[Breaking news alert, posted at 3:38 p.m. ET Friday]
A shooter who opened fire near a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado, remains on the loose, police said Friday. “We don’t have the suspect yet and we do consider this still an active situation,” Lt. Catherine Buckley told reporters. It’s possible there could be an additional shooter at large, she said.
[Breaking news alert, posted at 3:27 p.m. ET Friday]
At least three officers were injured in a shooting incident Friday near the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Commander Kirk Wilson with the Colorado Springs Police Department told reporters. Wilson said that police were still in the process of trying to eliminate the threat.
Officials at hospitals in the area said they were expecting the arrival of four patients, one of whom had a gunshot wound to the arm.
[Previous story, posted at 3:09 p.m. ET Friday]
A shopping center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was on lockdown Friday as police searched for a shooter near a Planned Parenthood facility there.
There’s at least one shooter in the area, police Sgt. Kevin Miyakusu told CNN, and it’s unclear if there are any injuries.
“Right now we don’t know if there are any hostages,” he said. “It is an ongoing situation.”
Brigitte Wolfe, who said she works in the area of shooting, told CNN that she saw about five officers behind a building with their guns drawn, as well as about three SWAT vehicles and roughly seven police cars from her vantage point in a strip mall that’s across the street from the Planned Parenthood. A grocery store and bank are nearby, Wolfe noted.
Photos taken by Kody Fisher, a reporter with CNN affiliate KXRM, showed an ambulance and, in another picture. at least two police officers crouched behind a patrol car an ambulance at one intersection.
Miyakusu said he didn’t know of any injuries, adding that police are only aware of a single shooter.
“It is a very fluid situation,” he said.
Colorado Springs police tweeted that the shooting took place on Centennial Boulevard. A newspaper in the city, The Gazette, reported that traffic was shut down in both directions on that road and that customers were told to stay put in a nearby grocery store and shops.
That sentiment was echoed by Colorado Springs police, who warned around 12:20 p.m. (2:20 p.m. ET) that the area was “not secure” that those in a nearby shopping center should “shelter in place.”
At a grocery store in the shopping center, an intercom announcement told shoppers not to leave.
The city, in the central part of the Colorado, has more than 400,000 residents.
It was not immediately clear whether Planned Parenthood was the target of the shooting.
Planned Parenthood is a national health care provider that delivers reproductive health care and sex education to women and men throughout the United States. The organization runs nearly 700 health centers throughout the United States, according to its website.
The group says each year 2.7 million people in the United States visit its health centers for health care services and information.