School attack was the 4th deadly shooting in Minneapolis in just over 24 hours

MINNEAPOLIS – The

shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis

was the fourth deadly shooting in the city in just more than 24 hours.

In total, the string of violence has left at least five people dead and 25 others injured, according to police.

Police officials said the first shooting happened just before 1.30pm on Aug 26, when a man stepped out of a vehicle near the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in the Phillips neighbourhood and fired about 30 rounds from a high-velocity rifle at a group of people on a pavement.

One person was killed and six others were injured. Two people accused of “assisting” in the shooting have been arrested, but the gunman remains at large, Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said.

Later on Aug 26, at around 8pm, a man in his 20s was found shot in the city’s Whittier neighbourhood and subsequently died in a hospital, police said.

A second man in his 20s was taken to a different hospital with gunshot wounds roughly 20 minutes later; his injuries were believed to be related to the same shooting, police said.

The authorities said the third shooting took place at around 2am on Aug 27 in downtown Minneapolis, when someone “opened fire at close range” at a group of people on a pavement, killing one person and injuring another.

At around 8.30am on Aug 27, a gunman began firing through the windows at Annunciation Catholic Church during a mass that was being celebrated midway through the first week of classes at the church’s school.

Two children, aged eight and 10, were killed and 17 other people, 14 of them children, were injured. The attacker then killed himself, police said.

In a statement after the three earlier shootings, Mr O’Hara urged the public to come forward with information, saying that “the level of gun violence across the city within the last day is deeply unsettling”.

The latest outburst of violence comes after the Twin Cities area was rattled in June when a

gunman assassinated a state lawmaker and her husband

and left another lawmaker and his wife hospitalised with gunshot wounds, setting off a two-day search. NYTIMES