Authorities in New Mexico have identified a gunman who killed three and wounded six others in Farmington on Monday as 18-year-old high school student Beau Wilson.
The teenager was armed with three weapons including an AR-15-style rifle when he began firing randomly at passing cars in the suburb where he lived, Deputy Police Chief Baric Crum said at a news conference on Tuesday.
He was killed by police after wounding two officers.
Police said the three victims were 97-year-old Gwendolyn Schofield, and her daughter Melody Ivie, 73, who died at the scene after their car was fired upon. A third woman, 79-year-old Shirley Voita, died in hospital.
Deputy Chief Crum said the shooter had also struck several homes while firing indiscriminately.
Police said they had no knowledge of any link between Wilson and there three victims, and were “pretty confident it was completely random”.
One of the weapons used in the shooting had been legally purchased by Wilson in November, Deputy Police Chief Kyle Dowdy said. Wilson obtained one of the other weapons from a family member.
Mr Dowdy said that family members had told them that Wilson may have been suffering from mental health issues.
“The amount of violence and brutality that these people faced is unconscionable to me,” Mr Dowdy said.
“I don’t care what age you are, I don’t care what else is going on in your life, to kill three innocent elderly women that were just absolutely in no position to defend themselves is always going to be a tragedy.”
Wilson, who graduated from Farmington High School last year, had minor brushes with the law as a juvenile, Mr Dowdy said.
Wilson roamed across a quarter-mile area of the city near downtown just before 11am targeting “whatever entered his head to shoot at”, Police Chief Steve Hebbe said in a taped statement on Monday night.
Police received the first 911 calls at about 10.57am. Officers arrived at the scene at 11.02am, and four officers fired 16 rounds at the gunmen, San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari said.
Wilson was killed at about 11.05am.
Farmington Mayor Nate Duckett praised three officers who had been at lunch and responded to the shooting without body armour during the press conference.
He said that many examples of bravery by law enforcement officers had saved “countless lives”.
He said he hoped the city could come together to heal, adding that the “community was shaken to the core.”
Two officers wounded in the shooting, a Farmington officer and state police officer, had been released from hospital, Mr Duckett added.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 225 mass shootings in the United States in 2023.
