A man armed with a rifle and handgun has opened fire inside a medical building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing four people before taking his own life, according to police, in what is the latest in a series of mass shootings in the United States.
Tulsa Deputy Chief Eric Dalgleish confirmed the death toll during a press conference on Wednesday evening (local time).
"Right now we have four civilians [who] are dead," he said.
"We have one shooter that is dead, and right now we believe that [was] self-inflicted."
He said he believed the victims included employees and patients.
The police had previously reported that three victims had been killed
Earlier, Tulsa police Captain Richard Meulenberg said it was a "catastrophic scene".
"One died after leaving the scene to try to get medical aid," he said.
Captain Meulenberg said police received a call about a man with a rifle on the second floor of a building on the medical campus and that "it turned into an active shooter situation".
He said that, by the time officers arrived on the scene, "they found a few people have been shot, a couple were dead at that point".
"We also found who we believed to be the shooter, and still believe to be the shooter, because he had a long rifle and a pistol with him," Captain Meulenberg added.
Deputy Chief Dalgleish said officers arrived on the scene three minutes after receiving a call about the shooting and made contact with the victims and the suspect five minutes later.
Police responses have come under increased scrutiny after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in an Ulvade, Texas, school classroom last week while officers waited outside for nearly an hour.
Asked by reporters whether police had refreshed training or thinking about active shooters after the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, Deputy Chief Dalgleish said: "I think that's probably fresh on everyone's minds."
"I will say Tulsa revisits that topic regularly," he said.
"I also want to express our community's profound gratitude for the broad range of first responders who did not hesitate today to respond to this act of violence," Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum said.
The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting and it was "closely monitoring the situation and has reached out to state and local officials to offer support".
Tulsa's mass shooting follows the Ulvade massacre and another earlier in May that left 10 people dead in Buffalo, New York, that shocked Americans and reignited debates about gun control.
The recent Memorial Day weekend saw multiple mass shootings nationwide, as single-death incidents accounted for most of those gun fatalities.
Hospital campus locked down
St Francis Health System locked down its campus because of the situation at the Natalie Medical Building.
The Natalie building houses an outpatient surgery centre and a breast health centre.
Aerial footage from a TV helicopter appeared to show first responders wheeling someone on a stretcher away from the hospital building.
Dozens of police cars could be seen outside the hospital complex, and authorities shut down traffic as the investigation went on.
A reunification centre for families to find their loved ones was set up at a nearby high school.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also at the scene, a spokesperson said.
Tulsa resident Nicholas O'Brien, whose mother was in a nearby building when the shooting occurred, told reporters that he rushed to the scene.
"They were rushing people out. I don't know if some of them were injured or just have been injured during the shooting, but some of them couldn't walk very well," he said.
"But they were just kind of wobbling and stumbling and getting them out of there.
"I was pretty anxious. So, once I got here and then I heard that she [my mother] was OK, the shooter had been shot and was down, I felt a lot better. It still is horrible what happened," Mr O'Brien said.
AP/Reuters
