She wouldn’t say what the items were or why they were no longer a threat.
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“This is still very much unfolding for us”, Buckley said.
The president denounced the gunman for “terrorizing an entire community” and said that after the shooting “more Americans and their families had fear forced upon them”.
“While this was a awful, terrible tragedy, it could have been much worse but for the actions of the first responders, particularly the police officers involved”, Suthers told reporters.
The accused shooter, 57-year-old Robert Lewis Dear of North Carolina, is in custody after a five-hour standoff with police at the Planned Parenthood facility. A total of 11 people were transported to local hospitals, authorities said.
“She was telling me to take care of her babies because she could get killed”, he said. Buckley said 115 Colorado Springs police officers participated in the response, alongside officers from the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, and ATF and Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel.
Buckley says that there are an unknown number of casualties in the attack, and she would not say how many civilians were wounded.
The university is about 10 minutes away from the clinic, and officials said the fallen officer responded to help city police with the shooting. Police said there was just one suspect.
SWAT members managed to evacuate some 20 people from the clinic before the suspect surrendered. There was a lot of gunfire.
Colorado Springs police tweeted that the shooting took place on Centennial Boulevard. “She was calm, she was trying to hide from those people”, he said.
Police cordoned off the clinic, nearby medical offices and a shopping center.
Vicki Cowart, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains, told CNN that she did not believe the center had been specifically targeted. Police did not name the person.
Police is still not sure whether the Planned Parenthood family planning centre, which provides services like abortion, screening of sexually transmitted diseases and other services, was a target or a random choice. “We were with all the policemen, they were shooting from the rooftop where our policemen were”.
Buckley said the people inside the building included doctors, patients, nurses and others. “We don’t know what the connection is to Planned Parenthood”.
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A Reuters photographer at the scene saw a man in a white T-shirt with his hands cuffed behind his back being taken out of an armoured police vehicle and placed in an unmarked squad auto.
