Hospital gunman killed mother, then himself

A man who became distraught as he was being briefed on his mother’s condition at a Baltimore hospital pulled a gun and shot the doctor, then killed his mother and himself in her room.

Baltimore police Commissioner Frederick H Bealefeld III said the doctor had been talking to 50-year-old Warren Davis this morning when he “became emotionally distraught and reacted... and was overwhelmed by the news of his mother’s condition”.

Mr Bealefeld said he did not know what the woman was being treated for at Johns Hopkins Hospital, known for its cancer research and treatment.

Mr Davis then pulled a semi-automatic handgun from his waistband and shot the doctor once in the stomach, the commissioner said.

The doctor collapsed outside room 873 of the Nelson building, where Mr Davis’ mother, Jean, was being treated.

Mr Davis then holed up inside his mother’s room for more than two hours during a stand-off with authorities.

When officers made their way to the eighth-floor room, they found Mr Davis dead on the floor and his mother dead in her hospital bed.

Two Hopkins employees said the doctor who was wounded is Dr David B Cohen, an assistant professor and orthopaedic surgeon.

Police said the doctor underwent surgery and was expected to survive.

Michelle Burrell, who works in a coffee shop in the hospital lobby, said she was told by employees who were on the floor where the doctor was shot that the gunman was angry with the doctor’s treatment of his mother.

Hannah Murtaugh, 25, a first-year nursing student at the facility’s nursing school, said her physiology class was put on lockdown. She said a classmate received a security alert text message from the school saying a gunman was on the Nelson building’s eighth floor.

Her professor interrupted the lecture to let students know about the situation.

“They just kept telling us to stay away from the windows. We think there was a sniper located below our classroom,” Ms Murtaugh said.

“I was scared – wondering if any of my friends or other students who had clinicals that day were on that floor, hoping the situation would be contained, trying to see what was going on while staying away from the windows.”