Shooting at Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood

Updated | Authorities on Twitter confirmed on Friday that they are investigating a shooting near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Officers eventually moved in, shouted at the gunman and persuaded him to surrender, police said.

“UCCS is working with Officer Swasey’s family and continues to support the Colorado Springs Police Department at the shooting scene”. The injured include five police officers and four civilians. The suspect is from North Carolina and it is unknown at this time what his motive is, despite the fact, that as late back as the 80s, people have targeted abortion clinics with acts of violence.

At least eight abortion clinic workers have been killed since 1977, according to the National Abortion Federation – most recently in 2009, when abortion doctor George Tiller was shot to death at church in Wichita, Kansas.

According to the New York Times, a local TV affiliate reported earlier today that the gunman was shooting at passing cars from the Planned Parenthood parking lot.

“Our concern is for the safety of our patients, staff and law enforcement”, said its CEO Vicki Cowart.

“We don’t have any information on this individual’s mentality, or his ideas or ideology”, Buckley said.

“I heard a bullet go right by the door and hit something”, she said.

At 2:15 p.m. (2115 GMT), police tweeted that officers were “encountering gunfire” from a suspect inside the Planned Parenthood building.

Planned Parenthood employee Cynthia Garcia told her mother, Tina Garcia, that the officers wouldn’t say why they were gathering everybody together – then she heard the gunshots.

Shelley Satulla said she saw five or six people put on stretchers and placed in ambulances lined up next to King Soopers shopping centre near the clinic. “As well as try to locate the shooter in this situation”.

Local media said that extra police were sent to protect the three other Planned Parenthood clinics in the Denver area. Lt. Buckley said, “We have brought all of our resources to bear”. “The situation has been resolved and there’s no continuing peril to the citizens of Colorado Springs”, he added. She didn’t immediately have any other details.