LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK, July 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A shooter opened fire at a major food festival in the US state of California on Sunday, police said, with US media reporting at least one person killed and multiple others wounded.
Footage on NBC showed people running as shots rang out at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, 48 kilometers southeast of San Jose, one of the largest
food festivals in the country.
A witness named Julissa Contreras said a white man in his 30s armed
with a rifle opened fire indiscriminately.
The shooting left one person dead and several others wounded, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Law Enforcement is at the scene of shootings in Gilroy, California.
Reports are that shooter has not yet been apprehended,” US President Donald Trump tweeted.
The San Francisco division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives said on Twitter that it was “responding to the scene of a reported
shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California.”
The Mercury News reported that the shooting took place as the festival was
winding down.
“The hearts of Gilroy PD and entire community go out to the victims of
today’s shooting at the Garlic Festival,” the local police department
tweeted.
“Grateful to first responders who are on the scene in Gilroy and keeping
those injured by such senseless violence in my thoughts,” Senator Kamala
Harris, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, wrote on Twitter.
In NEW YORK, 12 people have been shot and one person has died at an outdoor community event in the borough of Brooklyn.
The city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, tweeted that the shooting in the neighborhood of Brownsville “shattered a peaceful neighborhood event”.
A New York City police spokesman said a 38-year-old man died after being shot in the head.
The conditions of the other 11 are not known.
According to the New York Post, the event was an old timers’ day party which is in its 56th year and features concerts, food and exhibitions.
The gunfire erupted just before 11 p.m. as the annual two-day “Old Timers Day” party was ending and thousands of attendees were leaving, the sources said.
The violence was preliminarily blamed on two shooters who remained at large early Sunday, and who had blasted into the crowd despite a contingent of some 100 cops monitoring the event, the sources said.
State senator Roxanne J Persaud tweeted: “Our community mourns again. We should be able to have fun in open spaces without fear of violence. Respect your community. We are better than the violence. My prayers for all victims and their families.”
Shootings are a frequent occurrence in the United States, but despite the
scale of the gun violence problem in the country, efforts to address it
legislatively have long been largely deadlocked at the federal level. — NNN-AGENCIES
