IAccording to police, a man in the USA shot three people and then barricaded himself in a house with several hostages. The shots were fired on Saturday morning at two different locations in Falls Township, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, police and prosecutors said in a joint press conference on Saturday. Accordingly, the victims came from the shooter's family environment. According to reports, the alleged perpetrator then fled in a stolen car and ultimately barricaded himself in Trenton in the neighboring state of New Jersey with several hostages.
A special police unit managed to free the hostages from the house in Trenton in the afternoon. Television images showed how heavily armed police officers surrounded the house and were gradually able to rescue individual people from the building, for example through a window over a canopy and with the help of a ladder. The suspect himself continued to barricade himself in the house and could not initially be caught.
Firearms are readily available in the USA
According to the police, the man is a 26-year-old who was recently homeless. He used an AR-15 assault rifle as the murder weapon. In addition to the fatalities, there were other family members at the crime scenes, including minors. Authorities in Falls Township urged residents to seek safety Saturday morning. There was actually supposed to be a parade in the town on the occasion of Irish St. Patrick's Day. According to local TV station Fox29, this was canceled for security reasons.
Gun violence is devastating in the United States. Firearms are easily available there and are widely circulated. Attacks with many victims regularly shock the country – for example at schools, supermarkets, nightclubs or at large events. But private arguments, police checks, disputes between criminals or gangs also end fatally far more often than in other countries because many people in the USA carry weapons with them.
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