A United States Navy medic has shot and wounded two sailors at a military facility, then fled to a nearby Army base where security forces shot and killed him, police and Navy officials said.
Authorities said they had yet to determine what drove 38-year-old Fantahun Girma Woldesenbet to open fire at the facility on Tuesday, located in an office park in Frederick, Maryland. The attack comes amid several high profile incidents in the US, including a shooting that left 10 dead in Colorado and a string of shootings that left eight dead in Georgia, both in March.
“We’re still trying to… figure out exactly what the motive would be,” said Frederick Police Lieutenant Andrew Alcorn.
Woldesenbet shot the sailors with a rifle inside the facility at the Riverside Tech Park on Tuesday morning, causing people inside to flee, said Frederick Police Chief Jason Lando.
Woldesenbet, a Navy medic assigned to Fort Detrick but who lived in town, then drove to the base, where gate guards who had been given advance notice told him to pull over for a search, according to Brigadier General Michael J Talley. But Woldesenbet immediately sped off, making it about a half-mile into the installation before he was stopped at a parking lot by the base’s police force. When he pulled out a weapon, the police shot and killed him, Talley said.
The two sailors, who Talley said were assigned to Fort Detrick, were airlifted to a hospital. Police said one victim is in critical but stable condition, and the other is in serious condition but expected to be released Wednesday.
Talley said investigators will determine as much as they can, including why the suspect went back to the base.
“(I) don’t know his mental status at the time, and we’re certainly going to find all that out,” he said.
The brigadier general said the facility where the shooting took place was not under his command. He declined to identify the facility more specifically or describe the work that was done there.
Fort Detrick is home to the military’s flagship biological defence laboratory and several federal civilian biodefense labs. About 10,000 military personnel and civilians work on the base, which encompasses about 526 hectares (1,300 acres) in the city of Frederick.
The base is a huge economic driver in the region, drawing scientists, military personnel and their families. Frederick Mayor Michael O’Connor noted that various defence contractors are located near Fort Detrick and that it would not be unusual for a member of the military to be off base and working with a private firm that does business with the US government.
“When these incidents happen in other places, you’re always grateful that it’s not your community,” O’Connor added. “But you always know, perhaps in the back of your mind, that’s just luck – that there isn’t any reason why it couldn’t happen here. And today it did.”
Frederick police Lieutenant Andrew Alcorn said the crime scene unit had recovered multiple items from Woldesenbet’s apartment, but he declined to categorise them.
He said Woldesenbet’s wife had been at their apartment in Frederick City, a few miles from the site of the shooting, earlier Tuesday and that police brought her in for questioning.
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