KIRKWOOD, Missouri (Reuters) - A gunman killed two police officers and three city officials on Thursday night when he stormed into a city council meeting in a suburb of St. Louis, police said. The gunman, who was later shot dead by police, killed one police officer in the parking lot outside City Hall in Kirkwood and killed another inside the building.
He rushed into the council meeting and began shooting people, including council officials and Mayor Mike Swoboda, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was in critical condition, police said.
"He shot three other people who were attending the council meeting. They also are deceased," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper quoted Officer Tracy Panus as saying.
Two of the dead were council members and the other was an engineer, police said.
Witnesses said the gunman was a middle-aged local contractor who had feuded with the city council in the past and had twice been arrested for disrupting meetings in 2006.
Kirkwood is an upscale suburb around 15 miles southwest of St Louis.