HERKIMER, N.Y. — Police teams with an armoured vehicle and a track-driven robot with a camera on top moved in on a row of New York state shops where authorities believe a gunman who killed four people and wounded two others was thought to be hiding Wednesday.
Police were looking for Kurt Myers, suspected of shooting four people in his hometown, nearby Mohawk, and killing two others in Herkimer earlier in the day.
Myles Smith, who lives in one of the apartments above the shops, told The Associated Press by phone he had heard police trying to talk to Myers.
“The snipers on the roof are sitting there,” Smith said. “I ain’t seen a whole lot of movement. I heard about five gunshots. I keep hearing them trying to talk him out, but I don’t think he’s coming out.”
Police say the 64-year-old Myers opened fire at a car wash and a barbershop Wednesday morning, killing four people and wounding at least two others. People were told to stay indoors as Myers remained at large.
“Everybody’s on lockdown, all the schools, the college, the village,” said Amanda Viscomi, Herkimer’s acting clerk-treasurer.
“It’s very, very scary.”
Gunshots were heard early in the afternoon as police surrounded a block of businesses with upstairs apartments in Herkimer.
Guns and ammunition were found inside Myers’ apartment after emergency crews were sent to put out a fire there Wednesday morning.
Soon after, two people were fatally shot and two others wounded at John’s Barber Shop, around the corner from the apartment, police said. The second shooting happened about a mile (1.6 kilometre) away in Herkimer, where two people were killed at Gaffey’s Fast Lube and Car Wash, authorities said.
James Baron, the 29-year-old mayor of Mohawk, said he doesn’t know Myers but knew several of the people who were shot, including at least two of the barbershop victims.
The mayor described his village as close-knit and friendly, “the kind of place where you’d say, ’Oh, it would never happen here.”’