Donald Trump has tweeted a bizarre response to the latest US mass shooting in which a gunman carrying a semi-automatic weapon and two handguns opened fire at multiple locations across a small Northern California community on Tuesday.
Four people were killed and at least 10 other people were wounded, including two children at an elementary school near the small town of Corning, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Sacramento, where the suspect was shot dead by police.
“Deeply saddened to hear of the shooting in Northern California, the loss of life, including innocent children,” Vice President Mike Pence said on Twitter.
Trump however, appears to have tweeted about a mass shooting that happened over a week ago.
The President inexplicably referenced the mass shooting in Texas church that left at least 26 people dead on Sunday.
The tweet was nearly identical to what the President sent on the day of the Texan massacre.
The message caused widespread bafflement.
Shots were fired at Rancho Tehama Elementary school where some people were injured, but no students or staff members died, Corning Union Elementary School District administrative assistant Jeanine Quist said.
Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said at a news conference that the gunman, who he did not name, had been armed with a semi-automatic rifle and two handguns, reports Reuters.
The Sacramento Bee newspaper, citing multiple law enforcement officials, later identified the suspect as 43-year-old Kevin Janson Neal, a local resident who had been arrested in February in connection with a stabbing.
Johnston did not give a motive for the shooting rampage.
President Trump was criticised in the wake of the Texas shooting earlier this month for saying the massacre was a “mental health problem,” not “a gun situation” adding it was a “little bit soon” to get into a discussion about gun reform.
He further noted that a person in the crowd with a gun shot at the attacker and caused him to flee: “Otherwise it would have been - as bad as it was – it would have been much worse.”
“This is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very, very sad event,” Trump said, having earlier asked: “Who would ever think a thing like this could happen?”.
There have been 317 mass shootings in the US so far this year.