![]() ![]() Police kept the area of Fifth and Sixth streets from Main to Washington streets closed for several hours after taking Breck into custody. Area C-Tran bus routes were detoured during the response. Law enforcement cordoned off a three-block radius around Smith Tower, with police vehicles bumper to bumper on surrounding streets. Some residents who sheltered in place looked down from their windows on the crowd gathering below. When she exited the building, she said she saw a man on the ground, as well as an injured woman being stabilized and put onto a stretcher.Įvacuated residents were kept warm and dry in a C-Tran bus at Sixth and Washington streets. They told her to stay calm and continue down the stairs. Two officers carrying guns told her to put her hands up, she said. Unaware of what had happened, she walked downstairs to her ninth-floor apartment to grab her purse before work. Trish Gatley, 74, said she was visiting a friend on the 10th floor at the time of the shooting. I said, ‘Oh, you’re looking like a stud.’ ” “I had just been in the lobby with this guy,” she said, adding that he was on his way to sell a motorcycle and was dressed in leathers. She said she saw her friend lying on the ground. “They said, ‘Stay in your apartment.’ ” She was later evacuated from the building through the garage. “They had their guns drawn,” said the resident, who declined to give her name. The elevators inside the 15-story tower were shut off as police worked to contain the gunman to the 13th floor, where a drone hovered outside his window.Ī 12th floor resident, who was friends with the man who was killed, said she watched SWAT officers walk past her door through the peep hole. SWAT officers evacuated the residents who were able to navigate the stairs and told the rest to shelter in place. Shortly after, witnesses to the shooting were ushered from the building by law enforcement and taken to City Hall to be interviewed.Īfter police identified Breck as the suspect, a crisis negotiation team started communicating with him via phone before 3 p.m. The injured victims were tended to in the building’s parking lot until paramedics arrived and transported them to the hospital. Teams of four officers, holding the victims’ arms and legs, carried them out the front door - one appeared to be dead. Breck was holed up in his apartment on the building’s 13th floor on the south side.Īrmed SWAT officers swarmed the building. to 515 Washington St., where they found three victims in the lobby suffering from gunshot wounds. He went to the dress shop next door and called 911, he said. When he got inside, the witness said he saw Breck standing with a handgun in the lobby and heard “boom-boom.” The witness turned and fled. The witness entered through the same door a short time later. ![]() A 77-year-old man, who’s a resident and asked not to be identified, said he saw Breck enter the building through the side door. He allegedly fired shots in the building’s lobby shortly after 2 p.m. He will make a first appearance on the allegations Friday morning in Clark County Superior Court. However, the two who were injured were transported to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, where a hospital spokesman said both were in satisfactory condition.īreck was booked into the Clark County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder, according to the Vancouver Police Department. The victims have not yet been identified. Breck, 80, a resident of the senior living building, was taken into custody after a standoff with law enforcement that lasted nearly 2 ½ hours. The suspected shooter, identified by police as Robert E. During the negotiations with the suspect, SWAT officers could be seen standing on balconies on several floors.A man was killed and two women were injured in a shooting Thursday afternoon in the lobby of Smith Tower Apartments in downtown Vancouver. Kapp said the patrol officers who responded were replaced with SWAT team officers who have more tactical training because of the complexity of the situation. ![]() Kapp said police did not know what led to the shooting or the identities of the people who were shot. Some parts of the building had been evacuated during the standoff and other residents were told to stay inside their apartments. Vancouver Police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said he surrendered without incident. The shooter was believed to be a resident of the 15-story Smith Tower building. The injuries of the wounded people were critical and they were taken to a hospital, fire department officials said. A man opened fire Thursday in the lobby of an apartment building for senior citizens, killing one and wounding two and then barricaded himself inside his apartment before surrendering, police said. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
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