After hours of manhunt, the person responsible for yet another American massacre is under arrest. This time it happened in a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia: the toll counts one woman killed and four others injured.
This is Deion Patterson, 24, a former coastguard.
He opened fire on five women in a waiting room on the eleventh floor of Northside Medical Hospital, then stole a vehicle left running at a gas station and fled — not too far, as he was eventually spotted and stopped just over 20 miles away, in a suburb of the city.
In the meantime, the city center remained in a state of maximum alert: the medical center where the massacre took place is located in an area of offices and shops, very busy: at the news of the shooting panic broke out, residents and employees of the area sought shelter and there they remained for hours until the emergency ceased.
At the moment the causes of the gesture are unknown, but everything suggests that it is the gesture of a person with serious mental problems.
Patterson enlisted in the Coast Guard in 2018 and was released from active duty in January.
The killer's mother explained that her son suffered from mental problems, which degenerated a few days ago with the intake of a new drug prescribed to him to combat anxiety and depression by the health system that deals with military veterans. The woman, a former nurse, had asked to change medicine, but the military health authorities - he said - had refused.