DENVER: A gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, killing 10 people including a police officer, before being arrested, marking the second deadly US mass shooting in less than a week.
Police gave few immediate details of the shooting and no known motive for the violence, which unfolded at about 3PM at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, a north-central Colorado city at the eastern foot of the Rockies, about 28 miles (45 km) northwest of Denver.
Frantic shoppers and employees fled for cover through the supermarket as law enforcement officers swarmed the scene, located about 2 miles from the University of Colorado’s flagship campus.
The bloodshed came less than a week after gun violence last Tuesday that left eight people dead, including six Asian women, at three spas in and around Atlanta. A 21-year-old man has been charged with those killings.
Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold said 10 people perished in the attack at King Soopers grocery. Among them was 51-year-old policeman Eric Talley, an 11-year veteran of the Boulder police force, who she said was the first officer at the scene.
Police said the suspected gunman was believed to be the only individual with serious injuries who survived the bloodshed. He was not publicly identified. Video footage from the scene broadcast earlier by television stations showed a shirtless, bearded man in boxer shorts being led away from the store in handcuffs before he was placed on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance.
Authorities gave few details about how the shooting unfolded. Commander Kerry Yamaguchi of the Boulder Police Department told reporters several hours after the fact that investigators were just starting to process the crime scene.
The Table Mesa area of Boulder where the shooting occurred is home to a residential neighborhood and the hilltop laboratory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Police declined to say what kind of weapon was used, but local media reported that initial 911-emergency calls described the suspect’s firearms as a “patrol rifle.”
