One child killed and four people wounded in Texas flea market shooting
One child was killed and four other people were wounded in a shootout that erupted between two strangers at a Texas flea market on Sunday evening, according to police.
Officers responded to a call of shots fired at Cole’s Antique Village and Flea Market in Pearland – about 17 miles (27km) south of Houston – at 5.34pm, the local police department posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. The victims were taken to hospitals, where one of them – a minor – died.
Another minor was among those who were injured, police said.
The shooting happened after an argument between two people who did not know each other, Pearland police officer Chad Rogers said in an evening news conference. The two people ended up exchanging gunfire inside the market, police said.
One suspect was still at large, police said. They did not immediately give details on the second shooter.
There had been more than 600 mass shootings in the US so far this year as of Monday morning, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That is a rate of nearly two a day.
The non-partisan archive defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are killed or wounded.
Texas has some of the most lax gun laws in the US despite the state’s witnessing some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings. Two 2019 mass shootings in an El Paso Walmart store as well as in Midland and Odessa together killed 30 people.
Meanwhile, a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde last year and another at a mall in Allen in May killed a combined 29 people.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
