At least five people died and several were injured this Wednesday in a shooting that occurred at a hospital in the US city of Tulsa (Oklahoma), in which the assailant lost his life, local police reported.
“We have four civilians who are dead and we have a shooter who is dead,” Tulsa Deputy Police Chief Jonathan Brooks told reporters after the latest in a series of mass shootings in the United States. Brooks specified that the first investigations indicate that the aggressor shot himself.
The shooter has also died, according to police, but it was not clear how. Agents were still working to clear the Saint Francis Hospital campus, and a press conference was scheduled for 7:15 p.m. local time.
The suspect, who has not yet been identified by the authorities, is a black man between 35 and 40 years old, the police official added, AFP reports.
According to City Councilor Jayme Fowler told the CNN channel, the assailant, who was carrying a rifle and a pistol, was looking for a doctor who worked instead, an end that the Police have not confirmed.
Capt. Richard Meulenberg told ABC News that Tulsa Police received a call about a man with a rifle on the second floor of a medical campus building and it “turned into an active shooter situation.”
When the agents arrived at the scene, “they found that some people had been shot.” A couple of them were dead at the time,” Meulenberg said.
“We also found who we thought was the shooter and we continue to believe he is the shooter, because he was carrying a long rifle and a pistol,” Meulenberg added.
“I saw the helicopters and heard all kinds of noises,” Elizabeth Buchner, 43, who lives in a house just behind the building where the massacre took place, told AFP.
“I was there first thing in the morning,” added the legal assistant, who said she was relieved by the speed and effectiveness of the police response.
“There was no question. The (police) response was swift and forceful,” Buchner said, while in Uvalde the time it took for police to respond was the subject of an investigation and much criticism.
The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting and is “closely monitoring the situation and has reached out to state and local officials to offer support.”
An Oklahoma deputy, Melissa Provenzano, also praised the quick police response, four minutes between calling the emergency services and intervening.
“It could have been a lot worse,” he told CNN. But “we deserve much better than this,” she added. “These things are preventable, and it’s time to wake up and face it.
The Tulsa shooting comes after two mass shootings in May that shocked Americans and reignited debates over gun control. Last week, a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. In early May, a shooter killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
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