Gunman dead after shooting six people in Florida apartment building

Updated July 28, 2013 06:30:56

Police have shot dead a gunman who killed six people in a shooting rampage at a Florida apartment building.

The stand-off started when the gunman got into an argument with the husband and wife who ran the apartment complex in the Miami suburb of Hialeah.

Pedro Vargas, 42, opened fire on landlords Italo Pisciotti, 78, and Camira, 68, when they went to his unit to discuss a problem.

Police say he lived in a fourth-floor apartment with his mother and may have been facing eviction.

After he shot dead the landlords, Vargas went to another apartment and killed a man and woman and their teenage daughter.

He then fired from a balcony at a man walking into a building across the street, killing him as well.

He tried to fire at emergency crews and police, missing them but preventing them from giving immediate aid to the victims.

The shooter then took two neighbours hostage and barricaded himself inside a fifth-floor apartment.

Negotiators made contact with him during the night and the SWAT team swarmed in at about 2:00am when talks broke down.

The two hostages escaped unharmed, but the gunman's mother collapsed and was taken to a hospital, police said.

At some point, the gunman managed to set his apartment on fire, leaving the ceiling and hallway charred and setting off sprinklers inside the building.

The apartment complex in the blue-collar, mostly Hispanic community housed about 90 families.

Reuters

Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, law-crime-and-justice, police, united-states

First posted July 28, 2013 06:25:33

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-28/gunman-among-seven-killed-in-florida-shooting-rampage/4848278

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