02 April 2023 , 03:57
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Four people have died four hours of violence following a shooting in a bar and a car park gunfight in California and Oklahoma.
Police rushed to the Whiskey Barrel Saloon in Oklahoma City after reports of gunfire shortly before 10pm. Three people have died with one person in a critical condition and two others also injured in the shooting.
Four hours earlier, multiple suspects shot at each other with a 45-year-old man killed and three others injured in a shooting during a drug deal in a busy Trader Joe's parking lot in Los Angeles, police said.
Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said there were three suspects were in custody Saturday evening and investigators believe the shooting involved gang members.
Police take a woman into custody after a gunman opened fire in a busy car park (FOX11)
Police arrested three suspects in connection with the Los Angeles shooting (FOX11)Police recovered two firearms at the scene.
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He added: "We believe that all of the people involved in this dispute have been identified and we believe we have them either in custody or we have them where we can provide them medical care."
An LAPD helicopter spotted a vehicle with windows shot out leaving the scene and tracked the vehicle, Hamilton said.
"That suspect became involved in a hit-and-run traffic collision where they injured someone else and continued fleeing the area," Hamilton said. "They subsequently switched vehicles and the air units saw them switch vehicles and directed ground units to the location where the suspect was fleeing."
Emergency services surround the scene in California (FOX11)There was a pursuit lasting two to three minutes before the vehicle pulled over. A female driver and the male suspect who fled the shooting scene surrendered and were taken into custody, Hamilton said.
The person who was injured in the hit-and-run accident was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
The deadly shootings come as the debate rages over gun control just days after the latest US school massacre.
Six people, including three children, were shot dead in Nashville on Monday when Audrey Hale, armed with two assault rifles and a pistol, shot their way into the school until they were gunned down by police.
Nine months ago, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping bipartisan gun law, the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades.
Biden and others had hailed last year's bipartisan gun bill - approved in the weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas - as a new way forward.
The law has already prevented some potentially dangerous people from owning guns.
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Three people were killed in a gunfight at an Oklahoma City bar on Saturday night (koco)Yet since that signing last summer, the tally of mass shootings in the United States has only grown.
This week, Biden called for a ban on so-called assault weapons like those that were used to kill at The Covenant School in Nashville
"What in God's name are we doing?" he asked in a speech Tuesday. "There's a moral price to pay for inaction."