Alwaght- At least twelve people have been killed and six more were injured in a shooting at a municipal center in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the US.
The suspect, identified as a disgruntled city employee, was also killed by police, Virginia Beach's police chief Police Chief Jim Cervera said on Friday.
Cervera said the precise circumstances of the shooting remained under investigation, but added that a police officer was among those who were injured. He was saved by his bulletproof vest.
Cervera identified the suspect as a “long-time employee of public utilities.”
The shooting took place shortly after 4:00 pm local time (2000 GMT) when the gunman entered one of the buildings at the Virginia Beach municipal complex and "immediately began to indiscriminately fire on all of the victims," Cervera said.
“This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach,” Bobby Dyer, the mayor of the coastal city, told reporters.
"The people involved are our friends, co-workers, neighbors, colleagues."
The building where the shooting happened in Virginia Beach, a city which sits on the Atlantic coast at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, housed the city's public works and utilities offices. It is the state's most populous city with roughly 450,000 year-round residents.
