Ames (US): Shooting of the innocents continues unabated in the US. Authorities planned to release more details Friday about a shooting outside an Iowa church. In the shooting a man fatally shot two women before apparently killing himself.
The shooting happened just before 7.00pm Thursday in the parking lot of the Cornerstone Church. It is a megachurch on the outskirts of this city. Sheriff Nicholas Lennie declined early Friday to give the ages and names of those killed, but confirmed that they were adults.
The gunman appeared to have shot himself after shooting the women. However, details would not be released until a planned news conference outside the church, Lennie said. The church is located near Interstate 35, about 30 miles (48 kilometeres) north of Des Moines.
Cornerstone Church released a statement confirming that the women killed were ‘young members of our community’. However, it did not give other details about the victims or shooter, citing the ongoing police investigation.
“Our hearts break for all involved, and we are praying for everyone affected, especially the family of the victims,” the church said in the statement. The church also plans to hold a prayer service for the victims Friday.
The incident follows mass shootings across the nation in recent weeks that have roiled the US.
Those include last week’s shooting by an 18-year-old gunman, who killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Then there an attack Wednesday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a gunman killed his surgeon and three other people at a Tulsa medical office.
In Buffalo, New York, a white man carried out May 14 what officials say was a racially-motivated attack on a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighbourhood, killing 10 people.