Michigan gunman kills seven during rampage

Rodrick Shonte Dantzler shoots dead his own daughter before killing himself after hostage standoff in Grand Rapids A gunman opened fire in two homes in the US state of Michigan on Thursday, killing seven people, including two children, before leading police on a high-speed chase through a city centre and taking three hostages. The standoff ended when he killed himself with a gunshot to the head, authorities in Grand Rapids said. The hostages were released unharmed. Authorities did not have a motive for the suspect, 34-year-old Rodrick Shonte Dantzler. Police said Dantzler’s daughter and a former girlfriend were among the seven people killed, but that it had been some time since he had a relationship with his ex-girlfriend. The manhunt for Dantzler began after four people were found dead in one home and three were discovered in another across town. “We believe there were prior relationships with at least one person at each location, so we think there were some difficulties there,” the police chief, Kevin Belk, said. Following the discovery of the bodies, Dantzler led officers on a chase, crashed his car and then took the hostages, police said. Dozens of officers with guns drawn cordoned off a neighbourhood near a small lake and shut down a nearby interstate highway. Records show Dantzler was released from state prison in 2005 after serving time for assault. A spokesman for the prison system said he had not been under state supervision since then. At one point during the chase, the suspect crossed a wide grassy median on the highway and drove the wrong way down while more than a dozen squad cars pursued him. Belk said he crashed the vehicle while driving down an embankment into a wooded area of the highway, which remained closed hours later. Two other people were shot when the suspect fired at police during the chase, but their wounds were not considered life-threatening. One man was wounded in what Belk described as a “road rage” attack after the suspect fired through the rear window of the vehicle. A woman was hit in the arm in a separate shooting. The names of the dead were not immediately released. Postmortems were scheduled for Friday. Michigan United States US gun control Gun crime guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 8, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.