USA: Three killed in fresh massacre in Washington state

At least three people died in a shooting in Washington state on Tuesday, police said, adding to the toll the American West has taken after two mass killings in California in the past three days. The latest drama unfolded around 3:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. in Switzerland) around a grocery store in Yakima, a city of 97,000 people across from Seattle, the local police chief said.

The suspect is on the run and “poses a danger to the public,” Officer Matt Murray explained to the press, adding that investigators “have no motive.” At the scene, agents “found three dead bodies,” he added. A picture of the killer caught on the store’s surveillance camera was released by US media.

“It seemed to come out of nowhere, there was no apparent conflict between people,” Matt Murray recounted. According to the grocery store’s CCTV, “the man walked in and started shooting.” “He then came out of the store and shot one victim, crossed the street and shot another person, apparently,” the cop summarized. The suspect, whose identity is unknown, later stole a car to flee.

The new killing comes as a shock to the American West, which has already been rocked by two murders in California since Saturday in the Asian community. Investigators were also busy on Tuesday trying to ascertain the motives behind the two attacks.

On Monday, seven farm workers died at two farms in Half Moon Bay, near San Francisco. An eighth person was seriously injured, 60-year-old Chunli Zhao. A former employee of one of the two farms was arrested by officers with a semi-automatic rifle in his vehicle.

On Saturday night, Chinese New Year celebrations turned into a massacre in Monterey Park near Los Angeles, when Hu Can Tran, a man of Asian descent, killed eleven people, mostly seniors, at a dance hall popular with an Asian clientele.