3 officers injured in shooting near Colorado Planned Parenthood

In Saturday’s statement, Obama said, “We don’t yet know what this particular gunman’s so-called motive was for shooting twelve people, or for terrorizing an entire community, when he opened fire with an assault weapon and took hostages at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado”. Dear is being held without bond.

Officer Garrett Swasey, 44, was on duty at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs campus on Friday afternoon and he rushed through billowing snow to support colleagues at the scene when first reports came in of a shooter at large.

Officers scrambled to find an opportunity to kill the gunman without harming people holed up in the clinic, according to chatter from the police scanner.

“Garrett was passionate about his role as a police officer, his family and his faith”, Amy Oviatt wrote in a tribute to Swasey on YouCaring.

“Our thoughts are with the victims and their families, Planned Parenthood, the Colorado Springs Police Department, and the City of Colorado Springs”.

Suthers said the names of the five injured officers will likely be released Saturday.

“He was aiming for my head”, Licano said of the gunman.

In the small town of Hartsel, Colorado, about 60 miles west of Colorado Springs, about a dozen police vehicles and fire trucks were parked outside a small white trailer belonging to Dear located on a sprawling swath of land.

Mike Pelosi, who works at a deli at a nearby King Soopers grocery store, said he heard over the store’s loudspeaker just before noon that nobody could leave the store. “It’s just weird to stare in the face of someone like that”.

“My mom was really anxious about me”, Musick said.

About six hours in, officers established communications with the suspect after shouting out to him.

Craion said she and the others pushed an exam bed up against the door since it didn’t have a lock.

Some people managed to escape the building and flee to a nearby bank.

As of 5:30 p.m. E.S.T., police were still exchanging gunfire with a shooter barricaded inside one of the clinic’s windowless offices. With the immediate threat over, authorities swept the building and turned their attention to inspecting unspecified items the gunman left outside the building and carried inside in bags.

Mr Obama used the incident to highlight the need for greater gun control.

Four civilians and five police officers were hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and were in good condition Friday night, police Lt. Catherine Buckley said.

The suspect’s auto which was found nearby was also being checked for explosives, CNN reported.

Robert Lewis Dear spent time at a small cabin with no electricity or running water about a half-mile up a twisty dirt road near Black Mountain, North Carolina.