FIVE people, including an off-duty police officer, were killed in a shooting yesterday in North Carolina’s capital Raleigh, the southeast US city’s mayor told journalists.

Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said the shooting occurred near the Neuse River Greenway, a popular trail in the area.

“This is a sad and tragic day for the city of Raleigh. Just after 5pm today, multiple people were shot,” she told a press conference.

The Raleigh Police Department “has confirmed five fatalities. One of them was an off-duty Raleigh Police officer,” she said, adding that the shooter had been “contained in a residence in the area” by police.

The police department soon after tweeted that the suspect had been taken into custody.

Among the wounded was a canine officer who had been taken to the hospital but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, she said.

Gun violence is a major problem in the United States where around 49,000 people died from shootings in 2021 alone. That figure means more than 130 people died from gun deaths per day – a large proportion of which were suicides. – AFP, October 14, 2022.