COLORADO SPRINGS — A gun battle erupted inside a Planned Parenthood center here on Friday when a man armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire at the clinic and began shooting at officers as they rushed to the scene. The authorities reported that three people were killed, a police officer and two civilians, and nine were wounded before the suspect finally surrendered more than five hours after the first shots were fired.
“The perpetrator is in custody,” Mayor John Suthers said at an evening news conference. “There is a huge crime scene that has to be processed,” he said, “and we have to determine how many victims there are.”
Before the authorities announced the deaths, the police were going room to room to clear the Planned Parenthood clinic on Friday night and the conditions of those wounded were not immediately known. Lieutenant Buckley said the gunman had brought several suspicious items to the clinic, and investigators were trying to determine whether they were explosives. Later in the evening the Colorado attorney general referred to a “tragic loss of life” and the police union said that one officer had died.
