Mass shooting incidence at Virgina Beach claims 11 lives

Several people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at a government complex in Virginia Beach. Police in the eastern US state said the gunman was also killed.

A least 11 people were killed and six wounded in a shooting at a government building complex in Virginia Beach in the US state of Virginia, police said Friday.

Police chief James Cervera said the gunman, a public utilities employee, was also killed and described him as "disgruntled."

The shooting happened just after 4 p.m. (2000 UTC), when the gunman entered one of the buildings at the Virginia Beach municipal complex and "immediately began to indiscriminately fire on all of the victims," Cervera said.

The Virginia Beach Police Department said earlier in a series of posts on Twitter that it was responding to an "active shooter situation" at building No. 2 of the town municipal center and advised the public to avoid the area.

A city spokesman confirmed to Reuters by email that the gunman was shot by police and later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Speaking at the news conference alongside Cervera, Mayor Bobby Dyer said it was "the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach."

Victims hospitalized

Six patients from the scene were sent to hospitals in the region, according to a spokesman for the Sentara Healthcare system that runs the facilities. They did not elaborate on the condition of the patients.

A police officer was also among those who were struck by gunfire but survived.

Multiple law enforcement agencies including the FBI were working at the scene due to its "size, scope, intensity," Cervera said. "Right now we have a lot of questions. The whys, they will come later. Right now we have more questions than we have answers."

Virginia Beach, which sits on the Atlantic coast at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, is the state's most populous city with about 450,000 residents.

According to the Washington-based Gun Violence Archive monitoring group, Friday's shooting was the 150th mass shooting in the US this year, defined as a single event in which four or more people are shot or killed.