Montenegro shooting

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Police identified the attacker as 45-year-old Aco Martinović, who they say opened fire in bar after a fight

At least 12 people, including two children, were killed and four others were wounded in a shooting on Wednesday that followed a bar brawl in a western Montenegrin city, officials said.

Police identified the attacker as Aco Martinović. The country’s interior minister, Danilo Šaranović, later told the state broadcaster RTCG that the 45-year-old died from injuries en route to hospital after shooting himself.

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Serbian court jails parents of teenager who killed 10 in school attack

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Trial conducted solely against teenager’s parents as their son could not be criminally prosecuted due to his age

A Belgrade court has jailed the parents of a 13-year-old boy after he shot dead nine students and a security guard at an elementary school in Serbia’s capital last year.

The killings, on 3 May 2023, deeply shocked the Balkan state, where mass shootings have been rare despite high levels of gun ownership.

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Urgent manhunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect enters second day

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Bullet casings with the words ‘deny’, ‘defend’ and ‘depose’ found at scene where Brian Thompson was killed

An urgent manhunt continued on Thursday in New York City as police combed through a vast network of private and public surveillance cameras and pursued leads in search of the person who shot and killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, the previous morning.

Investigators deployed drones and dogs as well as sifting through data related to public-use electric bikes from the company Citi Bike, as the suspect remained at large after what police chiefs said was a targeted killing.

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New York police search for person suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO in ‘brazen’ attack

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Police look for suspect who shot and killed Brian Thompson, 50, outside Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan

The CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the US’s largest health insurers, was shot dead on Wednesday in midtown Manhattan, police confirmed in a press conference.

Brian Thompson, 50, was shot outside the Hilton hotel at 1335 Avenue of the Americas just after 6.45am after arriving early for the company’s annual investor conference. A man wearing a mask approached him and fired at him repeatedly, police said.

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Some US states have firearm death rates comparable to countries in conflict, report says

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Mississippi’s firearm-related violence rate nearly double that of Haiti, which is plagued by political and gang strife

A new report by the Commonwealth Fund finds some US states have firearm death rates comparable to countries in conflict, and even states with the fewest firearms deaths are far higher than peer developed democracies.

For instance, Mississippi’s rate of firearm-related violence (28.5 per 100,000 people) was nearly double that of Haiti (15.1 per 100,000) in 2021, when mercenaries assassinated the country’s president, unleashing a fresh round of gang warfare which pushed the country into a state of civil war.

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Five family members shot to death in home outside Seattle

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Authorities have arrested a teenage suspect in what appears to be an instance of ‘family annihilation’

Authorities found five people shot to death inside a home south-east of Seattle on Monday morning and arrested a teenager in connection with the killings, police said.

The killings in Fall City, Washington, were the 25th mass murder in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonpartisan archive defines a mass murder as one in which four or more victims are killed.

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Georgia jury indicts father and son on murder charges for school shooting

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Colt Gray, 14, and his father, Colin Gray, were indicted separately for the mass shooting at Apalachee high school

A grand jury indicted a father and son on murder charges on Thursday in a mass shooting at Apalachee high school in Winder, Georgia.

Georgia media outlets reported that the Barrow county grand jury meeting in Winder indicted 14-year-old Colt Gray on a total of 55 counts, including four counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, plus aggravated assault and cruelty to children. Grand jurors formally charged his father, Colin Gray, with 29 counts, including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct.

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US supreme court will rule on $10bn suit Mexico filed against US gun makers

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Mexico argues negligence from makers such as Colt and Glock has led to gun trafficking to drug cartels and criminals

The US supreme court said on Friday it will decide whether to block a $10bn lawsuit Mexico filed against US gun manufacturers and distributors that argues that their negligent and illegal commercial practices have unleashed bloodshed in the country.

The lawsuit, filed in Boston in August, names Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta, Colt and Glock, as well as Boston-area wholesaler Interstate Arms.

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Jamaica welcomes US move to clamp down on gun trafficking to Caribbean

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Horace Chang, deputy PM of country with highest homicide rate, praises US attorneys generals’ support for legislation

Jamaica’s deputy prime minister has welcomed a campaign by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, to push through new measures and legislation to tackle gun trafficking from the US to the Caribbean.

Horace Chang, who is also Jamaica’s minister of security, praised a coalition of 14 US attorneys general, led by James, that is backing the passing of the Caribbean Arms Trafficking Causes Harm Act. Introduced in both houses of the US Congress earlier this year, the act aims to help curb illicit arms trafficking from the United States to the Caribbean.

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Kyle Rittenhouse texts pledging to ‘murder’ shoplifters disillusion his ex-spokesperson

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‘I believed things he told me that I now understand to be … lies,’ Dave Hancock says in new Rittenhouse documentary

A former spokesperson for Kyle Rittenhouse says he became disillusioned with his ex-client after learning that he had sent text messages pledging to “fucking murder” shoplifters outside a pharmacy before later shooting two people to death during racial justice protests in Wisconsin in 2020.

Dave Hancock made that remark about Rittenhouse – for whom he also worked as a security guard – on a Law & Crime documentary that premiered on Friday. The show explored the unsuccessful criminal prosecution of Rittenhouse, who killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

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FBI confirms US murders declined in 2023, contrary to Republican claims

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Murder dropped by more than 11% in largest single-year decline in decades while rape and other crimes also fell

Murder dropped by more than 11% from 2022 to 2023, the largest single-year decline in two decades, according to FBI data released on Monday.

Meanwhile, the broader category of violent crime nationwide decreased about 3%, said the data, which is audited and confirms earlier reporting from unaudited statistics.

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Alabama police search for suspect in Birmingham shooting that killed four

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Seventeen people injured in shooting outside nightclub after being caught in crossfire, police say

A manhunt in Alabama for a suspect in the shooting outside a nightclub that killed four people and wounded 17 on Saturday night entered its second full day on Monday.

The shooting in Birmingham was at least the 24th mass murder in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive defines a mass murder as one in which four victims are killed or wounded.

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Manhunt under way after four killed and 17 injured in Alabama shooting

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Police say multiple victims were caught in crossfire in nightlife area of Five Points South in Birmingham

A major manhunt is under way in Birmingham, Alabama, for those responsible for a shooting at a nightclub late on Saturday night in which four people have died and 17 were wounded.

The violence is just the latest shocking incident that highlights the epidemic of gun violence and killings that continues to plague the US and yet prompts little to no political action.

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Secret Service ‘complacency’ led to security breach in Trump shooting – acting director

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Ronald Rowe says ‘lack of diligence’ contributed to shooting at ex-president’s rally and vows to not repeat mistakes

The US Secret Service had a “complacency” problem and was responsible for multiple security failures that preceded Donald Trump being shot by an attempted assassin during an election rally in Pennsylvania, the acting director of the agency said on Friday.

Communication breakdowns with local law enforcement and a “lack of diligence” hampered the Secret Service’s performance ahead of the July assassination attempt on the former US president, according to a new report that lays out a litany of missed opportunities to stop a gunman who opened fire from an unsecured roof.

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‘Bounty hunter’ couple finds body believed to be Kentucky shooting suspect

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Fred and Sheila McCoy to receive $25,000 reward for locating remains near highway where gunman opened fire

A retired couple who decided to become bounty hunters for the week found the body that authorities believe to be the shooter who attacked people on an interstate highway and then disappeared, it emerged on Thursday.

After the shooter fled, leaving a Kentucky community scared and on guard, Fred and Sheila McCoy decided to plunge into rugged terrain in search of what was widely anticipated to be the gunman’s remains, as law enforcement were also searching.

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Body found near site of Kentucky highway mass shooting

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Investigators working to identify body located in vicinity of I-75 exit where suspect Joseph Couch opened fire

Authorities have found a body near the rural south-eastern Kentucky site where on Saturday a gunman opened fire on an interstate highway, hitting a dozen vehicles and wounding five people, police said Wednesday.

Investigators were working to identify the body, said Scottie Pennington, state police master trooper, in a social media post. It was located in the vicinity of the Interstate 75 exit where the 7 September shooting occurred near London, a city of about 8,000 people roughly 75 miles (120km) south of Lexington.

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Kentucky authorities say multiple people injured in ‘active shooter situation’

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Mayor of nearby city says seven hurt from gunfire and vehicle accident by interstate in area south of Lexington

Kentucky police reported an “active shooter situation” on Saturday evening near Interstate 75 in London, Kentucky, south of Lexington, where “numerous persons” had been shot in traffic.

In a video statement, London mayor Randall Weddle said seven people were hurt, but not all of those were wounded by gunfire. Some of the victims were injured in a vehicle accident, he said. Weddle added that the White House has also reached out to him.

“There are no deceased at this time. No one was killed from this, thankfully, but we ask that you continue to pray,” Weddle said.

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Georgia teacher was trying to protect his students when he was killed, witnesses say

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Students say that Richard Aspinwall left his classroom after the shooting started to try protect them

Richard Aspinwall, the mathematics teacher and football coach who was one of two teachers killed in Wednesday’s high school shooting in Georgia, was trying to protect the children in his classroom when he was killed.

His attempt to protect the teens in his care was one of new details that have emerged about the four victims killed in the gun rampage by a fellow student at Apalachee high school, in the small city of Winder.

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Backlash for JD Vance after calling school shooting a ‘fact of life’

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Republican vice-presidential candidate was criticized for tone-deafness after comments at campaign rally in Arizona

America’s ideological split over gun control has spilled over into the presidential campaign after JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, voiced regret that school shootings had “become a fact of life” in the US.

Vance’s comments – in the wake of the latest deadly shooting, at Apalachee high school in Georgia – ignited a political row after Democrats depicted them as evidence of a lack of empathy while Republicans claimed the remarks had been taken out of context.

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Georgia school shooting suspect makes first court appearance

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Colt Gray, 14, faces murder charges and his father has been charged over his alleged involvement in supplying the gun

The 14-year-old charged with killing two fellow students and two teachers at his Georgia high school made his first court appearance on Friday – with his father, who was arrested late on Thursday, set to appear shortly afterwards.

Colt Gray appeared in person, dressed in green prison scrubs and hands and ankles shackled to his waist at the hearing in Barrow county courthouse, having previously been understood to be planning to attend by video link. He traveled from the youth detention facility in which he is being held. He is being detained there as a juvenile, even though he is expected to be tried as an adult.

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