Gunman Opens Fire at Chicago Hospital

The gunman was reportedly among the fatalities
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 19, 2018 6:00 PM CST
Gunman Opens Fire at Chicago Hospital
Chicago Police officers walk outside Mercy Hospital on the city's South Side where a shooting wounded several.   (AP Photo/Amanda Seitz)

A gunman opened fire Monday at a Chicago hospital, wounding at least four people, including a police officer and a hospital employee, authorities said. Per the AP, a police spokesman said the gunman was dead, but it was not immediately clear if he took his own life or was killed by police. According to NBC Chicago, the shooting unfolded at Mercy Hospital on the city's South Side around 3:30pm. A witness named James Gray told reporters that he saw multiple people shot: "It looked like he was turning and shooting people at random."

Television footage showed several people, including some wearing white coats, walking through a parking lot with their arms up. Hundreds of police cars, fire trucks and ambulance lined the streets encircling the hospital. Police blocked off streets into the near South Side neighborhood. Mercy has a rich history as the city's first chartered hospital. It began in 1852, when the Sisters of Mercy religious group converted a rooming house. During the Civil War, the hospital treated both Union soldiers and Confederate prisoners of war, according to its website. (Last month, a masked gunman was sought in Chicago for another set of seemingly random slayings.)

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