I’ve been listening to this play out live over the course of the last few hours. The Colorado Springs PD just ended the active shooter situation at the CO Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, when the suspect surrendered. Earlier, the PD actually drove one of their Bearcat tactical vehicles directly into the lobby of the building to distract the shooter while freeing 7 or 8 hostages. They spent over an hour looking into those areas of the building they could reach, including cutting through drywall to look for any other civilians. They determined the location of a few remaining people and evacuated all they could reach. One woman remained stuck in a file room. Two other people were locked in a “Consult Room” that could be entered only with a key card. None of them were accessible without endangering them or the responders. All were in touch with dispatchers by phone, and had been given instructions to lie down and take cover.
Basically, PD cornered the shooter in a hallway on the west side of the building. Having done so, and confirming the rest of building was secure, they ran the Bearcat back into the building and extended a camera to positively locate the shooter, who was described as a bearded male wearing a trench coat. Two SWAT teams then prepared to move in and take him under fire. As it happened, he walked out and surrendered with no further shooting.
Needless to say, Twitter is lit up right now with right-wing geniuses claiming this actually had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood, and we should all be ashamed of ourselves for saying otherwise. Oh, and that the baby-killers had it coming anyway. For that bit of nastiness, check out the diary by News Corpse, here.
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