North Carolina police investigating multiple ‘related’ shootings that injured 7 people

A night in violence in Winston-Salem, North Carolina has left police investigating multiple shootings that left at least seven people injured at three locations – a set of attacks that appear to be related.

In a statement, the Winston-Salem Police Department said that “This is not a random act of violence,” and announced that “the investigation is ongoing.” According to public information officer Kira Boyd, “preliminary information indicates the scenes are all related.”

According to local media, police found “over 50 spent shell casings from different calibre wespons” at the first location, before being summoned to a highway where they found two people who had apparently been struck by gunshots while driving. Officers then responded to another report, this fime finding four people who had been shot.

“The investigation is in its early stages but evidence suggests there was a large exchange of gunfire (on) Bethlehem Lane,” the police said, “and shortly thereafter, more exchanging of gunfire in the 2000 block East 25th Street -- resulting in five victims being shot on 25th Street and two victims on Highway 52 North.”

The news came at the end of a particularly deadly weekend of gun violence across the US, which saw a racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, a murder in downtown Chicago, and a series of shootings in Milwaukee after a basketball game.

In the southern California town of Laguna Woods, meanwhile, a 68-year-old man from Las Vegas is being held on suspicion of entering a church and opening fire, killing one person and injuring several more. He was reportedly overpowered and hogtied by congregants, preventing him from firing more shots.

Aggressive gun safety reform was one of Joe Biden’s most prominent campaign promises, but the Democrats’ wafer-thin congressional majority has made legislative action all but impossible. Instead, the president has made moves via executive action. In April, he took steps to ban so-called “ghost guns” – untraceable weapons without serial numbers that have been linked to thousands of crimes in recent years.