SURPRISE, Arizona: One person was killed and 12 others injured in reported drive-by shootings over a 90-minute span Thursday in three cities west of Phoenix, authorities said.
A suspect was in custody, and authorities said a weapon was found in his vehicle. But it remained unclear if the man was responsible for all of the shootings.
The suspect’s name wasn’t immediately released. Authorities believe he acted alone, although a motive wasn’t immediately known.
“We don’t know the nexus, we don’t know what the motive was, we don’t have an idea of what this person was thinking when he went out and did this,” Peoria police spokesman Brandon Sheffert said at a news conference. “Obviously we want to figure this out because there’s a lot of scared people and people this affected.”
Police departments in Peoria, Surprise and Glendale were investigating the shootings in their cities, along with the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the FBI.
Authorities were combing through at least eight separate shooting scenes, Sheffert said.
Four people suffered gunshot wounds, and one of those victims died, he said. That person was found dead in a vehicle along a Peoria freeway.
The other victims had a range of injuries such as shrapnel from broken glass or injuries related to a car crash, Sheffert said.
Officials at Banner Health said they received nine patients at three of their hospitals. But the extent of the victims’ injuries and their conditions were not immediately released.
Peoria police got the initial call about a shooting shortly after 11 a.m., and eight more incidents were reported in the following 90 minutes, Sheffert said.
Witnesses provided authorities with a description of the getaway vehicle, and the suspect was detained after a traffic stop in Surprise.
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1 dead, 12 injured in metro Phoenix, the latest in gun-crazy US
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1 dead, 12 injured in metro Phoenix, the latest in gun-crazy US
- Authorities were combing through at least eight separate shooting scenes
Spain begins 3 days of mourning for deadly train wreck while searchers look for more bodies
ADAMUZ: Spain woke to flags at half staff on Tuesday as the nation began three days of mourning for the victims of the deadly train accident in the country’s south, while emergency crews continue searching for possible bodies.
The official death toll of Sunday’s accident rose to 40 by late Monday. But officials warned that that count may not be definitive, with emergency workers still probing for bodies among what Andalusian regional president Juanma Moreno called “a twisted mass of metal.”
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Spanish national television RTVE late Monday that searchers believe they have found three more bodies still trapped in the wreckage. Those bodies are not included in the official count, the minister said.
The crash took place Sunday at 7:45 p.m. when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails. It slammed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to rail operator Adif.
The head of the second train, which was carrying nearly 200 passengers, took the brunt of the impact. That collision knocked its first two carriages off the track and sent them plummeting down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of meters (feet) from the crash site, Moreno said.
Officials are continuing to investigate the causes of the incident that Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has called “strange” since it occurred on a straight line and neither train was speeding.
But Puente said late Monday that officials had found a broken section of track.
“Now we have to determine if that is a cause or a consequence (of the derailment),” Puente told Spanish radio Cadena Ser.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the accident site near the town of Adamuz on Monday, where he declared three days of mourning with flags lowered on all public buildings and navy vessels. Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia are scheduled to visit on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Spain’s Civil Guard is collecting DNA samples from family members who fear they have loved ones among the unidentified dead.
The official death toll of Sunday’s accident rose to 40 by late Monday. But officials warned that that count may not be definitive, with emergency workers still probing for bodies among what Andalusian regional president Juanma Moreno called “a twisted mass of metal.”
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Spanish national television RTVE late Monday that searchers believe they have found three more bodies still trapped in the wreckage. Those bodies are not included in the official count, the minister said.
The crash took place Sunday at 7:45 p.m. when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails. It slammed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to rail operator Adif.
The head of the second train, which was carrying nearly 200 passengers, took the brunt of the impact. That collision knocked its first two carriages off the track and sent them plummeting down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of meters (feet) from the crash site, Moreno said.
Officials are continuing to investigate the causes of the incident that Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has called “strange” since it occurred on a straight line and neither train was speeding.
But Puente said late Monday that officials had found a broken section of track.
“Now we have to determine if that is a cause or a consequence (of the derailment),” Puente told Spanish radio Cadena Ser.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the accident site near the town of Adamuz on Monday, where he declared three days of mourning with flags lowered on all public buildings and navy vessels. Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia are scheduled to visit on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Spain’s Civil Guard is collecting DNA samples from family members who fear they have loved ones among the unidentified dead.
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