A suspect is in police custody Thursday after killing one person and injuring 13 others following a series of shootings in Arizona, NBC News reports.
The suspect, who has only been identified as a male, was detained without resistance when police conducted a traffic stop after he pulled into a parking lot, and his white SUV was spotted by a firefighter. “What I can tell you is that the suspect that we’re seeing, the vehicle that we’re seeing, he’s been taken into custody, and there’s no reason for the public to feel unsafe at this time,” Surprise Police Sgt. Tommy Hale said.
Surprise and Peoria police said the first known shooting occurred at around 11 a.m., with a second incident happening a few minutes later when a vehicle was shot. There were a total of eight separate suspected drive-by shootings within the span of about 90 minutes. The shootings occurred in three cities—Peoria, Surprise, and Glendale—known as West Valley, located northwest of Phoenix.
All 13 people sustained non-life threatening injuries, and are expected to be survive. Four of those individuals were shot, while the rest were either involved in a car accident or hit with shrapnel. The person who died was in a drainage ditch when struck by a bullet.
“We don’t know the nexus, we don’t know what the motive was, we don’t have an idea of what this person was thinking when he went out and did this,” Peoria Sgt. Brandon Sheffert said. “Obviously we want to figure this out because there’s a lot of scared people and people this affected.”
