A disgruntled city employee opened fire at the municipal centre in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Friday afternoon, killing 11 people and wounding at least six others before he was killed himself, the city’s police chief said.
Chief James Cervera said the precise circumstances of the shooting in the coastal resort city remained under investigation.
Mr Cervera said the suspect was a longtime current municipal employee and described him as “disgruntled.”
It was not made immediately clear whether the gunman took his own life or was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.
“This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach,” Mayor Bobby Dyer said at a news conference with the police chief. “The people involved are our friends, co-workers, neighbours, colleagues.”
The shooting happened just after 4pm when the gunman entered one of the buildings at the Virginia Beach municipal complex and "immediately began to indiscriminately fire on all of the victims," Mr Cervera said.
The wounded included a police officer, who was saved by his bulletproof vest.
Further official details of the gun violence were not immediately available.
But a public works employee told a local NBC television news affiliate that employees were at their desks when gunshots rang out and recounted seeing a badly injured woman in a stairwell, WAVY-TV reported on its website.
The Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported, citing a police officer, that a shooter had been inside the “operations building” situated next door to City Hall.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said on Twitter his team was “actively monitoring the situation in Virginia Beach,” and he too urged the public to keep its distance from the area and “follow all instructions from law enforcement.
City Councilwoman Barbara Henley told the Virginian-Pilot she had just pulled up to the City Hall building when she noticed municipal employees standing outside using their cell phones, and someone told her there was a shooting and she should leave.
Ms Henley had gotten back in her car when she heard a male voice shout, “Get down,” as bystanders scattered, she told the newspaper. “I was scared to death.”
Virginia Beach, a coastal resort on the Atlantic at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, ranks as the most populous city in the state with roughly 450,000 year-round residents.
The building where the shooting took place in Virginia Beach, a city on the east coast of the US about 320km southeast of Washington, housed the city's public works and utility offices.
