Seattle gunman shoots self after three killed in cafe
Tags:
A suspect in a Seattle shooting that left three people dead and two wounded turned a gun on himself when confronted by officers, police said.
The suspect, believed to be a white male in his 30s, entered Cafe Racer near the University of Seattle at around 11:00 am local time (1800 GMT) and shot five people with a pistol.
Two men were confirmed dead at the scene, while a third victim, a woman, died later in hospital. Two other men are receiving treatment at Harborview Medical Center.
A second shooting and car-jacking killed one woman in downtown Seattle about half-an-hour later. Police were investigating if it could have been the same man.
The suspect sustained a "self-inflicted gunshot wound" as officers closed in on him on a sidewalk in western Seattle, assistant police chief James Pugel told a press conference.
The man was taken away by ambulance, his condition not immediately known, the Seattle Times reported.
The shootings, one of them in an upmarket university district of the northwestern US city, shocked a town that has now seen as many murders this year as it did in the whole of 2011.
"We've had two tragic shootings today that have shaken this city. And it follows on the heels of multiple tragic episodes of gun violence that have occurred throughout the city," Seattle mayor Mike McGinn told journalists.
The motive for the cafe shooting was not yet clear, Pugel said, but a police source quoted by the Seattle Times said it could be domestic violence.
Post new comment