Mass Shooting Again Shakes Colorado, 7 People Killed Including Perpetrators

Condolences for the victims of the mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado last March. (Source: CPR.org)

JAKARTA - The mass shooting has again rocked Colorado, United States. This time, a man shot dead six people including his girlfriend before shooting himself at a birthday party in Colorado Springs, Sunday, May 9, local time.

Local police said they arrived at the scene where six people were found dead, as well as a seriously injured person who was later evacuated but died after being taken to hospital.

"The suspect, the girlfriend of one of the female victims, went to the residence, walked in and started shooting people at the party before killing herself," a statement issued by the Colorado Springs Police Department said, according to Reuters on Monday, May 10.

"Friends, family and children gathered inside the trailer to celebrate when the shooting occurred," the statement continued, adding the motive for the shooting had not yet been determined.

The mass shooting occurred inside canterbury Manufactured Home Community, a mobile home park of about 470 trailers and mostly Latino residents on the southeastern side of the city, near Colorado Springs Airport, about 110 km south of Denver.

Eyewitness Freddie Marquez, 33, said his mother-in-law was one of the victims of the shooting and that he was at the party but left around 10.30pm on Saturday.

Shortly after midnight, he received a call from the son of one of the women at the party, who was crying on the phone.

"Someone came in and shot everybody," Marquez said, recounting what he was told by phone.

The Denver Post quoted his neighbor Yenifer Reyes as saying he was woken by gunshots.

"I think it's a storm. Then I started hearing sirens," Reyes told the newspaper.

He said he saw police take the children out of the trailer and put them in a police car.

Police said they withheld the release of details of the shooting for several hours to inform family members of the deceased properly and respectfully and ensure support was available.

"The names of the victims will be released later," a local police statement said.

The brutal shooting is the latest in a long line of attacks in the United States, as the United States plans to impose restrictions on gun ownership.

Last March, Colorado was also rocked by a mass shooting in Boulder, where a 21-year-old man was charged with killing 10 people in a March 22 shooting at a supermarket about 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Denver.

It comes less than a week after another 21-year-old gunman was charged with killing eight people at three spas in Atlanta.

Long before, Colorado was also the state where two other deadly mass shootings occurred: the 1999 shooting at Columbine Middle School in Denver that killed 15 people including two perpetrators.

As well as the 2012 mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater that killed 12 people and injured about 70. The perpetrator of the Aurora shooting is serving a life sentence.