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Seven injured in Wisconsin spa shooting
Posted: 22 October 2012 0300 hrs
Police respond to a call of a shooting at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin. (AP/Tom Lynn)
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Police respond to a call of a shooting at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin. (AP/Tom Lynn)
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CHICAGO: An armed man burst into a day spa in the midwestern US state of Wisconsin where his estranged wife worked and shot at least seven people on Sunday afternoon, US media reported.
Police told reporters a manhunt was under way for the suspect in the midday shooting in Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee.
At least four of the victims were not critically hurt, reports said, but details were still emerging. One woman who was shot in the neck may be around six months pregnant, TMJ4 News reported.
Television footage showed more than a dozen emergency vehicles in the parking lot of a shopping mall across the street from the spa, at least part of which has been evacuated. Tactical police teams were also on the scene.
The hospital treating the victims was on lockdown until the shooter is caught, a spokeswoman said.
"We are not allowing any patients or visitors or staff members to enter or exit the hospital," Nalissa Wienke of Froedtert hospital told MSNBC.
Police identified the suspect as Radcliffe Haughton, 45. TMJ4 news said police had surrounded his home in the nearby suburb of Brown Deer.
His estranged wife had gotten a judge to issue an order of protection banning Haughton from contacting her and ordering him to hand in his guns, the station said.
"As we wait for further details from the shooting today in Brookfield, Tonette and I send our thoughts and prayers to the victims," Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said in a statement.
"Senseless acts of violence leave us with heavy hearts and many questions. Our state will stand with the victims and their families, and we will provide them with the law enforcement and community support they need to heal in the coming days."
Brookfield police declined to immediately provide further details when contacted by AFP.
Witness Christopher Pfeiffer said he was on his way to a bookstore in the mall when he saw a young, barefoot woman running in the parking lot.
"She was screaming, yelling, crying hysterical. She was pleading for help," Pfeiffer, 47, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"She kept saying, 'My mother was shot.' And she mentioned that there was a gunman. She ran into the bookstore and I followed her. But I watched her from afar."
David Gosh said he was on his way home from duck hunting when he saw a woman run out into the road screaming and pounding on cars.
Then he saw a large man with a handgun chase after her, but luckily the police arrived with sirens blaring. Gosh said he saw the man run back into the building or possibly into the woods nearby.
"He was looking for an escape route," Gosh told the paper.
Gosh's father, John, said he saw two wounded women taken out of the two-story Azana spa. One appeared to have been shot in the leg and the other in the back, he told the newspaper.
The Journal Sentinel published a photo on its website of two barefoot women in white spa robes standing in the spa's parking lot near a fire truck and ambulance. Two women standing nearby were clutching their heads and waving their hands as they spoke together.
Just down the road, less than a mile away, is the Sheraton Hotel where seven people were killed and four more wounded at a shooting in 2005. The shooter, who opened fire on a Living Church of God service held at the hotel, then committed suicide.
Seven injured in Wisconsin spa shooting - Channel NewsAsia
The right to bear arms?
