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4 killed at NY shops; police search for suspect

2:08 PM, Mar 13, 2013   |    comments
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HERKIMER, N.Y. (AP) - Police SWAT teams and a helicopter have converged on a jewelry store in one of two upstate New York villages where four people were killed and at least two others wounded in separate shootings.

The Utica Observer-Dispatch reports that police are focusing on Freddy's Jewelers on Main Street in Herkimer, where two people were fatally shot at a car wash and oil change business.

The newspaper reports that officials in the neighboring village of Mohawk, where two other people were killed in a barbershop, seem to think the suspect is still on foot somewhere. Other reports suggest he may have been picked up by a taxi.

A nearby college describes the gunman as being in his 60s, with a white beard and driving a red Jeep Cherokee.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A man opened fire at a car wash and a barbershop a mile apart Wednesday morning, killing four people and wounding at least two others, police said, and a suspect was being sought.

State police told local media outlets a man shot and killed two unidentified people Wednesday morning at Gaffey's Fast Lube in the village of Herkimer. Two others were killed at John's Barber Shop in the village of Mohawk. They said a total of six people had been shot.

The two villages are about 65 miles east of Syracuse, on opposite sides of the Mohawk River in a region known as the Mohawk Valley.

Herkimer Village police would only say that there was a shooting and a manhunt.

Herkimer County Community College and local schools were on lockdown. The college sent an automated cellphone alert around 10:40 a.m., telling students and staff that there was an "active shooter" in the area. The message identified the gunman as a man in his 60s, with a white beard and driving a red Jeep Cherokee. A text alert a few minutes later said the campus was on lockdown. Another alert advised people to remain inside buildings until further notice.

Amanda Viscomi, Herkimer's acting clerk-treasurer for the village of 7,700, told The Associated Press the shooting at Gaffey's happened a few blocks from village hall. She said she was told the shooter was at large and that state police, sheriff's deputies and other police were swarming the area.

"Everybody's on lockdown, all the schools, the college, the village," Viscomi said. "It's very, very scary."

The Utica Observer-Dispatch reported that police were seen removing about a half-dozen long guns from an apartment building in Mohawk where a fire had broken out around 9:30 a.m. The building is around the corner from the barbershop.

Herkimer is named for the German immigrant family that settled in the western Mohawk Valley in the 1720s. The economically distressed villages are two miles away from Ilion, where a 2-century-old Remington Arms gun plant is a major employer.

(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)