US police apprehend a suspect in Atlanta mass shooting.
One person was murdered, and four others were injured in a mass shooting at a medical facility in the US. The shooter then took a truck and fled the area.
After an undercover Police officer spotted the suspect hours after the midday shooting at the Northside Medical facility in the capital of the southern state of Georgia. Deion Patterson, 24, was taken into custody on Wednesday without a hitch.
It is yet unknown what motivated the shooting and whether the perpetrator was aware of or specifically targeted any of his victims.
“We know that he had an appointment at the facility, but why he did what he did – all of that is under investigation,” Charles Hampton, the deputy police head of criminal investigations for Atlanta, said during a news conference.
In a previous press conference, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum stated that it was still too early to tell whether the five women who were shot were patients or coworkers.
The dead woman was 39 years old. The ages of the four injured women ranged from 25 to 71, according to local media.
Surgery was performed on three victims who were in critical condition. The phrase “fighting for their lives” was used by Schierbaum to characterize them.
According to Hampton, the shooter entered the medical facility with a pistol and only remained there for approximately two minutes before fleeing on foot. He then went to a neighboring gas station, where he took control of a pickup truck that had been left unattended, and drove off.
According to Cobb County Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer, investigators used a flurry of security camera photos and phone tips from the public to finally pinpoint the suspect’s whereabouts.
According to Schierbaum, the gunman brought his mother with him when he went to the hospital, but she wasn’t hurt. She and other family members, according to the police, were helping the investigation.
According to Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, the incident is just the most recent instance of the “national epidemic of gun violence” that has turned schools, workplaces, churches, and medical facilities into potential killing grounds.
According to him, active-shooter drills are now so routine that they occurred to be taking place at a neighboring business in the Cobb County neighborhood where Patterson was detained as police were closing in on the suspect.
That group of families, that group
Patterson, a former member of the Coast Guard, started receiving medication from the Veterans Affairs (VA) health system on Friday, and his mother, Minyone Patterson, told The Associated Press news agency that her son had “some mental instability going on” as a result.
She claimed that her son had requested the medication Ativan to treat his anxiety and sadness, but the VA refused to provide it because it would be “too addictive.”
She cried out, “Those families, those families,” referring to the kin of the deceased. Because they refused to give my son his damn Ativan, they are suffering. He suffered a mental breakdown due to those families not listening to me, and as a result, they lost loved ones.
Terrence Hayes, the press secretary for Veterans Affairs, said he could not comment on the matter.
“When we heard about the active shooter situation in Atlanta today, we were frightened and heartbroken. We cannot discuss the veteran’s personal information without the veteran’s written agreement due to patient privacy, according to a statement from Hayes.
Later, US Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia spoke on the Senate floor about the need for gun reform and denounced gun violence.
Tragically, we behave as though these mass shootings are commonplace because there have been so many of them, he added. “We act as if this is commonplace. It’s not right.
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