Two shootings hours apart in the United States, one dead and nine injured

One person has died and four were injured in a shooting at Charles Young Park in Lexington, Kentucky. The shots were fired on Saturday evening during a band's concert, in a part of the park close to a campaign event attended by Democratic governor Andy Beshear.

The injured include two children aged four and fourteen and two adults. Their injuries are not considered life-threatening. Local police said there was no ongoing threat, without giving any indication of a motive or of who fired.

A few hours earlier, on Saturday morning, another shooting took place at Virginia State University in Ettrick, some forty kilometres south of Richmond. Five people were injured, one of them critically. The shots were fired at about half past one in the morning outside a student residence and, according to the authorities, more than one attacker was involved. A nineteen-year-old, Camron Harris, has been arrested.

A campus that had only just reopened

The university, which has around 5,700 enrolled students, had opened its residences a week earlier. Classes were due to start the following Monday and many students had just finished the welcome programme for new arrivals. The campus was locked down for several hours, and a large police presence remained after the measure was lifted.

The two episodes add to an annual toll that remains stable at a very high level in the United States. Shootings in which at least four people are hit number several hundred a year and cluster in the summer months, when outdoor public events multiply. Neither case is currently linked to the other.