[UPDATED] 1 dead, multiple victims wounded in Texas shooting

BRYAN – One person was dead and several in critical condition following a shooting at a business in Texas yesterday, just hours after US President Joe Biden called gun violence an “epidemic” and unveiled plans to tackle the crisis.

The suspect was “in custody,” according to the police department in the east Texas town of Bryan where the attack took place.

Officials said the individual shot and wounded one officer following the incident and was an employee of the cabinetry manufacturer where he carried out the shooting.

According to Police Chief Eric Buske, officers received a call “at approximately 2:30pm this afternoon” about the attack at Kent Moore Cabinets.

“One person was deceased at the scene,” he told reporters, and four additional victims were transported to the hospital “in critical condition with gunshot injuries.”

The Bryan Police Department confirmed a total of seven victims, which also included one person with a minor injury and another with a separate medical issue “related to the incident.”

The Texas Department of Public Safety reported that a state trooper “was shot while pursuing an individual suspected of being involved in the shooting in Bryan. He remains in serious but stable condition.”

It was not immediately clear if the officer was among the Bryan Police Department’s tally.

The incident follows recent mass gun attacks in Colorado, Georgia and California, with nearly 40,000 people in the United States dying each year from shootings, approximately half of those being suicides.

“As you can imagine it’s very complex because you have a whole number of workers at the warehouse, and so we’re sorting through all that and interviewing witnesses and talking to people to know what happened,” Buske told reporters.

The issue of gun regulation in the United States is politically fraught.

Biden yesterday announced six executive measures which he said would help tamp down the gun violence crisis, but Republicans immediately attacked the proposal, with the party’s senior leader in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, warning of “unconstitutional overreach.” – AFP, April 9, 2021