Doctor killed in office shooting

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Police found a doctor dead from multiple gunshot wounds Monday in an examination room of a Southern California medical office, and took a suspect into custody in the same room, authorities said.

Police received reports at about 2:45 p.m. of six or seven shots fired at the medical office near Hoag Hospital in Orange County, Newport Beach police spokeswoman Kathy Lowe told the Associated Press.

Officers responding found a man dead from multiple gunshot wounds to the upper torso in a patient examination room on the building’s second floor, Lowe said. They took into custody another man in the room.

The victim was a doctor, Deputy Chief David McGill told the Los Angeles Times. The doctor’s name and relationship to the gunman weren’t immediately clear.

Witnesses told several media outlets the doctor was a urologist, and the floor of the shooting includes the offices for Orange Coast Urology, which lists three doctors on its staff. An outgoing message at the clinic said the office was closed.

Becky Calderwood said she works two doors down from the office where the shooting took place, and said the gunman was a patient.

“I sit right at the front desk; I would have caught the first bullet,” Calderwood told the Times.

No one else was injured or targeted, Lowe said.

“It does appear to be an isolated incident,” she said.

Detectives were interviewing employees and patients in the building.

Kristen Cotty, who works as an office supervisor at a lab on the third floor, said she thought the gunfire was construction noises.

“What’s going on with the world today?” she told the Orange County Register. “I mean, schools, now I got to worry about going to work. This has got to stop.”

The building and much of its parking lot were cordoned off with police tape and surrounded by many police vehicles several hours after the shooting.

A gold Kia Sedona minivan was taped off and being guarded by a police car.