Five people were fatally shot and two others wounded on Thursday evening by a man who opened fire as a City Council meeting began at City Hall in Kirkwood, Mo., a generally placid suburb of St. Louis. The gunman was shot to death by police. (Photo: Tom Gannam/Associated Press)
The authorities would not identify the dead late Thursday, although some Kirkwood officials -- it has a mayor and six council members -- were believed to be among the victims, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. At left, a man was helped to a waiting ambulance. (Photo: Tom Gannam/Associated Press)
The violence began about 7 p.m., when the gunman approached a Kirkwood police officer in a parking lot near the police station and shot and killed the officer, said a spokeswoman for the St. Louis County police, Tracy Panus. Moments later, the man appeared inside City Hall, a short walk from the police department. (Photo: Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via Associated Press)
At City Hall, the gunman shot another police officer, then fatally shot three other people who were inside the regular council meeting. Two others at the meeting were also shot and wounded, one critically, Ms. Panus said, before the police shot the gunman. (Photo: J.B. Forbes/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via Associated Press)
Witnesses told of a chaotic scene in Kirkwood, a middle-class community of about 27,000 people whose main street is lined with shops, restaurants and grand homes. Officers from departments from suburbs throughout the region swarmed into the town. (Photo: Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via Associated Press)
