By Leah Douglas and Jana Winter
WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (Reuters) – A gunman killed one person and wounded four others in a busy Washington, DC, neighborhood on Thursday morning before barricading himself in his apartment and eventually taking his own life following a standoff, according to city officials and a law enforcement official.
The attack began just before 8 a.m. ET (1300 GMT) at a gym in the Logan Circle neighborhood, about a mile (1.6 km) northeast of the White House.
The first officers arrived at the scene within 30 seconds of the initial call and discovered at least one victim, Metropolitan Police interim Chief JW Carroll told a news conference.
While clearing a nearby residential building, police encountered gunfire coming from the seventh floor, where the suspect had holed up in his own apartment, Carroll said.
Police negotiators spoke with the suspect via phone, but when they heard a gunshot, forced their way into the apartment and found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a law enforcement official told Reuters.
Police have not identified a motive. The suspect complained about his building’s homeowners association while speaking with the negotiators, the official told Reuters.
One of the four wounded people was in critical condition, Carroll said. Police did not identify either the suspect or the deceased victim.
The standoff brought the normally bustling neighborhood to a standstill, as large numbers of officers in tactical gear and dozens of emergency vehicles flooded the area, shutting down streets and stationing police with rifles on rooftops.
One person who said he witnessed the incident told Reuters he heard gunshots and saw one man run to another who had apparently been struck by a bullet.
“Blood was pouring immediately, and he said, ‘He’s dead,'” the witness said. “We didn’t know if the gunman was still on the premises, so we just ran frantically.”
He said he heard more gunshots after running away from the gym.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser praised the swift law enforcement response to what she described as a “senseless act of gun violence,” and said the White House had been briefed.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas and Jana Winter in Washington; Additional reporting by Jonathan Ernst, Susan Heavey and Katharine Jackson; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Chizu Nomiyama)
