Three people, including the suspected gunman, were killed Sunday night after an attack on a supermarket in central Oregon, police said.
Officers were sent to the Safeway in the Forum Shopping Center shortly after 7 p.m. after receiving reports of gunfire, Bend police said in a statement.
According to police, the gunman fired an AR-15-style rifle and started the attack in the store’s parking lot before going inside.
Customer Glenn Edward Bennett, 84, was shot at the entrance, the police said Monday. Doctors took the victim to a hospital, but the person was pronounced dead, police said.
An employee, 66-year-old Donald Ray Surrett Jr., was fatally injured when he tried to disarm the gunman, police said Monday.
“Police believe the gunman continued shooting through the store, shooting and killing another person,” the department said.
Dexter Chamberlin said he was checking out the Safeway when he heard gunshots.
“We started running out of the emergency exit at the back and telling other people to do the same,” he said. “We ran to a nearby apartment complex and hid behind a building with about a dozen other people.”
It was not immediately clear how the suspected gunman, who was identified only as a man, died, but police said they did not open fire during their response.
Earlier, a spokesperson for the St. Charles Bend Medical Center said the facility had received one patient from the attack who was dead on arrival. Another patient would be in good condition.
Authorities later announced that three people, including the suspected gunman, had died in a… tweet around 9:15 PM local time Sunday (12:15 PM ET Monday).
At a news conference Sunday night, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said police were working on a “very large crime scene” in the ongoing investigation into the attack.
He said police were doing everything they could to follow up on potential leads and that they were “aware of other information circulating on social media” about the suspected gunman. He also said police were aware of reports of other possible shootings in the city, but had found no evidence of additional incidents.
“We know this is a scary thing for our community and something that we would never want to happen in our city,” he said.
sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., offered his condolences to the families of the victims in a… tweet late Sunday when he called on Americans to “come together” to end gun violence in the US
“My heart breaks for the families of the victims and the many people whose Sunday night grocery shopping in Bend turned into a terrifying run for their lives,” Merkley said.
“This doesn’t have to happen. It’s not normal in any other country,” he said. “High-power assault rifles with high-capacity magazines, combined with personal grievances and often a culture of hatred, create a poisonous stew that leaves good people, innocent people dead, maimed and traumatized.”
“We need to come together — Democrats and Republicans, urban and rural, black and white and brown and Asian-American and Native American, and including the many responsible gun owners — and end this madness,” Merkley said.
Gemma DiCasimirro, Cristian Santana, Colin Sheeley and Chantal Da Silva contributed.