Four people were killed and several others were injured in a mass shooting Wednesday at a medical building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, police said.
The shooter died by suicide, Tulsa Police Officer Eric Dalgleish told reporters outside the hospital.
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Police said no more than 10 people in total were shot.
The active shooter arrived at 4:52 p.m. local time and police were on the scene four minutes later, Dalgleish said. The officers attacked the shooter at 17.01, and he killed himself shortly after.
Police officers locked the building down and went floor by floor to evacuate people and confirm that there was only one shooter. Dalgleish said the shooter was carrying a rifle and a handgun. He said investigators had not yet identified the shooter, but described him as a man in his late 30s.
Police did not immediately speculate on a possible motive for the shooting. They said it was not known if he was targeting a specific person in the building. Police in Muskogee, Okla., Said the suspect may be tied to a bomb in the town, about 50 miles southeast of Tulsa. No explosives were found.
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“This campus is sacred ground for our community,” said Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum. “This has been the facility, more than anyone else, that has worked to save the lives of people in this city.”
Tulsa resident Kalen Davis told CNN he was waiting in traffic around 6 p.m. 17.00 local time when he saw several police cars driving towards the hospital area.
“I just knew it was a shooting situation because I saw the police run with rifles,” Davis told CNN. “That was when I became emotional.”
Debra Proctor told CNN about the “shocking” scene she witnessed while waiting for a doctor’s visit to another building on the hospital complex.
“Police were everywhere in the parking lot, up and down the surrounding blocks,” Proctor said. “They still arrived when I left.”
The shooting comes just eight days after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Ten days before, another 18-year-old targeted a black grocery store in Buffalo for bloodshed. Payton Gendron killed 10 black people in the massacre at a Tops supermarket before police detained him.
“President Biden has been briefed on the shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” tweeted Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “The White House is closely monitoring the situation and has reached out to state and local officials to offer support.”
