Two adults and a child die in a new mass shooting in Florida

Two adults and a child died Thursday when a shooter opened fire at a supermarket in South Florida, the latest in a series of mass shootings that have occurred in this southeastern US state in recent weeks..

The incident occurred at a Publix supermarket in the town of Royal Palm Beach, 130 km north of Miami, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office reported.. “Upon arrival, officers located three individuals dead from gunshot wounds,” police wrote on Twitter.. “A grown man, a grown woman and a child. The attacker is one of the deceased”.

After committing the attack, the man shot himself, confirmed to AFP Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the sheriff.. Detectives cordoned off the area and no further information has been released at this time, except that it is no longer an “active shooting” scene..

Lynn Waterman, a 61-year-old customer, said she was buying cigarettes at the Publix checkout counter when she heard the gunshots.. “Everyone ran out of the store and I was standing in the parking lot and thinking, 'What am I doing here? The shooter can come out and shoot us,'” Waterman told the local Sun Sentinel newspaper..

This is the latest in a series of shootings that have plagued South Florida in recent days.. On Sunday morning, a shooting after a graduation party left three dead and five wounded in Kendall, a town in Miami-Dade County..

On June 1, three gunmen killed two people and injured 21 when they opened fire in front of a nightclub in Hialeah, in West Miami-Dade.. Two days earlier, a person opened fire from his car against a crowd in the artistic neighborhood of Wynwood -also in Miami-, leaving one dead and six wounded.

“Insensitive to gun violence”

“We have become desensitized to gun violence,” Commissioner Melissa McKinlay, who represents the Palm Beach area where the Publix shooting occurred, said in a statement.. “Today we mourn the loss of these lives,” he continued.. But “tomorrow we need to step up and have an honest conversation about why this happened and what specifically we can do to prevent this violence.”.

This year, firearm-related homicides have increased across the country.. More than 19,000 people have been killed by firearms since January, according to the Gun Violence Archive.. In addition, some 260 people have been victims of mass shootings, defined as incidents in which four or more people are killed or injured..

The United States has a long and painful history of gun violence, with a consistent number of daily shootings and mass murders that have targeted schools, workplaces, and shopping malls.. Next Saturday marks the fifth anniversary of the shooting in Orlando, in central Florida, which left 49 dead when an attacker opened fire at a gay bar.