An unidentified assailant opened fire yesterday at a warehouse complex north of Baltimore, killing and wounding multiple people in the latest US mass shooting, authorities said.
There were reports that the incident was a rare mass shooting by a woman, but police would not confirm the gender of the attacker, merely reporting that they were in a critical condition at a local hospital.
An NBC reporter, Pete Williams, said sources told him the shooter was a woman.
A law enforcement source told Reuters that officials believe the suspect had a work-related grievance.
“I can confirm multiple wounded and multiple fatalities,” Jeffrey Gahler, the sheriff of Harford County, Maryland, told reporters.
US media said that three people were killed and two others wounded in the incident, which unfolded around 9am (1300 GMT) at a distribution centre for the Rite Aid drugstore chain in Perryman.
The Rite Aid centre sits among a number of warehouses.
The facility has nearly 1,000 employees, company spokesman Pete Strella said, and processes products, including pharmaceuticals, for delivery to more than 2,500 stores.
The shooting took place a few miles from the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a large Army facility where military technology is developed and tested, according to Harford County’s website.
Governor Larry Hogan said his office was “closely monitoring the horrific shooting”.
“Our prayers are with all those impacted, including our first responders,” Hogan wrote on Twitter. “The State stands ready to offer any support.”
Agents from the Baltimore offices of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also responded, the agencies said.
Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital spokesman Raymond Fang said four adults had been brought in with gunshot wounds, according to local station WBAL-TV.
Other victims were taken to Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, it said.
“The lone suspect in this incident is in custody and in critical condition at a local hospital,” Gahler said.
He said the assailant was apparently armed with a single handgun “and no shots (were) fired by any officers responding to the scene” – most likely indicating that the shooter’s injuries were self-inflicted.
“We do not believe there is an additional threat anywhere to the Harford County community,” Gahler added.
Police, firefighters and other emergency responders arrived within minutes of receiving a call at 9.06am.
“We got completely bombarded by – I’m not exaggerating – 20-30 cops, and then ambulances and everything started pouring in,” one man told WBAL-TV. “At that point, they blocked us in and we tried to turn around. They’re telling us that there is an active shooter.”
David Graf, a local businessman, said police “have the whole area blocked off. We’ve not been able to get in or out.
“We have our businesses locked down, so we’re closed. There’s not any way to get out of the area.”
Deadly shootings are common in the United States, where the right to bear arms is protected by the US constitution.
The incident is the latest in an epidemic of gun violence that has struck schools and workplaces almost at random across the United States.
Attacks by women are extremely rare, however, accounting for less than 5% of the total, according to law enforcement officials and academics.
The shooting occurred a day after a man shot and wounded four people, including a police officer, at a Pennsylvania court building before he was killed by police, according to Pennsylvania State Police.
And five months before, an Iran-born female animal rights activist gunned down three people before killing herself at YouTube’s California headquarters.
Maryland made grim headlines in June when five employees of Capital-Gazette newspapers died after a gunman stormed their Annapolis office.
The man that police say is responsible had harassed the newspapers’ employees for years over an article about criminal stalking charges against him, the Baltimore Sun reported.
Police officers block off roads after an unidentified assailant opened fire at a warehouse complex north of Aberdeen, Maryland.
