{"id":14949,"date":"2018-09-13T15:25:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T15:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14949"},"modified":"2018-09-13T15:25:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T15:25:43","slug":"bakersfield-shooting-gunman-kills-5-in-california-shooting-spree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14949","title":{"rendered":"Bakersfield shooting: Gunman kills 5 in California shooting spree"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An unidentified gunman shot and killed his wife and four other people in a series of shootings in California\u00a0before taking his own life, police said.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate word on what sparked the shootings that took place at a home and a business in Bakersfield, some 145km north of Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to police, the man went with his wife to a trucking company in the city of about 375,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He then shot and killed a man and then turned his gun on his spouse, and shot her, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a news conference.<\/p>\n

The man chased and shot another man who showed up, Youngblood said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The gunman then went to a home where he shot and killed a man and a woman, the sheriff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the new normal, if you look across the country. Six people lost their lives in a very short period of time<\/p>\n

Donny\u00a0<\/span>Youngblood,\u00a0Kern County Sheriff<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He then carjacked a woman who was driving with her child. The woman and the child escaped and the man drove to a highway where a sheriff’s deputy saw him, Youngblood said. The man pulled into a car park and shot himself when the deputy confronted him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Youngblood added that the entire incident took place in 10 to 15 minutes,\u00a0describing the incident as a mass shooting.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This is the new normal, if you look across the country. Six people lost their lives in a very short period of time,”\u00a0Youngblood said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Motive unknown<\/h2>\n

The sheriff added that authorities were working to determine the motive of the shootings, as well as the connections between the victims and gunman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Obviously, these are not random shootings,” Youngblood said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Authorities have not disclosed the identities of the shooter or victims.<\/p>\n

Police recovered a pistol at the scene. Authorities were interviewing about 30 witnesses.<\/p>\n

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The scene of the shooting at a trucking company headquarters that resulted in the deaths of six people in Bakersfield [Mark Ralston\/AFP]\u00a0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘Human rights crisis’<\/h2>\n

The shooting occured just hours after Amnesty International released a report<\/a>, blaming the US government for allowing gun violence to become a “human rights crisis”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the rights organisation, more than 30,000 people – the majority suicides or homicides – die each year in firearm related incidents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An average of 106 individuals died a day in 2016 due to gun violence, Amnesty said in its report, released on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amnesty blamed the US government for not enacting regulations to protect American lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Despite the huge number of guns in circulation and the sheer numbers of people killed by guns each year, there is a shocking lack of federal regulations that could save thousands,” Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calls for stricter gun control were again amplified this year after mass shootings in\u00a0Maryland<\/a>, Texas<\/a> and Florida<\/a>, among other places.<\/p>\n

Last year, the US witnessed the\u00a0deadliest mass shooting<\/a>\u00a0in the country’s modern history after\u00a058 people were killed<\/a>\u00a0at a music concert in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unidentified gunman shot and killed his wife and four other people in a series of shootings in California\u00a0before taking his own life, police said. There was no immediate word on what sparked the shootings that took place at a home and a business in Bakersfield, some 145km north of Los Angeles.\u00a0 According to police,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":14950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}