A gunman walked up to a woman sitting in a chair and opened fire three times, police say.
Police said two people were killed Wednesday in an apparent murder-suicide at a Dallas-area community college when a gunman walked up to a woman sitting in a chair and opened fire three times.
Officer James McLellan told reporters that two people were found shot to death at a building on the campus of North Lake College and that officers were “finishing clearing the building.” He said it appears to be a “murder-suicide situation.”
Irving police said just before 1 p.m. local time that there was “no continuing threat” at the school, which had been placed on lockdown.
McLellan said it didn’t appear that anyone else was hurt in the shooting that erupted around noon local time.
A math tutor at North Lake College, Nasrin Nanbakhsh, said she saw a man shoot a woman three times in a hallway.
“I saw a guy standing and there was a girl sitting on a chair. I saw him shooting her three times, ” Nanbakhsh told reporters.
Nanbakhsh said she ran back to a room, locked the doors, turned the lights off and waited for help to arrive. She said she also emailed her supervisors to let them know what was happening.
“I just saw the gun as soon as I looked at it. I saw the gun, and he shot her three times, and it was too close, ” Nanbakhsh said.
One witness, a foreign student named Tariq from Iraq, tells WFAA-TV he was in a classroom when he heard three shots. Students were told to hunker down.
The gunman’s body was found in a different building from where the victim was shot and killed, according to police.
A student named Mike told the station that he heard people yelling in a hallway, and a man entered the room he was in, turned off the lights and locked the door. He also heard police officers telling people to get down and said officers entered the room and had students leave with their hands over their heads.
The Irving Police Department had described the suspected gunman as a white male wearing an orange tank top and sporting a “buzz” hair cut. Police said he was armed with a handgun and carried a black jacket.
Police initially said on Twitter: “Active shooter at Northlake College — avoid the area.” North Lake College, located in northern Dallas County, then instructed students to “go to the nearest room and lock-down.”
One witness told WFAA-TV that officers with high-powered rifles were going room-to-room. Students were seen running out of the school with their hands up, the witness said.
North Lake College is a two-year community college serving Irving and northern Dallas County. The school opened in the fall of 1977, becoming the sixth of seven colleges in the Dallas County Community College District. The college’s central campus sits on 276 acres in the Las Colinas area of Irving.
The incident was the second deadly attack on a Texas college campus this week. On Monday, a student with a hunting knife slashed one person to death and injured three others at the University of Texas at Austin. Police said the student had previous mental health issues.
Contributing: Associated Press
