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Mass Shooting by Lone Gunman at Tulsa Hospital Leaves 4 Dead

TULSA (OKLAHOMA) — A gunman carrying a rifle and a handgun killed four people Wednesday at a Tulsa medical building on a hospital campus, police said, the latest in a series of deadly mass shootings across the country in recent weeks.

Eric Dalgleish of the Tulsa Police Department confirms the death toll and says that shooter is also dead. This was apparently due to a self-inflicted shotgun wound.

A spate of violent gun incidents across the nation, including the shooting deaths of 19 school children and two teachers in Texas eight days ago, have led Democratic leaders to call for tighter gun restrictions, while Republicans insist on more security at schools.

It mirrors the political divide that has stopped Congress and state legislatures from taking any action to deal with an alarming number of gun-related death in the U.S.

Continue reading: The ‘Good Guys With Guns’ Keep Failing to Stop Mass Shootings

Dalgleish stated that it was not clear what caused the Tulsa attack.

“It appears both weapons at one point or another were fired on the scene,” Dalgleish said. “The officers who arrived were hearing shots in the building, and that’s what led them to the second floor.”

The dispatchers had received the report at 4.52 p.m. Police responded within three minutes and reached out to the gunman five minutes later, Dalgleish reported.

“I was very happy with what we know so far regarding the response of our officers,” Dalgleish said.

The length of time it took police officers in Uvalde, Texas, to engage the gunman during last week’s deadly shooting at Robb Elementary School has become a key focus of that investigation. It took officers over an hour for them to enter the school where the attacker was hiding.

Police Capt. Richard Meulenberg also said multiple people were wounded and that the medical complex was a “catastrophic scene.” The exact number of wounded was not immediately available.

Officials from the hospital and police said that they weren’t ready to identify those who have died.

St. Francis Health System closed its campus Wednesday afternoon due to the Natalie Medical Building situation. This building is home to an outpatient surgical center as well as a breast clinic. Dalgleish stated that an orthopedic clinic is also located at the second floor, where the officers found the shooter as well as several victims.

“This campus is sacred ground for our community,” said Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum. “For decades, this campus has been a place where heroes come to work every day to save the lives of people in our community.”

Continue reading: These are the victims of the Uvalde School Shooting in Texas

Bynum added: “Right now, my thoughts are with the victims. If we want to have a policy discussion, that is something to be had in the future, but not tonight.”

Philip Tankersley, 27, was leaving his father’s room at nearby Saint Francis Hospital around 5 p.m., when hospital staff said there was an active shooter in the building across the street, locked the doors and warned them to stay away from the windows.

Tankersley said he and his mother sheltered in his father’s hospital room for more than an hour, trying to learn scraps of information from the TV news and passing nurses. He said they heard “code silver” and “level 1 trauma” announced on the hospital speakers and wondered if they were safe in the room.

“I wasn’t particularly worried because the two people that I need to look out for were in that same room as me,” he said. “But it was definitely a ‘this is happening here’ moment.”

A spokesperson stated that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also attended the scene. An elementary school in the area was equipped with a reunification facility that allowed families to locate their loved ones.

A white man is charged with killing 10 Blacks in a racist attack at Buffalo’s supermarket. The Wednesday shooting also occurs just two weeks after the shooting. Multiple mass shootings occurred across the country during Memorial Day Weekend, with one in Taft (Oklahoma), 45 miles away from Tulsa. However, single-death gun incidents were responsible for most of the fatalities.

The Associated Press/USA Today/Northeastern University mass-killing database reports that 12 shootings in January resulted in four to six deaths. The database reports that 76 victims were killed by these shootings. This includes 31 Texas children and adults. The shooting suspects are not included in this death toll.

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