Washington - (AFP) - Five people, one of whom was an off-duty policeman, were killed by a gunman who shot them Thursday in the American city of Raleigh, while police arrested a suspect, according to what the authorities announced in the capital of the state of North Carolina in the southeastern United States.

"Five fatalities have been confirmed, including an off-duty Raleigh police officer," Mary-Ann Baldwin, the city's mayor, said during a news conference.

"This is a sad and tragic day for the city of Raleigh," Baldwin said.

It added that the attack also resulted in the injury of several other people, whose number was not specified, one of whom was seriously injured.

The shooting began around 17:00 (21:00 GMT) on a picnic trail in this city of about half a million people, which is the state capital.

Large numbers of security forces were deployed to find the shooter, local media reported.

"I saw him passing in front of my house in the garden. He was carrying a hunting rifle and was dressed like an army uniform," said Robert, one of the witnesses, who declined to reveal his last name, to the local "WRAL" station.

"Around 8:00 p.m. (0000 GMT Friday), Raleigh Police reported cordoning off a suspect at a home in the area," Baldwin said.

Police tweeted shortly afterwards, "Stop the suspect," and Lieutenant Jason Pruneo explained that he was a "young white male."

"Tonight, terror knocked on our doors. The nightmare came upon Raleigh. It was an act of insane, horrible violence," Gov. Roy Cooper told a news conference. The United States frequently witnesses shootings and other violence related to firearms, whose possession and carrying laws are among the most lenient in the world.

"We have to do more" to eradicate the scourge, said a visibly moved Mayor of Raleigh. "This free chastity must end in the United States. We must act on gun violence. The task ahead is enormous. Our grief tonight is enormous."

About 49,000 people were shot dead in the United States in 2021, compared to 45,000 in 2020. These two tolls are the highest ever in the country's history.

This data means that more than 130 people die in the United States every day by gunfire, more than half of them by suicide.
However, the shooting incidents that claim many victims are imprinted in the minds and show the ideological gap between conservatives and progressives on the issue of avoiding these tragedies.

The history of the United States witnesses a long series of shootings that do not spare any place from businesses to churches, stores, discos, schools and universities.

It was a massacre committed at a high school in Florida on February 14, 2018, which led to a large-scale national movement led by youth, especially to demand a stricter law on the possession of individual weapons in the United States.

But despite the gathering of more than a million demonstrators, the US Congress did not pass an ambitious law, as many of its members are influenced by the influence of the National Rifle Association, the largest gun lobby in the country.

Any progress on the legislative level in the recent period remains marginal in a country where millions of citizens consider possession of a weapon a basic constitutional right. In the recent period, it was imposed to generalize the examination of the judicial and psychological backgrounds of the person wishing to own a weapon.