(CNN) At least three people were killed in a shooting Thursday at the Fifth Third Center in Cincinnati's Fountain Square, Cincinnati police Chief Eliot Isaac said.
The suspect is also dead, Isaac said. Two others were injured, he said.
Police finished securing the building just before 11 a.m. ET, the chief said.
The shooting began shortly after 9 a.m. The gunman entered a loading dock and opened fire before going into the lobby of the building, where three or four police officers engaged him, and gunfire was exchanged, Isaac said.
Authorities respond to the scene of Thursday's shooting at Cincinnati's Fountain Square.
"This is not normal, and it shouldn't be viewed as normal. This is abnormal. No other industrialized country has this level of active multiple shootings on a regular basis," Mayor John Cranley said in a news conference. "I think there's something deeply sick at work here."
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A gunman entered a downtown Cincinnati skyscraper through a loading dock Thursday morning and then opened fire in the lobby, killing three people and injuring five others before police officers shot and killed him.
Police said the shooting took place at the beginning of the work day inside the Fifth Third Bank building, a 30-story tower that sits above bustling Fountain Square a few blocks from Great American Ball Park and the riverfront along the Ohio River. Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac called the rampage “very horrific,” though police said the circumstances surrounding the violence and a potential motive are thus far elusive.
“These are things we see happening across the country, and we all have to be vigilant and prepared to deal with these situations,” Isaac said.
The area around the skyscraper was shut down until about 9:15 a.m., and police found victims in and around 511 Walnut Street, including one who was severely wounded and ended up at an ice cream shop steps from the building.
Witnesses said they heard volleys of gunfire and one said that a woman was shot as she entered the bank building’s lobby. There were people screaming “shooter, run, leave,” in Fountain Square, a park that often hosts concerts, dancing, and food trucks.
One witness, Leonard Cain, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he was going inside the bank when someone yelled that he shouldn’t because of the shooting. He said a woman also was walking into the bank at the same time, but she had headphones on and apparently couldn’t hear their warnings.
“She walked in the door and he shot her,” Cain told The Enquirer, saying that he heard up to 15 shots fired.
Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said the gunman appeared to be actively shooting at random when officers confronted him, and he said the officers “were able to kill him and stop the threat.” Police have not yet publicly identified the shooter.
Cranley said the shooting “could have been much, much worse” if not for an immediate police response.
Bank manager Greg Harshfield, who on the 29th floor of the building when the shooting began, said that he heard multiple shots and saw police arrive almost immediately.
“We could see there was a large police presence that seemed to come quickly and could see them blocking Fountain Square,” Harshfield told reporters. “We knew immediately something was wrong. We’re of course rattled.”
Television footage showed bodies being carried out on stretchers and police surrounding the area around the Fifth Third Center skyscraper, which is the bank’s corporate headquarters. Three men and one woman were transported to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, hospital officials said. One has died, two are in critical condition and one is in serious condition. Each had gunshot wounds, officials said.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officials arrived on the scene to sweep the building, ATF spokeswoman Suzanne Dabkowski said.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Cranley said. “This is not normal, and it shouldn’t be viewed as normal. This is abnormal. No other industrialized country has this level of active multiple shooting on a regular basis … I think there’s something deeply sick at work here, and we as a country have got to deal with it.”
Three innocent people were killed and two were injured after a gunman opened fire Thursday morning in the lobby of an office building in downtown Cincinnati, authorities announced.
The suspect, identified only as a male, is also dead. Officers responded to a call for the shooting at 9:10 a.m. and exchanged gunfire with the suspect but it was unclear how he died.
Cincinnati mayor John Cranley said at a press conference that the targets of the shooting — at Fifth Third Bank at 511 Walnut Street — appeared to be random and that “it didn’t appear to be a dispute between people.”
Cranley described the shooting as “a multiple shooting of innocent victims,” saying it was “horrific. Grotesque.”
The victims of the shooting have not been identified. Police Chief Elliot Isaac said police will notify their next of kin before their identifies are announced.
John Minchillo/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Cranley praised the quick response by police, saying officers did “a heroic job.”
“He was actively shooting innocent victims and our officers were able to kill him and stop the threat very quickly,” he said, adding police saved “God knows how many lives.”
A spokeswoman from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center tells PEOPLE that of the four people transported to the hospital, two died, one is in critical condition and one is in serious condition.
John Minchillo/AP/REX/Shutterstock
The shooting follows less than two weeks after a mass shooting in Jacksonville at a video game tournament that killed two, and is the latest latest example of America’s endemic shootings.
It comes about less than two months after a shooting at the Capital Gazette in Maryland killed five people. A month before that, 10 people were killed at Santa Fe High School in Texas. Three months before that, 17 people were fatally shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
Addressing the shootings, Cranley said, “There’s something deeply sick at work here and we as a country have to deal with it.”
Buy Photo Scenes from an active shooter situation downtown on Sept. 6, 2018 (Photo: Anne Saker/The Enquirer)Buy Photo
Multiple people have been shot in what dispatch called an "active shooter" situation in Downtown Cincinnati at the Fountain Square Fifth Third location. We have several reporters at the scene. Follow their tweets and live video here.
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