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Pence pays tribute to fallen and heroes from Texas massacre

By Jon Herskovitz

FLORESVILLE, Texas (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traveled on Wednesday to rural southeastern Texas, where he paid tribute to the victims and heroes from a church massacre that stands as the deadliest gun violence ever committed in a U.S. place of worship.

Pence and his wife, Karen, were welcomed with cheers and applause from as many as 2,000 people who filled half of a high school football stadium in Floresville, Texas, for the prayer vigil, about 13 miles from the scene of Sunday’s carnage in the town of Sutherland Springs.

“We gather tonight to offer our deepest condolences, and I offer the condolences of the American people to all those affected by the horrific attack that took place just three days ago,” Pence told the crowd.

The vice president was joined by a group of dignitaries that included Governor Greg Abbott, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

Pence was called upon to fill the role of America’s “consoler-in-chief” in the absence of President Donald Trump, who has been out of the country on a state visit to Asia since before the shooting rampage.

“President Trump wanted to come to Texas tonight to tell all of you, ‘We are with you, the American people are with you,’ and as the president said Sunday from halfway around the world, ‘we will never leave your side,'” Pence said to rousing applause.

Earlier, he met with wounded survivors and family members of the victims. Authorities have put the death toll at 26, including the unborn child of a pregnant woman who was among those killed. The number of children slain at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs otherwise stood at eight.

“Whatever animated the evil that descended on that church last Sunday, if the attacker’s desire was to silence their testimony of faith, he failed,” Pence said to cheers.

The killer, Devin Kelley, 26, dressed in black and wearing a human-skull mask, stormed into the church sanctuary and opened fire on worshipers with a semi-automatic assault rifle.

Kelley himself was shot twice by another man, Stephen Willeford, who lived nearby and confronted the assailant with his own rifle when the gunman emerged from the church.

Kelley managed to flee the scene in a getaway vehicle but shot himself to death and crashed in a ditch as Willeford and a passing motorist who was flagged down outside the church, Johnnie Langendorff, gave chase in Langendorff’s pickup truck.

Pence saluted the police, emergency personnel and doctors who had tended to the wounded, as well as the bravery of “those Texas heroes” – Willeford and Langendorff – who “pursued the attacker in a high-speed chase and saved the lives of Americans as a result.” Pence said he had met Willeford and Langendorff before Wednesday’s memorial service.

Preceding Pence to the microphone, Governor Abbott also praised Willeford, drawing a standing ovation when he declared, “Thank God there was a neighbor who helped save lives on that day.”

The comments from both politicians were enthusiastically received by the crowd.

“It was beyond good. People were hungry for what they were saying,” Beverly Perez, a retiree from nearby Adkins, Texas. “The community is rallying around those who are hurting. We hurt with them.”

No mention by name was made of Kelley, a former Air Force Airman who was convicted by court-martial and served a year in military detention for assaulting his first wife and infant step-son in 2012. Police records show he also escaped briefly from a mental hospital in New Mexico while facing those charges.

Authorities have said Kelley was more recently embroiled in a domestic dispute involving the parents of his second wife and threatening messages he had sent to his mother-in-law.

One of the women killed at the church, Lula Woicinski White, 71, was reported to be the gunman’s grandmother-in-law.

Reflecting lingering tensions in the aftermath of Sunday’s rampage, police were called to a park in Floresville about 2 1/2 hours before the prayer vigil by an unconfirmed report of a man with a gun. But a search of the park and adjacent cemetery by about 15 officers turned found no sign of an actual threat.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sam Holmes)

A Texas school is devastated by church shooting

By Lisa Maria Garza and Jon Herskovitz

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – It was heartbreaking for Jennifer Berrones to explain to her 7-year-old daughter Kaylee that her friend and classmate Emily was not coming back to school after Sunday’s church massacre in rural Texas.

“At first my daughter didn’t understand what had happened. She asked me if Emily was sleeping and I had to tell her that she was never going to wake up,” said Berrones, 36, an assistant at Floresville South Elementary School where her daughter and Emily Garcia were in second grade. “I told my daughter that Emily is now with God in heaven.”

Floresville is about 11 miles (18 km) southwest of the small town of Sutherland Springs, where Devin Kelley opened fire on a Baptist congregation on Sunday, killing 26 people and wounding 20 in Texas’ deadliest mass shooting. Nine of the dead were children, including one unborn, Texas officials said on Wednesday.

Many of Sutherland Springs’ children go to school in Floresville, and no school was harder hit than Floresville South Elementary, which lost two students and had three wounded, according to Floresville’s school superintendent.

On the school’s Facebook page, smiling students wearing black T-shirts saying “Strength through Hope” in comic-book script put on defiant superhero poses next to their teachers.

But inside the school the mood has been grim.

“The first few days were rough. Teachers, students and the principal were crying,” Berrones said on Wednesday.

Schools have brought in counselors to help children and staff deal with the grief and trauma. Some students like Alison Gould, 17, have been unable to face going back to school.

“I have been taking it really hard. I am trying to get this sunk in. It is really hard to think that your best friend is gone,” said Gould, after her friend Haley Krueger, 16, was killed.

Floresville High School hosted a memorial service on Wednesday evening for the victims attended by Vice President Mike Pence.

It was part of a long and painful healing process for a group of tightly knit rural communities about 40 miles (64 km)southeast of San Antonio.

Sutherland Springs lost about 5 percent of its population of 400. The town’s children go to school in nearby communities.

The official release of the names of the dead on Wednesday changed rumors to facts and brought more pain, residents said.

“We may need more grief counselors,” Stockdale Independent School District Superintendent Daniel Fuller said.

Mary Beth Fisk, chief executive of the San Antonio-based Ecumenical Center, has brought about 20 counselors to Sutherland Springs.

“It will be a long process of recovery. Often people take one step forward and three steps back,” Fisk said.

Sandy Phillips knows that process. Her daughter Jessica was one of 12 people killed when a gunman opened fire in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, on July 20, 2012.

Phillips set up a support group for survivors of mass shootings and plans to visit Sutherland Springs next week to help families.

“What they don’t understand is that their whole community has been damaged and traumatized,” said Phillips, who traveled to Las Vegas and Orlando in the wake of mass shootings in those cities.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Garza; Additional reporting by Andrew Hay; Writing by Andrew Hay; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Grant McCool)

Texas church gunman escaped mental facility in 2012 while facing court-martial

By Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Maria Garza

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – The former U.S. serviceman who committed the deadliest mass shooting on record in Texas escaped from a mental hospital in 2012 as he faced court-martial on domestic violence charges for which he was later convicted, a police report revealed on Tuesday.

The report also disclosed that police who were alerted to Devin Kelley’s escape were advised that he posed a “danger to himself and others” after being “caught sneaking firearms” onto the U.S. Air Force base in New Mexico where he was stationed.

The person who reported the escape, according to the report, further warned that Kelley, then aged 21, had been “attempting to carry out death threats” against his military commanders and “suffered from mental disorders.”

He was apprehended without incident at an El Paso, Texas, bus station shortly after he had run off, according to a police report filed in that city.

Kelley’s troubled Air Force background has been a focus of investigators in the tiny Texas town of Sutherland Springs since he stormed into a church there on Sunday with a semi-automatic assault rifle and opened fire on worshipers.

Authorities have said 26 people were killed in the assault, including the unborn child of a pregnant woman who was among the dead. Another 20 people were wounded, half of them still listed in critical condition as of Tuesday.

Officials said Kelley, 26, killed himself during a failed getaway attempt after he was wounded by an armed civilian who tried to stop him. Two handguns belonging to the killer also were recovered.

A major sporting goods dealer in San Antonio later confirmed that Kelley twice passed a required criminal background check when he bought guns there during the past year, despite having a criminal record that should have prevented those purchases.

Kelley was found guilty by court-martial in 2012 of assaulting his first wife and a stepson while serving at Holloman Air Force Base, where he was assigned to a logistics readiness unit, the Pentagon reported on Monday.

But the Air Force also acknowledged it inexplicably failed to enter his conviction into a government database that all licensed firearms dealers are required to use to screen prospective gun buyers for their criminal history.

Federal law prohibits anyone from selling a gun to someone who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence against a spouse or child.

On Capitol Hill, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas, called the failure to transmit Kelley’s record into the National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) system an “appalling” lapse.

The Air Force has opened an inquiry into the matter, and the U.S. Defense Department has requested a review by its inspector general to ensure other criminal cases have been reported correctly, Pentagon officials said.

Two U.S. senators, Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democratic Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, said they planned to co-sponsor legislation aimed at ensuring that anyone convicted of domestic violence, whether in civilian or military court, would be blocked from legally purchasing a gun.

Firearms experts said the case involving Kelley, who spent a year in military detention before his bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force in 2014, exposed a previously unnoticed weak link in the system of background checks.

BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS AS STUDENT

Texas public school records also showed Kelley had numerous behavior problems as a student, including nine suspensions for such issues as drugs, insubordination, profanity, skipping classes and dishonesty between sixth grade and high school graduation.

His private adult life appears to have likewise been marked by turbulence.

After divorcing the woman he was convicted of assaulting, Kelley remarried in 2014, but authorities have said he became embroiled in some unspecified domestic dispute with her parents that involved him sending threatening text messages to his mother-in-law.

Kelley’s in-laws occasionally attended services at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs but were not there when he attacked worshipers during Sunday prayers, authorities said.

“We have some indication of what the conflict was between the family,” Freeman Martin, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a Tuesday news conference. It was not clear what role, if any, the dispute played as a motivating factor in Sunday’s violence.

Kelley’s cell phone was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab at Quantico, Virginia, but specialists were not immediately able to gain electronic access to the device, said Christopher Combs, the FBI’s special agent in charge in San Antonio.

The massacre, which ranked as the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in Texas history, and one of the five most lethal ever in the United States, rekindled an ongoing debate over gun ownership, which is protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Guns are part of the fabric of life in rural areas.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters he believed stricter reviews of gun purchases would not have stopped Sunday’s rampage.

“There would have been no difference,” Trump said during a visit to South Korea. He added that stricter gun laws might have prevented the man who shot Kelley from acting as he did. “You would have had hundreds more dead.”

(Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in New York, Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Idrees Ali traveling with U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis; Writing by Scott Malone and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Shumaker)

Lapse in background check database allowed Texan church gunman to buy weapons: Pentagon

By Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Maria Garza

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – The man who committed the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history was able to buy guns legally from a sporting goods store because a prior domestic violence conviction was never entered into an FBI database used in background checks, officials said.

Devin Kelley, the gunman in Sunday’s massacre at a church in rural southeastern Texas, was found guilty by court-martial of assaulting his first wife and a stepson while assigned to a U.S. Air Force logistics readiness unit in 2012, the Pentagon disclosed on Monday.

The Air Force also acknowledged that it had failed to transmit information about Kelley’s conviction to the National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) system, a U.S. government data bank used by licensed firearms dealers to check prospective gun buyers for criminal backgrounds.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Freeman Martin put the number of victims killed in the attack at 26, including the unborn child of a pregnant woman who died. The dead otherwise ranged in age from 18 months to 77 years.

Twenty others were wounded, 10 of whom remained in critical condition late on Monday, officials said.

Two handguns were found in Kelley’s getaway vehicle, where he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after a failed attempt to flee from the scene of Sunday’s shootings, Martin told a news conference on Monday night.

The Air Force opened an inquiry into how it handled the former airman’s criminal record, and the U.S. Defense Department has requested a review by its inspector general to ensure that other cases “have been reported correctly,” Pentagon officials said.

Firearms experts said the case involving Kelley, 26, who spent a year in military detention before his bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force in 2014, had exposed a previously unnoticed weak link in the system of background checks.

It is illegal under federal law to sell a gun to someone who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence against a spouse or child.

A sporting goods retail outlet said Kelley passed background checks when he bought a gun in 2016 and a second firearm this year.

Neither the NCIC nor two related databases contained any information that would have barred Kelley from legally buying any of three weapons police recovered from their investigation of the slayings, said Christopher Combs, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in San Antonio.

Mass shooting at Texas church – http://tmsnrt.rs/2lZg61c

‘TEXAS HERO’

Police said Kelley stormed into the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, dressed in black and wearing a human-skull mask, and opened fire on worshippers with a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic rifle.

Kelley was shot twice – in the leg and torso – by another man, Stephen Willeford, who lived nearby and confronted Kelley with his own rifle as the gunman emerged from the church.

Kelley managed to flee in a sport utility vehicle as Willeford waved down a passing motorist, Johnnie Langendorff. The two then gave chase in Langendorff’s pickup truck until Kelley’s vehicle crashed in a ditch.

Martin later hailed Willeford as “our Texas hero,” crediting him with preventing further carnage in Sunday’s rampage, which ranks as the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in the state and one of the five most lethal in modern U.S. history.

Authorities also said Kelley had been involved in a domestic dispute of some kind with the parents of his second wife, whom he married in 2014, and had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law before the shooting.

Although his in-laws were known to occasionally attend services at the church Kelley attacked, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt said family members were not present on Sunday.

The attack stunned Sutherland Springs, a community of about 400 people. One family, the Holcombes, lost eight members from three generations in the attack, including Bryan Holcombe, an assistant pastor who was leading the service, a relative said.

The first shots came through the windows of the church, according to an account related to CNN by the son of one of the survivors, 73-year-old Farida Brown, who was shot in both legs. The assailant then stalked inside and sprayed the pews with gunfire, walking up and down the aisles targeting people even as they ran for cover or lay on the floor.

Farida Brown was in the last pew, beside a woman who was shot multiple times, her son, David Brown, said.

“She was pretty certain she was next, and her life was about to end. Then somebody with a gun showed up at the front of the church, caught the shooter’s attention. He left and that was the end of the ordeal,” David Brown told CNN.

Martin said investigators found hundreds of spent shell casings inside the church after the shooting, as well as 15 empty 30-round ammunition magazines.

Major shootings in the U.S. – http://tmsnrt.rs/2AgtU9E

(Additional reporting by Jane Ross in Sutherland Springs, Texas; Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and Peter Szekely in New York; Writing by Scott Malone and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Lisa Shumaker and Paul Tait)

Colorado man charged with murder in suburban Denver Walmart shooting

By Keith Coffman

BRIGHTON, Colo. (Reuters) – A Colorado man who prosecutors say walked into a Walmart store in a Denver suburb and opened fire seemingly at random, killing three people, was charged on Monday with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.

Scott Ostrem, 47, was told during a brief hearing in Adams County District Court in Brighton that he had been charged with six counts of murder and 30 counts of attempted murder.

The six murder counts include two for each slain victim, under different legal theories.

No one else was wounded in the attack, but prosecutors said the attempted murder charges referred to other people in the store who could have been struck by gunfire.

The charges could make Ostrem eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted. Adams County District Attorney Dave Young told reporters outside court that he had not decided whether to seek it.

“The (victims’) families will certainly be a part of that determination,” Young said, adding that additional charges could be filed in the case.

The defendant, who was shackled and dressed in yellow and white jail garb, gave one-word answers to the judge. He did not enter a plea.

Police said they had yet to establish a motive for the rampage last Wednesday, which took place amid a string of U.S. mass shootings that have renewed calls for restrictions on gun ownership.

Early accounts of multiple casualties also revived painful memories for the Denver area.

In 2012, a gunman killed 12 people at a midnight screening of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” at a theater in the suburb of Aurora. The shooter, James Holmes, is serving a dozen consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

In 1999, two high school seniors fatally shot 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in suburban Jefferson County. The pair, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, then committed suicide in the campus library.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

Church Shooting in Texas kills 26, injures 20, Victims from age 5 to 72, suspect is dead

FBI officials arrive at the site of a mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017, in this picture obtained via social media

By Kami Klein

On this quiet Autumn morning in Sutherland Springs, Texas, worshipers at the First Baptist Church, whose members spanned generations, were gathered together for their Sunday morning worship service. This is the kind of church that many were raised in and then brought up their own children, the kind of church where everyone was family. At approximately, 11:30 am a young man in his twenties burst through the doors and immediately began firing indiscriminately. After pausing to reload, the gunman continued to spray the church hitting men, women and children as they frantically tried to escape. The evil continued leaving 26 dead and at least 20 wounded. The victims ranging in age from 5 to 72. Because of the seriousness of the injuries, the sheriff’s office has said that the death toll could rise. Some of the church members did escape although that amount has not yet been released. Witnesses are currently being questioned.

Police were notified by a phone call when the suspect had exited his vehicle at a gas station close to the church wearing all black tactical clothing gear and a ballistic vest. The suspect began shooting at the church before entering and continued to fire. Bullets flew as he exited the building where a neighbor engaged in gunfire with the shooter. A car chase ensued, ending in a crash where the death of the suspect was confirmed. It is not known if the shooter committed suicide or was injured by the shoot out in front of the church.

The name of the suspect has not yet been released while federal, state and local authorities sift through the crime scenes.

The devastated community of Sutherland Springs located 40 miles Southeast of San Antonio with a little more than 800 residents and surrounding small Texas towns, rushed to gather at the community center just down the street from this horrible attack. These people are neighbors, family, friends and coworkers. Other area churches emptied and prayer vigils began in an attempt to give some peace and comfort for those suffering from the shock and pain of this tragedy. Answers have come slowly and has been agony for those waiting.

More information will be released after next of kin of those killed have been informed and allow family members to arrange to travel to San Antonio to those that are injured. The Texas police, Governor Abbott and the Federal authorities ask that the media respect all of those involved while they continue to search for answers.

Manhunt shifts for gunman who killed one on Utah campus

By Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – Hundreds of police officers poured into a canyon near the University of Utah’s Salt Lake City campus on Tuesday in a search for a gunman suspected of killing a student during a carjacking attempt.

The search shifted from the campus to Red Butte Canyon, a research area on the east side of the school, where classes were canceled on Tuesday following the shooting on Monday night, authorities said.

An overnight “secure-in-place” alert for the entire campus was lifted early on Tuesday.

University of Utah Police Chief Dale Brophy said the suspect, identified as Austin Boutain, 24, had assaulted his wife while camping in the canyon, which is used for research and has a public botanical garden, arboretum and hiking trails.

Brophy said Boutain then tried to hijack a car, fatally shooting ChenWei Guo, a pre-computer science student from China.

“ChenWei was parked near the gate in Red Butte Canyon when the suspect fatally shot him while attempting to hijack his vehicle,” University President David Pershing said in a statement.

Salt Lake City Police Detective Greg Wilking said the gunman did not take the car and fled on foot from the scene, just a few miles from downtown Salt Lake City.

Guo worked as a peer adviser in the International Student and Scholar Services Office, Pershing said. In his profile on WayUp, a social media site, Guo said he worked as an interpreter and technology supporter at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City.

The FBI and more than 200 law enforcement officers joined the hunt for Boutain, who police believe fled into the Wasatch Mountains, where Red Butte Canyon is located, and was “considered armed and dangerous,” Brophy said.

“We want to be sure we check all the nooks and crannies, anywhere this person might be hiding,” Brophy said. “We will continue our search until we are confident he’s not in the mountains or we find Mr. Boutain.”

Brophy declined to give more information about the suspect, including whether he was a student or where he lives.

Boutain’s wife approached campus police at about 8:15 p.m. on Monday to report being assaulted by her husband, Brophy said. She later was treated and was released, he said.

Shortly thereafter, police received reports of shots fired.

Commuter train services were suspended near the school, local media reported.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Angela Moon in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bill Trott)

Several people killed by vehicle on New York City bike path

By Gina Cherelus and Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Several people were killed and numerous others injured in New York City on Tuesday afternoon after a vehicle drove down a bike path that runs alongside the Hudson River in Manhattan, police said.

The New York City Police Department, in a post on Twitter, said that one vehicle struck another, then the driver of one of the vehicles “got out displaying imitation firearms and was shot by police.”

Police said the suspect was taken into custody.

A police spokesman posted a photo showing a white pickup truck on the bike path with its front end smashed. The truck had the logo of the Home Depot hardware store chain on its door.

An witness told ABC Channel 7 that he saw a white pick-up truck drive south down the bike path alongside the West Side Highway at full speed and hit several people. The witness, who was identified only as Eugene, said bodies were lying outside Stuyvesant High School, one of the city’s elite public schools.

He also reported hearing about nine or 10 shots, but was not sure where they came from.

A video apparently filmed at the scene and circulated online showed scattered bikes on the bike path and two people lying on the ground.

City Hall said Mayor Bill de Blasio had been briefed about the incident. The office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the governor was heading to the scene.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen, Anna Driver, Dan Trotta and Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Two fatally shot at Louisiana’s Grambling State University

(Reuters) – Two men were shot and killed at Grambling State University in Louisiana, and police searched on Wednesday for the assailant who fled the scene, school and law enforcement officials said.

A student, Earl Andrews, 23, and Monquiarious Caldwell, 23, who was not enrolled at the university, were fatally shot during an altercation in a campus courtyard shortly after midnight Wednesday, the officials said.

The shooting came after an argument in a dormitory room, said Major Chad Alexander of the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Department, the agency investigating the incident.

Grambling spokesman Will Sutton said in an email, “Our prayers go out to the victims and their families. Violence has no place on our campus.”

Classes were scheduled on Wednesday, Sutton said.

“It is homecoming week, a normally joyful time,” he said. “We would never have anticipated anything like this. It’s such senseless violence.”

Both of the shooting victims were from Farmerville, Louisiana, Sutton said.

Grambling State University is a historically black college attended by about 4,800 students in Grambling in northern Louisiana.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Suspect in Maryland shooting that killed three arrested in Delaware

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – An employee of a Maryland kitchen countertop company suspected of fatally shooting three co-workers and critically wounding two others on Wednesday was arrested in neighboring Delaware, a Maryland county sheriff said.

The suspected gunman, Radee Prince, 37, was apprehended by U.S. agents and others, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office said on Twitter, without providing further details. Prince was also being sought for a shooting in Delaware that took place after the Maryland shooting.

Prince entered Advanced Granite Solutions in Edgewood, Maryland, just before 9 a.m. and fired multiple shots from a handgun, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told reporters.

Three people died at the company’s premises in a business park northeast of Baltimore. Two people were taken to a hospital, one of whom had come out of surgery, he said.

Those killed were identified as Jose Romero, 34; Enis Mrvoljak; and Bayarsaikhan Tudev, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Two other people shot in the attack were in critical condition at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, it said.

Gahler called the shooting a “targeted attack.” Asked about the gunman’s possible motive, he said: “We believe he’s tied into a relationship here at work.”

Prince had worked for Advanced Granite Solutions for the past four months and had been scheduled to work on Wednesday, the sheriff said. The suspect fled in a black GMC Acadia with Delaware license plates.

Police in Wilmington, Delaware, about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Edgewood, said Prince was also being sought for a shooting there at 10:46 a.m. that injured a man.

Wilmington police spokeswoman Stephanie Castellani said the victim identified the shooter as Prince, who fled in the same vehicle. Prince had been arrested 42 times in Delaware and had 15 felony convictions, she said.

“He is a dangerous individual,” said Castellani, adding that the motive was not yet known but that Prince was associated with all six victims. “We do not know if there is a beef going on between the victims and the suspect.”

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Chris Kenning in Chicago, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas and Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney)

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