BALTIMORE (AP) — The man who shot and wounded a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital and then killed himself and his mother was distraught over news of his mother’s condition, Baltimore police said Thursday.
Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said the gunman, 50-year-old Warren Davis, shot his mother, Jean Davis, in her hospital room. The doctor was telling Mr. Davis about his mother’s condition when the man “became emotionally distraught and reacted … and was overwhelmed by the news of his mother’s condition,” Commissioner Bealefeld said.
He said he did not know what the woman was being treated for.
Mr. Davis then pulled a semiautomatic handgun from his waistband and shot the doctor once in the abdomen, the commissioner said. After that, Mr. Davis holed up in his mother’s hospital room for two hours.
When officers made their way to Room 873, they found Mr. Davis dead on the floor and his mother dead in her hospital bed.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the doctor, who collapsed just outside the room, was shot in the abdomen but is expected to survive after undergoing surgery. “The doctor will be OK,” he said. “He’s in the best place in the world — at Johns Hopkins Hospital.”
Police and hospital officials have not released the doctor’s name. The hospital said in a statement that he is a faculty physician but that it could not release more information because of privacy policies.
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.
“Basically, he was upset about his mother being paralyzed by the doctor,” Ms. Burrell said. “It’s crazy.”
A small area of the hospital was locked down before the gunman died, as about a dozen officers wearing vests and helmets and carrying assault weapons prepared to go into the hospital at midday. Mr. Guglielmi said the gunman did not take any hostages, and people with appointments in other parts of the hospital were encouraged to keep them.
The FBI was assisting Baltimore police, FBI spokesman Richard J. Wolf said.
Hopkins spokesman Gary Stephenson said the gunman was on the eighth floor of the Nelson Building, the main hospital tower. According to the Hopkins website, the eighth floor is home to orthopedic, spine, trauma and thoracic services.
Mr. Guglielmi said the situation was contained to that part of the hospital and no people were locked in rooms or otherwise in danger.
The rest of the massive hospital, research and medical education complex remained open, including the emergency department.
With more than 30,000 employees, Johns Hopkins Medicine is among Maryland’s largest private employers and the largest in Baltimore. The hospital has more than 1,000 beds and more than 1,700 full-time doctors.
Associated Press writers Ben Nuckols and Kathleen Miller contributed to this report.
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