Birmingham, Alabama — Following the tragic massacre in Newtown, Connecticut that took the lives of 20 elementary school children and six adults, plus the gunman and his mother, an attempted violent rampage was foiled at a hospital in Alabama early Saturday morning when a police officer shot the gunman dead.
According to reports, at 4 a.m. Saturday, Birmingham police were notified of an armed man walking the halls of St. Vincent’s Hospital. The hospital had put out a “code silver” warning to notify employees that there was danger inside of the building.
When officers arrived, they stated that they found 38-year-old Jason Letts on the fifth floor, shooting at them and others as they came off the elevator. At the time, a number of cardiac patients were resting in their hospital beds on the floor, and several staff members were walking about.
As police converged on the area, Letts shot and wounded one of the officers. A second police officer then turned the corner and fired upon the gunman, killing him.
The Birmingham Police Department states that it plans to review hospital surveillance footage to better understand what took place Saturday morning. Police Chief A.C. Roper issued a statement following the incident, remarking, “In light of the recent mass shooting in Connecticut, too many of these incidents end with unimaginable tragedy.”
A spokesperson for St. Vincent’s Hospital outlined that employees are trained in how to react should such a catastrophe take place.
Two civilians were injured during the shooting, but their wounds are not believed to be life-threatening. Their names have not yet been released.
Just 75 miles away, another shooting took place on Saturday morning as shots rang out at a mobile home park in Heflin. Police arrived to find three people dead in one of the trailers. A young child less than two years of age was also discovered wounded and was transported to a local hospital.
The unnamed suspect then led police on a chase, where he crashed his car on a busy highway, shooting at police as he exited the vehicle.
Police state that the man then carjacked another vehicle and took off down the road again, where he eventually crashed and was shot dead by police as he reached for the assault weapon inside the car.
Meanwhile, leaders of St. Rose of Lima in Newtown, Connecticut, one of the vigil sites for the victims of Friday’s deadly rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, phoned police around noon today after they received a bomb threat from an unknown caller. The facility was evacuated until police gave the o.k. this afternoon shortly after 1 p.m..
Reports state that Adam Lanza, the gunman in Friday’s massacre, and his mother attended St. Rose of Lima.
There was also a major scare at a mall in Newport Beach, California today as a man fired at least fifty shots outside of the Fashion Island Mall. No one was hurt in the incident, and bike police took into custody 42-year-old Marcos Sarinana Gurrola of Garden Grove.
“I saw a bunch of people coming and I thought it was a flash mob,” shopper Robert Escatel told station KTLA. “Then [people began] screaming ‘Shooting at Macy’s! Shooting at Macy’s!’ and I was really scared. I’ve never been in a crisis this big before.”
The mall went into lockdown for a time until it felt safe to reopen its doors.
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