At least six dead in California shooting

SAN FRANCISCO — Six people were killed and 12 others injured, some critically, in a shooting early Sunday morning in California's state capital of Sacramento.

The city's police chief, Kathy Lester, told reporters that around 2:00 am, "a large fight took place" in the downtown area just before "multiple shooters" opened fire.

Officers on patrol nearby heard the gunshots and saw people running, she said.

Upon arriving at the scene, "they encountered a large crowd and multiple gunshot victims."

Despite attempts at resuscitation, 6 victims were pronounced dead at the scene, 3 men and 3 women -- all adults.

Twelve others were hit by gunfire and are being treated in local hospitals, Lester said.

At a press conference Sunday morning, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg described some of the hospitalized as "seriously and critically injured."

He also called on anyone with information to contact authorities or submit evidence via a scannable QR code.

Lester said that a "stolen handgun" had been recovered at the scene, and that investigators had already received multiple videos and tips from members of the public.

A video posted online Sunday appeared to show people scuffling in the street, then starting to run as gunfire can be heard. AFP could not verify the footage, and it was not known if there was a direct relation, but local police said they were aware of the video.

"It was just horrific," said community activist Berry Accius, who arrived minutes after the shooting.

"Just as soon as I walked up you saw a chaotic scene, police all over the place, victims with blood all over their bodies, folks screaming, folks crying, people going, 'Where is my brother?' Mothers crying and trying to identify who their child was," he told local broadcaster KXTV.

The shooting happened in the downtown area, just blocks from the state capitol and close to the venue where the NBA's Sacramento Kings play.

The San Francisco Chronicle quoted a woman at the scene as saying she had been told that her husband of 12 years was among the dead.

The woman, whom the paper did not name, said a stranger had answered her husband's telephone when their daughter called, but that she had been unable to find out what had happened, despite being on police lines for several hours.

"It sounds like a lot of innocent people lost their lives tonight," the Chronicle quoted the woman saying.

"We haven't gotten an answer."

'DIFFICULT TO COMPREHEND' 

Mayor Steinberg said it was difficult to find the right words to describe the tragedy.

"The numbers of dead and wounded are difficult to comprehend," he said, adding that he was waiting for more information about the incident. 

"Rising gun violence is the scourge of our city, state and nation, and I support all actions to reduce it," he said.

The mass casualty shooting is the latest in the United States, where firearms are involved in approximately 40,000 deaths a year, including suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, in a post on Twitter, said "We cannot continue to let gun violence be the new normal," and described gun violence as a "crisis" for the United States.

Lax gun laws and a constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms have repeatedly stymied attempts to clamp down on the number of weapons in circulation, despite greater controls being favored by the majority of Americans.

Three-quarters of all homicides in the US are committed with guns, and the number of pistols, revolvers and other firearms sold continues to rise.

More than 23 million guns were sold in 2020 -- a record -- on top of 20 million in 2021, according to data compiled by website Small Arms Analytics.

That number does not include "ghost" guns, which are sold disassembled, lack serial numbers, and are highly prized in criminal circles.

In June 2021, 30 percent of American adults said they owned at least one gun, according to a Pew survey.

Agence France-Presse 

California shooting shows security vulnerabilities on buses

LOS ANGELES – Would-be plotters bent on staging an attack aboard a passenger plane know they’ve first got to pass through a gauntlet of security measures at an airport, from body scans and spot interrogations to pat-downs and even close scrutiny of their shoes.

But a shooting that killed a person and wounded five this week on a Greyhound bus in California illustrates a stark reality about security on buses and trains: Anyone determined to carry out an attack on ground transportation faces few, if any, security checks.

The comparative scant security prompted at least one survivor of Monday’s shooting on the bus heading from Los Angeles to San Francisco to rethink his future mode of travel.

“I think I will just fly from now on,” Mark Grabban said.

He was on the bus with his girlfriend when a passenger who’d been muttering and cursing opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun.

Grabban’s perception was that Greyhound worried more about stopping passengers from smoking and talking too loudly than ensuring no one got aboard with a gun.

“It’s astounding and shameful,” the 30-year-old said.

Greyhound has declined to comment.

In the four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, some U.S. lawmakers complained that way too little federal money was spent on ground transit security compared with what was spent on airports.

Then-U.S. Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, estimated that $22 billion had gone into airline security in those years, while less than $550 million went to security for buses, trains, subways and ferries combined.

There’s no indication spending gaps have closed. That’s true even though vastly more people get on a bus, train or subway than on planes each day. More than 30 million Americans use ground transit daily, compared with around 2 million who fly.



Violent incidents on buses are extremely rare. But concerns have arisen that with airports more secure than ever, would-be terrorists in particular could see buses and other ground transit as easier targets.

The Transportation Security Administration was established in 2001 to fix security holes that allowed for the 9/11 attacks, with a mandate to check 100% of baggage through airports.

That level of security would be impossible on the country’s sprawling bus and rail lines.

More than 70,000 buses operate on 230,000 miles (370,149 kilometers) of roadways, according to the American Public Transportation Association. Even if money could be found to pay for metal detectors at bus stations, it would be impossible to have them at every stop along a route, security experts say.

The suspect in the California shooting boarded at the East Seventh Street bus station in Los Angeles, according to California Highway Patrol Sgt. Brian Pennings. At the station Tuesday, several security guards were visible, but there were no signs of baggage or any other kind of security checks.

“No metal detector, no wand, nothing,” Grabban recalled about the preboarding process Monday. Greyhound has a no-gun policy, but Grabban said “a policy isn’t enough to stop someone from boarding the bus with a gun and shooting people, as I’ve found out.”

There’s no indication federal officials will ever consider making pat-downs, body scans and metal detectors as ubiquitous at bus and train depots as they are at airports.

“We don’t intend to roll out anything like what we have in the airports. We are satisfied at this point,” Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske said in 2017.

TSA’s mandate does include security on all the nation’s transportation networks. But the vast majority of the TSA’s more than 43,000 security officers work at the over 400 U.S. airports. TSA efforts beyond airports often take the form of partnerships, advice and federal grants.

States and municipalities assume more responsibility for their local bus or subway systems, and there’s little uniformity nationwide.


The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority together with TSA officials announced in 2018 that it would become the first mass transit system in the U.S. to install screening equipment that scans passengers for weapons and explosives.

The TSA has deployed response teams that have done spot baggage checks on city subway systems, including in Chicago.

“It’s largely to create the perception that there is an active security program more than a realistic chance of catching someone,” said Joseph Schwieterman, a transportation expert and economics professor at DePaul University in Chicago. “They want anyone thinking of carrying a gun into the system to think twice.”

Just because passengers don’t see security measures at bus and train stations doesn’t mean they aren’t there, explained another Chicago-based security expert, James Fagel. He said undercover staff are often looking for signs someone might be carrying a gun, while others trained to spot behavior quirks that could indicate trouble monitor depots via surveillance cameras.

Few countries have attempted the kinds of security measures for ground transit that could plausibly thwart an attack. Israel is one. At least some Israeli buses are fitted with four or five separated, fortified compartments, which can help limit the deadliness of a bomb or gun attack, said Fagel, who teaches crisis management at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Among measures to boost security on U.S. buses and trains that wouldn’t be too costly or impractical would include requirements that riders show IDs that match names on tickets before boarding, Schwieterman said. He said enabling bus and train services to check the names of ticket buyers to see if they have violent criminal records also could help manage risks.

As it is now, drivers and passengers are the de facto, frontline security when violence breaks out on buses. That happened during a 2014 attack in which a man screaming “everybody’s going to die” pummeled the driver and caused a Greyhound bus to careen off an Arizona highway, injuring more than 20 people. Passengers were credited with subduing the assailant.

Same goes for Monday’s attack. Authorities say passengers wrested the gun away from 33-year-old Anthony Devonte Williams and got him off the bus. He was arrested on the side of the road. Officials praised the efforts as heroic, though they didn’t immediately provide details.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net