Raleigh, North Carolina – Five people were killed by a shooting attack on a walking path in the North Carolina state capital on Thursday, police said, and evaded officers for hours before he was trapped in a house and arrested.
An off-duty police officer was among the dead killed by the suspect, who police told ABC News was a 15-year-old boy. Authorities said he was arrested around 9:37 p.m. His identity has not been revealed.
Raleigh Mayor Mary Ann Baldwin said the shooting broke out around 5 p.m. along the Neues River Greenway in a residential area northeast of downtown. Officers from several law enforcement agencies swept into the area, blocking roads and warning residents to stay inside while they searched for the shooter.
Two people, including a police officer, were taken to hospitals. The officer was later released, but the other survivor remained in critical condition.
“Tonight, terrorism has arrived on our doorstep. The nightmare of every community has arrived in Raleigh. A horrific, outrageous, senseless act has been committed,” Governor Roy Cooper told reporters.
Authorities have not provided any details of the motive, but Baldwin joined Cooper in denouncing the violence.
“We must stop this senseless violence in America, and we must address gun violence,” the mayor said. “We have a lot to do, and tonight we have a lot to mourn.”
The shooting in Raleigh was the latest in a violent week across the country. Five people were killed Sunday in a house shooting in Inman, South Carolina. Two police officers were fatally shot Wednesday night in Connecticut after he was apparently ambushed by an emergency call about possible domestic violence. Police officers were shot this week in Greenville, Mississippi; Decatur, Illinois; Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Central Florida. Two of those officers were killed, one in Greenville and one in Las Vegas.
WATCH: Law enforcement officers have set up a staging area for suspects.
Thursday’s violence was the 25th mass murder in 2022 in which victims were shot dead, according to the Associated Press/USA Today/Northeastern University mass murder database. Mass murder is defined as when four or more people are killed except for the perpetrator.
Brooke Medina, who lives in the neighborhood adjacent to Greenway, was driving home around 5:15 p.m. when she saw about two dozen police cars, whether unmarked or unmarked, racing toward the residential area about 9 miles from central Raleigh City. Then she saw ambulances rushing in the other direction towards the nearest hospital.
WATCH: A Hedingham resident recounts confusion as officers swept the scene
She and her husband, who had been working from home with their four children, started reaching out to neighbors and realized there was a shelter-in-place order.
Medina, who serves as the vice president of communications for a think-tank, said the family had all the window blinds closed and doors closed and they gathered together in an upstairs lobby. The family listened to the police scanner and watched the local news before heading back downstairs as soon as the danger seemed to have moved away from their home.
“We’ll meet the rest of the night and we’ll be very vigilant,” she said. “Keep all our lights on, and the doors locked.”
She described the neighborhood known as Hedingham as a sprawling, dense, tree-lined community full of single-family homes, duplexes and moderately priced homes compared to other parts of the Raleigh area.
Alison Greenwalt, 29, who also lives in the neighborhood, said she was sitting on the sofa with her cat around 5 p.m. when she heard “three shots in very quick succession.” She said the police arrived quickly and that she was grateful to be there during the chaotic hours while she was sheltering inside. Meanwhile, her husband tried to return home from work after the shooting and was rejected by police who had blocked off nearby streets, and he was unable to return home until around 10:30 p.m., she said.
She said, “I’ve been sitting in our house with the lights out and the windows closed most of the evening, waiting to hear that ‘the shooter has been arrested’.
Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press authors Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland and Gary D. Robertson and Allen J. Breed in Raleigh contributed to this report.
ABC News contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2022 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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