5 dead in Raleigh, NC mass shooting

AP Photo/Chris Seward

It would be nice to have gone the rest of the year without talking about yet another mass shooting. Unfortunately, that was apparently too much to hope for.

Five people are dead and at least two others are injured in a shooting in a Raleigh, North Carolina neighborhood.

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A suspected gunman was in custody after five people were fatally shot Thursday evening in Raleigh, North Carolina, in what the governor called “the nightmare of every community.”

An off-duty police officer was among the fatally wounded victims, Mayor Mary-Anne Baldwin said.

The officer and the four other victims have not been publicly identified.

Hours after the shooting, which prompted warnings for residents to stay inside, the suspect, who was described as a “white male juvenile,” was captured, Raleigh Police Lt. Jason Borneo said at a news conference Thursday night.

As per usual after something like this, there’s a lot we simply don’t know.

We do know that the police are still investigating.

Raleigh police are expected to provide an update on the mass shooting that killed five people and injured three others in the eastern part of the city.

On Friday morning, officers were spotted searching a home near where the shooting took place.

The suspected gunman, who is a juvenile male, was finally taken into custody at Old Milburnie Drive and McConnell Oliver Drive just after 9:30 p.m.

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Another thing we know is that this doesn’t really jive with what we normally see regarding mass shootings. It doesn’t appear that this was some public event where tons of people gathered. It looks like a rampage shooting that just happened to go through the alleged killer’s neighborhood. I might be wrong because the reports we have right now are somewhat muddled and not particularly clear, but this wasn’t some big event that was targeted because of a lot of people.

That’s kind of unusual since these tend to take place where they can cause as much terror as possible.

Yet, in a way, this has created even more terror.

The mayor of Raleigh has been quoted as saying “terror has reached our doorstep,” and he’s not wrong on this.

Additionally, with regard to the suspect, while very little has been said about him other than being a juvenile, a few tidbits are starting to work their way into the news.

The alleged gunmen was arrested around 9.37pm after eluding police for hours and hiding inside a home, authorities said.

The suspect was believed to be a white teenage male with a long gun wearing camouflage, according to initial reports. However, his identity and age weren’t released by officials.

The teen was at large for hours before being “confined” in a house at around 8pm till the police managed to arrest him after one and a half hours.

After being taken into custody, the suspect was taken to WakeMed Hospital.

No information is available yet about his motive or any conditions.

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The suspect being taken to the hospital is an interesting note, since it suggests he may have been injured. Since one of the deceased was an off-duty police officer and one of the wounded was a K-9 officer, we know at least two armed individuals were on the scene.

Whether that played a factor in anything remains a mystery as of this writing.

We will be keeping an eye on this story going forward.

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