At least three people are dead after a gun attack at a university in the US state of Nevada. A fourth victim was taken to a hospital with serious injuries, as the Las Vegas police announced on Wednesday in the short message service X, formerly Twitter. The attacker is dead. “There is no longer any danger to the public,” said Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill.
The shots were fired on Wednesday afternoon (local time) on the campus of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Students were called on to get to safety and the police arrived with a large contingent. A short time later, police announced that the suspected attacker had been found and was dead. How the shooter died was initially unclear, as was his motive. Investigators did not initially provide any details about the victims or how the attack unfolded.
A woman told local station KVVU that she heard several loud noises and fled into a building on campus. “I ran into the basement and we were in the basement for 20 minutes.” She was later evacuated by the police.
In the USA, rampages and fatal shootings are sadly part of everyday life. Firearms are easily available there and are widely circulated. Deadly attacks with many victims regularly shake the country – for example at schools, supermarkets, nightclubs or at large events.
According to the specialized website Gun Violence Archive, there have already been 600 attacks nationwide this year in which four or more people were injured or killed by firearms. Calls for stricter gun laws regularly come to nothing.
The gambling metropolis of Las Vegas in the western United States was the scene of the deadliest gun attack in US history in 2017. At that time, 58 people were shot at a music festival, and two more people died as a result of their injuries in the following years.
