Shooting
Gunman shoots employee inside Bangladeshi-owned restaurant in New York
A Bangladeshi-owned restaurant in New York’s Queens came under attack by an unidentified gunman on Saturday (June 3, 2023), injuring one employee and sending customers running for cover, CBS News reports.
Surveillance video from inside Boishakhi Restaurant -- in the Astoria neighbourhood of Queens -- shows people, including children, who were sitting down eating and in line waiting for food, running out of the establishment and ducking for cover after a gunman opened fire.
"We had a lot of customers inside. After the initial shooting, he moved around a bit, then he went behind my counter and shot one of my employees," restaurant owner Abu Taher told CBS News.
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According to Taher, the gunman, who was wearing a mask and a red hooded sweatshirt, fired three shots.
"He didn't say anything. He just came and shot and ran away," he said.
One of the bullets hit an employee of the restaurant in the upper thigh.
Police say the shooter took off running.
Read more: Best Instagrammable Rooftop Restaurants at Gulshan in Dhaka
While the motive is still being investigated, sources say the gunman got into an argument with an employee in the store earlier in the week.
Now, the shattered glass, bullet holes and half-eaten food left behind are a grim reminder to the family who runs the restaurant that gun violence can affect you when you least expect it.
"Definitely scared, you know. It's a very small business," Taher told CBS. "I'm really scared to run a small business in New York City. It's not safe, actually. We are not safe. Our life is not safe."
Boishakhi Restaurant -- near 36th Avenue and 29th Street in the Astoria neighbourhood -- was previously featured in The New York Times for its delicious Bangladeshi food. It also received “Special Congressional Recognition” in 2021 for its community service during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Read more: Police: 8 killed in Texas mall shooting, gunman also dead
Police: 8 killed in Texas mall shooting, gunman also dead
A gunman killed eight people and wounded seven others – three critically – in a shooting at a Dallas-area mall before being fatally shot by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said Saturday.
Authorities did not immediately provide details about the victims, but witnesses reported seeing children among them. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.
The shooting was the latest episode of gun violence to strike the country. It sent hundreds of shoppers fleeing in panic.
Allen Police said in a Facebook post that nine victims had been taken to hospitals. Medical City Healthcare, a Dallas-area hospital system, said in a written statement it was treating eight between the ages of 5 and 61.
Dashcam video that circulated online showed a gunman step out of a vehicle outside the mall and immediately start shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle recording the video drove off.
An Allen Police officer was in the area on an unrelated call when he heard shots at 3:36 p.m., the police department wrote on Facebook.
“The officer engaged the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called for emergency personnel. Nine victims were transported to local hospitals by Allen Fire Department,” the agency wrote in the Facebook post. “There is no longer an active threat.”
Mass killings are happening with staggering frequency in the United States this year: an average of about one a week, according to an analysis of The AP/USA Today data.
The White House said President Biden had been briefed on the shooting and that the administration had offered support to local officials. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings, called it an “unspeakable tragedy.”
A crowd of hundreds of people who had been shopping stood outside, across the street from the mall, Saturday evening. Officers circulated among them asking if anyone had seen what happened.
Fontayne Payton, 35, was at H&M when he heard the sound of gunshots through the headphones he was wearing.
“It was so loud, it sounded like it was right outside,” Payton said.
Read more: Police: 5 people killed in shooting at home north of Houston
People in the store scattered before employees ushered the group into the fitting rooms and then a lockable back room, he said. When they were given the all-clear to leave, Payton saw the store had broken windows and a trail of blood to the door. Discarded sandals and bloodied clothes were laying nearby.
Once outside, Payton saw bodies.
“I pray it wasn’t kids, but it looked like kids,” he said. The bodies were covered in white towels, slumped over bags on the ground, he said.
“It broke me when I walked out to see that,” he said.
Further away, he saw the body of a heavyset man wearing all black. He assumed it was the shooter, Payton said, because unlike the other bodies it had not been covered up.
Tarakram Nunna, 25, and Ramakrishna Mullapudi, 26, said they saw what appeared to be three people lying motionless on the ground, including one who appeared to be a police officer and another who appeared to be a mall security guard.
Another shopper, Sharkie Mouli, 24, said he hid in a Banana Republic store during the shooting. As he left, he saw what appeared to be an unconscious police officer lying next to another unconscious person outside the outlet store.
“I have seen his gun lying right next to him and a guy who is like passing out right next to him,” Mouli said.
Stan and Mary Ann Greene were browsing in the Columbia sportswear store when the shooting started.
“We had just gotten in, just a couple minutes earlier, and we just heard a lot of loud popping,” Mary Ann Greene told The Associated Press.
Employees immediately rolled down the security gate and brought everyone to the rear of the store until police arrived and escorted them out, the Greenes said.
Read more: Teenage boy kills 8 children, guard at school in Belgrade
Eber Romero was at the Under Armour store when a cashier mentioned that there was a shooting.
As he left the store, Romero said, the mall appeared empty, and all the shops had their security gates down. That is when he started seeing broken glass and people who had been shot on the floor.
Video shared on social media showed people running through a parking lot while gunfire could be heard.
More than 30 police cruisers with lights flashing were blocking an entrance to the mall, with multiple ambulances on the scene.
A live aerial broadcast from the news station showed armored trucks and other law enforcement vehicles stationed outside the sprawling outdoor mall.
Ambulances from several neighboring cities responded to the scene.
The Dallas office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded.
Allen, a suburb about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, has roughly 105,000 residents.
Indian megastar Amitabh Bachchan injured while shooting film
Amitabh Bachchan said he was injured while shooting a film in southern India and is recovering at home.
The 80-year-old Bollywood superstar posted on his blog Sunday (March 05, 2023) night that he sustained a rib injury while working in Hyderabad on the science-fiction film “Project K.” It’s being made in Hindi and Telugu languages and is slated for release in 2024.
Bachchan wrote that he had broken rib cartilage and a muscle tear. He said the injury was “painful” and he consulted a doctor before he flew home to Mumbai, where he has been advised to rest.
Read More: Registration now open for Joy Bangla Concert 2023
“I shall be unable to meet the well wishers at Jalsa Gate this evening.. so do not come,” the actor said to fans who often gather outside his home in Mumbai. “All else is well,” he wrote.
He said his work on the film was suspended until he’s healed.
Bachchan has acted in more than 200 Indian films. His breakthrough came in the 1973 film “Zanjeer,” or “The Chain,” and he rose to superstardom playing bold characters, inspiring fans to copy his hairstyle, clothes and deep voice.
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The hugely popular actor is also a former politician and a television host.
1 killed, 3 hurt in shooting at El Paso, Texas shopping mall
Police in El Paso, Texas, say one person was killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting Wednesday in a shopping mall.
One person has been taken into custody, El Paso police spokesperson Sgt. Robert Gomez said. No immediate information was given about that person.
“It’s too early to speculate on motive,” Gomez said.
The three who were wounded were hospitalized, Gomez said. Their conditions were not known.
Gomez said police believe the scene is secure and that officers are sweeping through the whole mall to verify that.
Authorities have set up a reunification center at a nearby high school.
Also read: Police say 3 dead, 4 hurt in latest California shooting
Police earlier said the shooting was reported at the shopping mall’s food court.
Wednesday’s shooting at the Cielo Vista Mall happened in a busy shopping area and across a large parking lot from a Walmart where 23 people were killed in a racist attack in 2019.
California shooter kills 10 at dance club; motive unclear
Authorities searched for a motive for the gunman who killed 10 people at a Los Angeles-area ballroom dance club during Lunar New Year celebrations, slayings that sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the region and cast a shadow over festivities nationwide.
The suspect was found Sunday, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a van in which authorities say he fled after people thwarted his attempt at a second shooting Saturday night.
The massacre was the nation’s fifth mass killing this month. It was also the deadliest attack since May 24, when 21 people were killed in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna identified the man as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran and said no other suspects were at large. Luna said the motive remained unclear for the attack, which wounded 10 people, seven of whom were still hospitalized. Speaking at a Sunday evening news conference, the sheriff said he didn't have their exact ages but that all of the people killed appeared to be over 50.
The suspect was carrying what Luna described as a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine, and a second handgun was discovered in the van where Tran died.
Monterey Park Police Chief Scott Wiese said Sunday evening that within three minutes of receiving the call, officers arrived at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park. There, they found carnage inside and people trying to flee through all the doors.
“When they came into the parking lot it, was chaos,” Wiese said.
Read more: LA mass shooting suspect kills 10 near Lunar New Year fest
About 20 to 30 minutes after the first attack, the gunman entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in the nearby city of Alhambra. But people wrested the weapon away from him and witnesses said he fled in a white van, according to Luna.
The van was found in Torrance, another community home to many Asian Americans, about 22 miles (34.5 kilometers) from that second location.
After surrounding the van for hours, law enforcement officials swarmed and entered the vehicle. A person’s body appeared to be slumped over the wheel and was later removed. Members of a SWAT team looked through the van’s contents before walking away.
The sheriff’s department earlier released photos of an Asian man believed to be the suspect, apparently taken from a security camera.
Congresswoman Judy Chu said she still has questions about the attack but hopes residents now feel safe.
“The community was in fear thinking that they should not go to any events because there was an active shooter,” Chu said, speaking at Sunday's news conference.
“What was the motive for this shooter?” she said. "Did he have a mental illness? Was he a domestic violence abuser? How did he gets these guns and was it through legal means or not?”
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans. The shooting happened in the heart of its downtown where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A police car was parked near a large banner that proclaimed “Happy Year of the Rabbit!”
The celebration in Monterey Park is one of California’s largest. Two days of festivities, which have been attended by as many as 100,000 people in past years, were planned. But officials canceled Sunday’s events following the shooting.
Tony Lai, 35, of Monterey Park was stunned when he came out for his early morning walk to learn that the noises he heard in the night were gunshots.
Read more: 12 people injured in shooting at Louisiana nightclub
“I thought maybe it was fireworks. I thought maybe it had something to do with Lunar New Year,” he said. “And we don’t even get a lot of fireworks here. It’s weird to see this. It’s really safe here. We’re right in the middle of the city, but it’s really safe.”
An Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S. shows that 2022 was one of the nation's worst years with 42 such attacks — the second-highest number since the creation of the tracker in 2006. The database defines a mass killing as four people killed, not including the perpetrator.
President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland were briefed on the situation, aides said. Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden were thinking of those killed and wounded, and he directed federal authorities to support the investigation.
The Star Ballroom Dance Studio's website said it was hosting an event Saturay called “Star Night” from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. The studio is a few blocks from city hall on Monterey Park's main thoroughfare of Garvey Avenue, which is dotted with strip malls of small businesses whose signs are in both English and Chinese. Cantonese and Mandarin are both widely spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated and Chinese films are screened regularly in the city.
Wynn Liaw, 57, who lives about two blocks from the Monterey Park studio, said she was shocked that such a crime would happen, especially during Lunar New Year’s celebrations.
“Chinese people, they consider Chinese New Year very, very special” — a time when “you don’t do anything that will bring bad luck the entire year,” she said.
Baby, teen mom among 6 killed in shooting at California home
Six people — including a 17-year-old mother and her 6-month-old baby — were killed in a shooting early Monday at a home in central California, and authorities are searching for at least two suspects, sheriff’s officials said.
Deputies responded around 3:30 a.m. to reports of multiple shots fired at the residence in unincorporated Goshen, just east of Visalia, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office said.
“Actually the report was that an active shooter was in the area because of the number of shots that were being fired,” Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told reporters.
Deputies found two victims dead in the street and a third person fatally shot in the doorway of the residence, Boudreaux said.
Three more victims were found inside the home, including a man who was still alive but later died at a hospital, he said.
The sheriff said investigators are searching for at least two suspects. They believe there is a gang connection to the killings. The sheriff’s office conducted a narcotics-related search warrant at the residence last week, Boudreaux said.
“We also believe this was not a random act of violence. We believe this was a targeted family,” he said.
Goshen is a semi-rural community of about 3,000 residents 35 miles (56 kilometres) southeast of Fresno in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley.
Read more: 9 killed in Walmart shooting in Virginia
Swechchhasebak League leader, 4 others sued over Gulshan shooting
A case has been filed against five people, including a leader of Swechchhasebak League leader, over firing in the capital’s Gulshan area that left two people wounded on Sunday.
The accused are- Abdul Wahid Mintu, vice-president of Dhaka North city unit of Swechchhasebak League, his associates Arif Hossain and Monir Ahmed, and two others -- Shariful and Humayun.
Read more: Pedestrian shot during clash in city’s Gulshan
Aminul Islam, who sustained bullet injuries, filed the case at Gulshan police station on Sunday night, said Shakir Hasan, a sub-inspector (SI) of the police station.
Police arrested Arif Hossain, Mintu and Monir Hossain along with 14 rounds of bullets, two magazines after the incident. Police also recovered seven bullet shells from the spot.
“Efforts are on to arrest two others,” said the SI.
On Sunday afternoon, Arif Hossain locked into an altercation with Alim, an employee of a shop named Alfa Departmental store, over transferring money worth Tk 75,000 through MFS (Mobile Financial Services) near Gulshan DCC Market at Gulshan-1 behind Gloria Jeans café.
Alim claimed that he transferred the money as Arif asked him to send the money but later Arif denied to pay the money.
Alim along with others kept Arif confined to the shop . At one stage, Arif called his brother-in-law Monir Hossain over phone.
Monir along with Abdul Wahid Mintu and three others went to the spot. Mintu opened fire, leaving two people wounded, Abdul Ahad, deputy commissioner of Gulshan division, said.
Read more: Rickshaw-puller shot dead over “trivial matter” in Pabna
Aminul, a private car driver, sustained a bullet in his leg and van puller Abdur Rahim received slight injuries, he said. Aminul was taken to United Hospital.
The gun which Mintu used for firing is licensed, said the police officer.
S. Korea fires warning shots after North drones cross border
South Korea’s military fired warning shots and scrambled aircraft after North Korean drones entered the South’s airspace on Monday, South Korean officials said, days after the North launched two ballistic missiles in its latest testing activities.
Several North Korean drones crossed the inter-Korean border and were detected in the South’s territory on Monday morning, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said.
South Korea’s military broadcast warnings and fired warning shots before it launched fighter jets and attack helicopters to shoot down the North Korean drones, the Defense Ministry said. It wasn’t immediately known if the drones were shot down.
Read: North Korea says rocket launch was test of 1st spy satellite
It’s the first time for North Korean drones to enter South Korean airspace since 2017, when a suspected North Korean drone was found crashed in South Korea. South Korean military officials said at the time that the drone photographed a U.S. missile defense system in South Korea.
North Korea has previously touted its drone program, and South Korean officials said the North has about 300 drones. In 2014, several suspected North Korean drones were found south of the border. Experts said they were low-tech but could be considered a potential security threat.
Read: Missile tests practiced to attack South, US: North Korea
Last Friday, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The launch was seen as a protest of the South Korean-U.S. joint air drills that North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.
This year, North Korea has conducted an unprecedented number of missile tests in what some experts call an attempt to improve its weapons and pressure rivals to make concessions such as lifting sanctions in future negotiations. Recently, the North also claimed to have performed major tests needed to acquire its first spy satellite and a more mobile intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
Russia shoots down Ukrainian drone near its Engels airbase
The Russian military reported on Monday that it shot down a Ukrainian drone approaching an airbase deep inside Russia, the second time the airbase has been targeted this month, raising questions about the effectiveness of Russia’s air defenses if drones can fly that far into the country.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the incident took place in the early hours of Monday, and three servicemen were killed by debris at the Engels airbase that houses the Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers that have been involved in launching strikes on Ukraine.
Engels is located in Russia’s Saratov region on the Volga river, more than 600 kilometers (more than 370 miles) east of the border with Ukraine.
No damage was inflicted on Russian aircraft, the ministry said.
Read: Some Ukrainians move Christmas to detach again from Russia
It is the second time Engels has been targeted by Ukrainian drones; on Dec. 5, unprecedented drone strikes on Engels and the Dyagilevo base in the Ryazan region in western Russia killed a total of three servicemen and wounded four more. The strikes on the airbases were followed by a massive retaliatory missile barrage in Ukraine that struck homes and buildings and killed civilians.
In Ukraine, the night from Sunday into Monday appeared unusually quiet. For the first time in weeks, the Russian forces didn’t shell the Dnipropetrovsk region, which borders the partially occupied southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, its Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko reported on Telegram.
“This is the third quiet night in 5.5 months since the Russians started shelling” the areas around the city of Nikopol, Reznichenko wrote. Nikopol is located across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under control of the Russian forces.
Read: Russia scrubs Mariupol's Ukraine identity, builds on death
Ukrainian-controlled areas of the neighbouring Kherson region were shelled 33 times over the past 24 hours, according to Kherson’s Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich. There were no casualties.
On Saturday, a deadly attack on the city of Kherson, which was retaken by Kyiv’s forces last month, killed and wounded scores.
5 dead and suspect killed in Toronto area condo shooting
Five people were shot and killed in a condominium unit a Toronto suburb and the gunman was killed by police, authorities said late Sunday.
Chief James MacSween of York regional police said one of his officers shot and killed the suspect at a condo in Vaughan, Ontario.
“Horrendous scene,” MacSween said. “Six deceased. One of them is the subject. The other five are victims,”
Read more: Shooting near Chicago school leaves 2 pupils dead and 2 injured
He said a seventh person shot by the suspect was in the hospital and expected to survive.
MacSheen said he didn’t have details on whether the shooter was a resident of the building.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, which gets involved when there is a death or serious injury involving police, is investigating.
Police did not identify the suspect or name the deceased.
Police evacuated the building but MacSween said there is no further threat to the community. He said they hoped to have residents back in their units within hours.
Read more: 9 killed in Walmart shooting in Virginia
Mass shootings are rare in Canada and Toronto has long prided itself as being one of the safest big cities in the world.
Canadians are nervous about anything that might indicate they are moving closer to U.S. experiences with gun violence.