Five dead in Chicago shooting tragedy

Published on Sunday 3 February 2008 00:35

FIVE women were shot dead in a clothes store in Chicago and police were last night still searching for the suspected gunman.

Police discovered the victims when they were called to the Lane Bryant store at the Brookside Marketplace shopping centre in the southern suburb of Tinley Park.

The incident, for which police said they have yet to establish a motive, happened at about 10.45am (4.45pm GMT).

"Every store was immediately canvassed and a search by air, too, has given us every indication that the offender has left the scene," said Police Sgt T J Grady

He said police were looking for a black man about 5ft 9in tall and weighing 230 to 260 pounds, dressed in a black waist-length winter coat, a black cap and black jeans.

The shooting is the latest in a series of mass killings that have shocked the United States, where gun ownership is widespread and the right to possess arms is a fiercely contested constitutional issue.

In December a teenage gunman killed eight people in a shooting rampage at a department store in Nebraska.

High school drop-out Robert Hawkins, 19, who had recently broken up with his girlfriend, then turned the rifle on himself. He was found dead by police on the third floor of the Van Maur store in Omaha, Nebraska.

The deadliest shooting spree in modern US history occurred in April last year when a student killed 32 people and then himself at Virginia Tech university

After murdering his first two victims, Cho Seung-Hui, 23, returned to his dormitory room and sent a rambling account of grievances in a video to NBC.