A lone gunman shot up an OH nursing home on Friday morning - killing two employees and a newly appointed police chief who rushed to the scene, officials said.
The slain police chief was identified as Steven Eric Disario, who headed the Kirkersville Police Department, Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp said.
"It's just a tragic event", Mr Thorp said, adding that Disario had been responding to reports of a man with a gun when he was shot around 08:00 local time. The hostages ran when the shooter fired and they were not harmed.
The two employees and the suspected shooter were found dead inside the nursing home. As deputies cleared the building, residents and employees were found barricaded in several places, Thorp said.
Police found the gunman dead in the nursing home in Kirkersville, a village of about 500 people about 20 miles east of downtown Columbus, authorities said.
Kirkersville is a village in central OH with a population of around 500.
"We don't know the cause or the goal or what drove this individual to do this", Thorp said, adding that was being investigated.
Authorities say a gunman shot Kirkersville Police Chief Steven Eric Disario, who'd only been on the job for about three weeks. Then I heard sirens.
The only victim authorities have identified is Kirkersville Police Chief Steven Eric Disario.
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Kathy Rogers owns a thrift shop on the same block as Pine Kirk Care Center.
"They cater to the forgotten members of society - folks that have, in addition to physical health care needs, behavioral health issues", Peter Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association, a nursing home industry group, told the newspaper.
Thorp says Disario was found outside the Pine Kirk Care Center.
He was only 36 years old, and leaves behind a wife, six children and one more on the way, officials said.
A report via fox8 told of investigators discovering two deceased female employees inside the nursing home.
Kirkersville Elementary School was closed for the day after sheriff's office officials asked the district to put the school on lockdown, said Southwest Licking Local School District office secretary Cindy Pickering.
The residents in the facility were taken by squad to area hospitals, including Licking Memorial Hospital.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is processing the crime scene and leading the investigation into Friday's incident.
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