Two people were seriously injured in a rampage in an industrial park in Frederick, Maryland on Tuesday before the suspect was fatally shot at a nearby military facility, police said.
The suspect, identified as a 38-year-old Navy medic, stepped into a store in Riverside Tech Park and some people fled, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether the shootings were inside or outside the store, Police Chief Jason Lando said.
The suspect then drove to Fort Detrick, about four miles from the scene, Lando said.
“The Fort Detrick police have neutralized an active shooting situation with an armed shooter and initiated medical rescue measures,” said the army installation on its Twitter feed. “The shooter was pronounced dead at the scene.”
The Navy described that the shooter was a corpsman from the Navy Hospital. Fort Detrick is home to the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, and a National Cancer Institute campus.
Lando, who became boss a month ago, said the victims were flown to a shock trauma center in Baltimore. He said there was only one shooter and “the public is no longer at risk. Everyone is safe.”
The shooting comes after a series of deadly shootings across the country in recent weeks, including a rampage last week in a California office building that killed four people.
“It’s very tragic and happens too often,” said Lando. “Every time we turn on the television, we see it happen. And now it’s happening in our back yard.”
Jeremy Mutschler, director of marketing for Nicolock Paving Stones, said filming apparently took place near the company’s Frederick location, but not at the company itself.
“One of the wounded victims came into our facility to seek help and we were able to assist and phone the authorities,” the New York-based Mutschler told the Associated Press.
The Maryland State Police also responded, and the Baltimore Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Bureau said its agents and a K-9 team were on site in what ATF called a “critical incident”.
Governor Larry Hogan has been briefed on the situation, his office said.
The police had previously published on social media that officials were “on the scene of an active shooter. The suspect is on the ground. There are two victims of unknown status.”
Frederick Community College briefly went on lockdown tweeted that “this is not an exercise”. But later the college said students and staff could get back to normal: “The incident has been contained. There is no threat on the FCC campus. ALL CLEAR.”
Some public schools in Frederick County have also been temporarily closed “because of police activities in the area,” the administration said. “All students and staff are safe. The lockout has been lifted.”
Frederick is a city of about 70,000 residents about 50 miles northwest of Washington, DC