The suspect of the CHI St. Vincent North hospital shooting is in custody, after the building was thrown into lockdown Wednesday morning. One person was found dead following the shooting.
Sherwood Police Department responded to a call from the hospital at approximately 10 a.m. CDT and arrived on the scene soon after, Sherwood Police Chief Jeff Hagar said during a press conference on Wednesday. Authorities set up a perimeter around CHI St. Vincent North and both the police and hospital confirmed the active shooter situation to the public roughly an hour later.
KAIT-8 reported that law enforcement across multiple agencies responded to the shooting, including the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office, Arkansas State Police and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
While the hospital was in lockdown, authorities entered, secured and cleared the area, Chief Hagar said during the press conference.
“Officers did locate one victim deceased from at least one gunshot wound inside the hospital,” Hagar said. “We have taken a person of interest into custody, as well.”
Sherwood police received a tip Wednesday morning that a potential suspect in the shooting had been spotted at a nearby Exxon gas station at around 11 a.m. Authorities arrived on the scene and took that potential suspect into custody.
Police so far have not publicly identified the victim or the suspect, as authorities contact next-of-kin and continue with investigations, Chief Hagar said.
The shooter had opened fire Wednesday morning on the fourth floor of the hospital, employees told KARK-TV in Little Rock. Employees, patients and patrons rushed to evacuate or barricade doors, as one witness recalled. He told the news outlet that his father had been in surgery when the “active shooter, fourth floor” alert began blasting and repeating over the intercom.
Another witness told the reporter she had been trying to contact a coworker who worked on the fourth floor of CHI St. Vincent, but was able to evacuate the building. An employee at a nearby location for the hospital, her first thought approaching the scene was how the shooting could have happened at her workplace.
“It makes you not only scared for the people inside the hospital,” she told KARK-TV, “But you think about it being you.”
Joshua Cook, spokesperson for CHI St. Vincent North, told NBC that the hospital lockdown has been lifted as of Wednesday afternoon and the hospital has returned to “regular activities.”
“The hospital is once again seeing patients,” said Cook.