Mass Shooting In Bank; 4 Killed Including Gunman

In a shocking turn of events, a mass shooting took place in a bank in which 3 were killed before the shooter was shot dead.

A gunman opened fire in a bank building in the US city of Cincinnati, Ohio USA on Thursday, killing three people and sending terrified bystanders diving for cover, before police shot and killed him.

Gun shots rang out just after 9 AM (06:30 PM IST) at the high-rise headquarters of Fifth Third Bank, a regional financial institution in Ohio’s third-largest city.

Five people were shot, some multiple times, and one victim died at the scene while two others succumbed to their injuries in hospital.

Police identified the gunman, felled in a shootout with officers, as 29-year-old Omar Perez. He was not immediately determined to have any connection to the bank, according to detectives.

“There may be a possibility that there’s some mental health issues involved here,” Cincinnati police chief Eliot Isaac told a news conference, cautioning that the investigation was in its early stages.

Police believe Perez was armed with some 200 rounds of ammunition and a legally-bought 9mm semi-automatic handgun when he entered the lobby of the 30-story building, Isaac said.

Several officers arrived within minutes of the first emergency calls and four of them shot the suspect, killing him at the scene.

The building the gunman targeted was said to have strict security, and it wasn’t clear how he was able to get in.

“Per Fifth Third Bank, the shooter was not an employee of Fifth Third,” police spokeswoman Tiffaney Hardy told AFP via email.

The quickly-responding police were credited with preventing widescale carnage.

“This is clearly an act of grotesque violence to innocent people and it should frighten all of us,” said Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley.

“It has happened too much around this country and we, as a country, have to figure out how to end it.”

Bank employees sheltered in site for an hour or more as officers swept the building and cordoned off several downtown city blocks.

It was the latest in more than 200 mass shootings in the US this year alone, with previous incidents often leading to mostly fruitless calls for gun control reforms.

In June, a gunman killed five and injured two at The Capital Gazette newspaper offices in Annapolis, Maryland.

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OMAR PREZ’S LAWSUIT DISMISSED AS DELUSIONAL

Omar Santa Perez, the man who Cincinnati police say opened fire in the lobby of Fifth Third Center, killing three people and wounding two others, filed a lawsuit in 2017 against CNBC Universal Media LLC and TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.

On June 25, Federal Magistrate Karen Litkovitz in her recommendation to dismiss the case wrote that Santa Perez’s allegations were “rambling, difficult to decipher and borders on delusional.”

On June 26 Santa Perez filed a motion for a hearing to clarify his complaint and defend himself from the “delusional” label from Litkovitz. If granted, the motion would have allowed him to “establish clear thinking without delusional thoughts or imagination with the ability to comprehend the accusations without frivolity.”

Santa Perez, who lived in North Bend, first filed the lawsuit in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court in December 2017. The suit was later transferred to the Southern District of Ohio after TD Ameritrade asked for it to be moved.

He filed the suit without an attorney and asked the court to appoint him one, according to records.

In the suit, Santa Perez claimed that CNBC and TD Ameritrade, through an extensive investigation of his personal devices, uncovered his identity and published private details about his life.

There is no record of any stories or multimedia appearing on CNBC’s website pertaining to Santa Perez prior to the shooting.