Three people are dead and two police officers were injured this morning during a gunfight that ensued inside a Delaware courthouse when a gunman opened fire in the lobby, CBS News reports.
At 8:10 a.m., shots erupted at the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington when a man pulled out a gun and shot dead his estranged wife and her female friend, authorities said. Two police officers were injured after they exchanged fire with the gunman who was killed in the gunfight.
The two wounded officers were taken to the Christiana Hospital and are being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, reports say. The identities of the dead have not been released. A heavy police presence is reported at the courthouse as investigators continue to analyze the scene.
This latest incident of gun violence comes less than a week after a mother and her three children were shot in Denver and three people were shot and wounded near a Las Vegas movie theater.
The continuing violence across the nation has inflamed the debate about gun control legislation after a gunman massacred 26 people, including 20 young children, at a Newtown, Conn. elementary school on December 14, 2012.