At least four dead in US rampage by black-clad gunman

LOS ANGELES: A black-clad gunman killed at least four people in a shooting rampage in the US state of California Friday, before police shot him dead in a college library, officials said.

Wearing black clothing and a tactical vest, the assailant began by killing his father and brother in a burnt-out house before a random string of slayings in Santa Monica, only a few miles from an event attended by President Barack Obama.

One witness described how the gunman, a white male aged 25 to 30 carrying an ammunition belt and a semi-automatic rifle, shot a motorist at point-blank range before hijacking another vehicle.

Police revised the death toll late Friday, telling journalists that five including the gunman were killed, down from earlier reports of seven.

Five more were wounded, including one critically and one who was in "serious but stable condition," said Sergeant Richard Lewis.

Another suspect was taken into custody but soon released after the shootings, which occurred as Obama was speaking at a political fundraiser a few miles away in the oceanfront city, just west of Los Angeles.

"At this time, we believe it's a single gunman. That part of it has been resolved," Lewis said, adding that the coroner was still working on confirming his identity. That information was expected to be released on Saturday.

The shooting is the latest in an all-too regular succession of such rampages, which fuel the gun control debate in America. They follow last year's massacre of 20 schoolchildren in Connecticut, and the slaying of 12 moviegoers in a theater in Colorado.

The incident apparently began with the shootings in a nearby house, which was then set on fire. The Los Angeles Times reported that two bodies found in the burnt-out home were those of the gunman's father and brother.

A witness who lives opposite the house told KTLA 5 television she heard gunfire and rushed out of her house to see a man who had apparently just opened fire inside or on the house, which was beginning to burn.