First responders gather a staging area by Excel Industries in Hesston, Kan. (Fernando Salazar/The Wichita Eagle via AP)
A gunman in Kansas opened fire at multiple locations, including his workplace, killing three people and injuring 14 others Thursday before he was shot and killed by authorities, police said.
“There are a lot of shot victims,” Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton said at a news conference. “This is just a horrible incident that happened here.”
While Walton said he could not confirm a motive or identify the gunman, he did say authorities did not believe the shooting was related to terrorism.
“We have an idea…there were some things that triggered this particular individual,” Walton said.
Most of the bloodshed took place at Excel Industries, a company that says on its website that it manufactures lawn-mowing equipment. Walton said the gunman worked at the Excel plant in Hesston, a city about 35 miles north of Wichita, but he could not say if the man had recently been fired or how long he had worked there.
Walton said the shooter shot 15 people at Excel, killing three, before he was fatally shot by a law enforcement official. Two other people were shot and injured in other incidents before the workplace rampage. The gunman was armed with a long gun and a pistol, Walton said.
Earlier Thursday, Walton had said police initially believed the gunman killed “as many as three or four” people and injured “possibly up to 20 people.” He later told a local news station that Walton may have killed as many as six people and injured up to 30 people.
