An 18-year-old armed with at least three guns roamed through a northwestern New Mexico community, firing randomly at cars and houses, killing three people and injuring six others before he was killed by police, authorities said. The shootings occurred around 11 a.m. Monday in Farmington, a city of 50,000, reports the Associated Press. Officers responding to reports of shots being fired found the attacker within minutes and killed him with at least one shot, Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said. He said the gunman’s weapons included an “AR-style rifle.” Two officers were injured.
Investigators were struggling to determine a motive for the attack. “But at this point it appears to be purely random, that there was no schools, no churches and no individuals targeted,” Hebbe said. An officer arrived within five minutes of the first report of the shootings, and three minutes later the gunman had been killed. Hebbe said it appears the gunman acted alone. At Hills Church, a few miles away from the attack scene, dozens of people gathered around a tall metal cross as the sun set Monday to pray. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she was praying for the families of the victims and that it “serves at yet another reminder of how gun violence destroys lives in our state and our country every single day.”
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