Gunman kills 1 near hospital
Source: Agencies |
April 21, 2010, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A GUNMAN took a taxi to a hospital in Tennessee, the United States, and gave the cab driver US$20 to wait, then opened fire on Monday, killing one woman before committing suicide.
Two other women were injured in the shooting, and all the women were current or former employees of Parkwest Medical Center, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said. The attack happened about 4:30pm outside the hospital's discharge area.
Police are still trying to determine a motive, but it did not appear that any of the victims were related to the suspect or that there was any connection between them, spokesman Darrell DeBusk said.
Police also don't think the suspect was ever employed at the hospital.
Cab driver Freddys Sakhleh told The Associated Press that he picked up the suspect outside an apartment building and they made several stops on the way to the hospital, including to an ATM where the gunman got US$20. The man said little about himself, only that he was from Atlanta.
"He looked like, you know, angry, depressed. He was kind of itchy," Sakleh said.
Sakhleh said the man eventually got out of the cab at the hospital, handed the driver the cash and told him to wait five minutes. He came back to the cab, pulled a gun from his waist and starting firing.
"I called 911, and I said, 'Please send some people here, this man is shooting like crazy,'" Sakhleh said. He said the gunman then shot himself in the head.
Sakhleh saw a woman bleeding. "I went berserk," he said.
Photographs of the discharge area, where vehicles can pick up patients, showed a man's body surrounded by police. Yellow crime tape was stretched around the area.
The two women who survived the shooting were taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Their conditions were not released, but the women's families released thanks for prayers and support.
The family of Ariane Reagan Guerin, 26, said they were hearing promising information about her prognosis. The family of Nancy Chancellor, 32, said she was doing well.
The women killed was Rachel Wattenbarger, 40. Her father, Ray Wattenbarger, said she had worked at the hospital for about five or six years, helping discharge the elderly. He said he would remember his daughter's smile.
The gunman's name has not been released.
Police put the hospital on lockdown as SWAT team members searched each floor to make sure no one else involved with the attack had made it inside.
"The hospital is safe and is being reopened with limitations," Owen said.
Witness Charles Billingsley said: "I heard five pistol shots, back to back, and then another and then another."
Two other women were injured in the shooting, and all the women were current or former employees of Parkwest Medical Center, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said. The attack happened about 4:30pm outside the hospital's discharge area.
Police are still trying to determine a motive, but it did not appear that any of the victims were related to the suspect or that there was any connection between them, spokesman Darrell DeBusk said.
Police also don't think the suspect was ever employed at the hospital.
Cab driver Freddys Sakhleh told The Associated Press that he picked up the suspect outside an apartment building and they made several stops on the way to the hospital, including to an ATM where the gunman got US$20. The man said little about himself, only that he was from Atlanta.
"He looked like, you know, angry, depressed. He was kind of itchy," Sakleh said.
Sakhleh said the man eventually got out of the cab at the hospital, handed the driver the cash and told him to wait five minutes. He came back to the cab, pulled a gun from his waist and starting firing.
"I called 911, and I said, 'Please send some people here, this man is shooting like crazy,'" Sakhleh said. He said the gunman then shot himself in the head.
Sakhleh saw a woman bleeding. "I went berserk," he said.
Photographs of the discharge area, where vehicles can pick up patients, showed a man's body surrounded by police. Yellow crime tape was stretched around the area.
The two women who survived the shooting were taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Their conditions were not released, but the women's families released thanks for prayers and support.
The family of Ariane Reagan Guerin, 26, said they were hearing promising information about her prognosis. The family of Nancy Chancellor, 32, said she was doing well.
The women killed was Rachel Wattenbarger, 40. Her father, Ray Wattenbarger, said she had worked at the hospital for about five or six years, helping discharge the elderly. He said he would remember his daughter's smile.
The gunman's name has not been released.
Police put the hospital on lockdown as SWAT team members searched each floor to make sure no one else involved with the attack had made it inside.
"The hospital is safe and is being reopened with limitations," Owen said.
Witness Charles Billingsley said: "I heard five pistol shots, back to back, and then another and then another."
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