Sacramento shooting: At least six dead in centre of California state capital
- Published
Police say the area has been secured
Police are searching for multiple suspects after at least six people were left dead and 12 wounded in a shooting in the centre of Sacramento, California's capital.
No arrests have yet been made in the worst US mass shooting so far in 2022, which broke out early Sunday morning.
Victims were still being identified on Monday, and police are seeking public help for evidence.
The violence was "unprecedented" for the city, its police chief said.
Videos posted online appear to show a brawl break out in the area - packed with restaurants and bars - in the early hours on Sunday, just before rapid gun fire sent people fleeing.
It was so far unclear whether the fight led to the shooting, police say, and on Monday, officials set up an online portal to ask the public to submit information from the scene.
The shooting took place at around 02:00 (09:00 GMT) near the junction of 10th Street and K Street, in an area that leads to the Golden One Center, where the Sacramento Kings play basketball.
It is also only a few streets from the state Capitol building.
"This is a really tragic situation," Police Chief Katherine Lester said.
Police nearby responded to the gunfire and came across a "very large crowd", Chief Lester said. At least one handgun, now understood to be stolen, was recovered.
Three men and three women were killed in the street.
Sacramento city councillor Katie Valenzuela: "I'm heartbroken and I'm outraged"
Pamela Harris said her daughter called her at 02:15 to say that her 38-year-old son, Sergio, had been shot and killed outside a nightclub.
"She said he was dead. I just collapsed," Harris told Reuters at the scene of the shooting.
"I cannot leave here now until I know what's going on. I'm not going anywhere. It seems like a dream."
Kay Harris, 32, said she was asleep when one of her family members called to say they thought her brother had been killed. She said she thought he was at London, a nightclub on 10th Street, the Associated Press reports, external.
She said she has been to the club a few times and described it as a place for "the younger crowd".
Pamela Harris went to the crime scene on Sunday for news of her son
Community activist Berry Accius reached the scene at about 02:30 after a city council member called him about the shooting.
"The first thing I saw was like victims," he was quoted as saying by CBS News.
"I saw a young girl with a whole bunch of blood in her body, a girl taking off glass from her, a young girl screaming saying, 'They killed my sister.' A mother running up, 'Where's my son, has my son been shot?'"
The incident is certain to inflame the ongoing debate about gun violence and the prevalence of lethal weapons in US society.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg tweeted , externalthat the numbers of dead and wounded were "difficult to comprehend".
"Rising gun violence is the scourge of our city, state and nation, and I support all actions to reduce it," he said.
In a tearful statement to reporters, city council member Katie Valenzuela - who represents the district where the shooting happened - said: "I'm heartbroken and I'm outraged."
"Our community deserves better than this," she said, pledging to do whatever she can so young people "don't get shot down on K Street when they're out trying to have a good time".
In a statement on Sunday, President Joe Biden decried "another" instance of gun violence leaving "families forever changed. Survivors left to heal wounds both visible and invisible".
Firearms are involved in approximately 40,000 deaths a year in the US, including suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.