PHOENIX (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire in an Arizona office building following a legal mediation meeting on Wednesday, shooting dead one man and wounding two other people including a prominent Phoenix lawyer before fleeing in a car, officials said.
Phoenix Police Sergeant Tommy Thompson said the shooting erupted after a morning meeting involving a legal dispute, and police were looking for a 70-year-old suspected gunman described as "armed and dangerous."
"He was involved in some type of litigation meeting," Thompson told a news conference of the suspect, giving his name as Arthur Douglas Harmon. "After that meeting, he got into an altercation with some of the individuals and actually shot two of those individuals."
Police said two men wounded in the shooting may have been the gunman's intended victims. A third victim, a woman, was not believed to have been intentionally targeted.
After fleeing the scene in a white Kia rental car, Harmon also fired at a witness who pursued him, but that person was not hurt.
The shooting comes amid heightened U.S. concern about gun violence after a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut school last month, sparking a heated national debate over gun control.
It also coincided with the start of U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in Washington on possible gun control measures.
Police in Phoenix said that Steve Singer, 48, was killed and another man was in critical condition. A 32-year-old woman was being treated for a non-life threatening injury.
Two other people were taken to a hospital for "stress related symptoms," although there were no immediate details of their condition.
PROMINENT LITIGATOR
Law firm Osborn Maledon confirmed that litigator Mark Hummels - who is president of the Federal Bar Association's Phoenix chapter - had been shot.
"Our partner, Mark Hummels, was representing a client in a mediation today when he was shot. We understand that other people also were injured," the firm said in a statement.
Hummels' practice focuses on business disputes, real estate litigation and legal malpractice defense, according to the firm's website.
The New York Times said the mediation session was over a lawsuit the suspect had filed against a call center based in Scottsdale, Arizona. A police spokesman was unable to confirm the newspaper's report.
Police later surrounded and searched Harmon's house in Phoenix. The suspect's son was at the home, although Harmon remains at large.
Frank Kirby, a financial planner who works in an office near the scene of the shooting, told Reuters he was outside his building immediately after the incident and heard the gunman fire at someone in a white car.
That person then sped away in reverse as he sought to escape the gunfire, Kirby said, adding he was close enough to smell the gunpowder in the air.
(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Nick Zieminski, David Gregorio, Philip Barbara and Christopher Wilson)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gunman-opens-fire-arizona-office-building-one-dead-011521658.html
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