Two people were killed and two others were injured in separate shootings Friday morning at a shopping center and mall in Montgomery County, Maryland, police say.
One man killed at the mall had tried to help a woman as she was confronted by the shooter, according to a witness.
Students and staff at all Montgomery County schools sheltered in place. Lockdowns are in place at other institutions in the area, north of Washington, D.C.
Montgomery County Police have asked the FBI to help investigate whether the two shootings are connected to a fatal shooting Thursday outside a high school in Beltsville, Maryland, Police Chief Paul Starks said.
The suspect in Thursday's shooting — and possibly in the mall shooting Friday — was identified as 62-year-old Eulalio Tordil, of Adelphi, an employee of the Federal Protective Service. He is 5-foot-5 and weighs 165 pounds, Prince George's County police said.
Tordil was last seen driving a silver 2015 Hyundai/Elantra with the Pennsylvania license plate JZA0123, according to police.
A source told News4 the description of the shooter at the mall matches the description of Tordil. Police believe Tordil is armed and dangerous.
Anyone who sees anything suspicious is asked to call 911.
Three people were shot outside Westfield Montgomery mall in Bethesda, Maryland, by a shooter police believe was a stranger to the victims, Montgomery County Police say.
Separately, police responded to a fatal shooting outside the Giant grocery store on the 13000 block of Connecticut Avenue in Aspen Hill, Maryland, about 8 miles northeast of the mall. A woman was shot and killed, police say.
Police have not identified any of the victims.
Students and staff at all schools in Montgomery County sheltered in place, school officials say. All but five schools were expected to dismiss students on time. Suburban Hospital in Bethesda is on lockdown, a hospital representative said. All park facilities in the county are on lockdown with an order to shelter in place.
The National Institutes of Health main campus is on "heightened alert," a spokesman said. Leased NIH facilities in the Bethesda and Rockville area are on lockdown.
Investigators are examining whether the two shootings Friday have any connection to a fatal shooting Thursday afternoon in a parking lot of a high school in Beltsville, Maryland, the Montgomery County police chief said.
A man shot and killed his estranged wife, Gladys Tordil, and shot and injured a bystander about 4:40 p.m. Thursday at High Point High School, police said. Police identified the suspect as Tordil.
The three people shot at the Westfield Montgomery Mall, two men and one woman, were shot in a parking lot and all initially were in critical condition, police said. They were rushed to Suburban Hospital, a representative said.
One victim, a man, later died. Another man is in critical condition, and a woman has non-life-threatening injuries, Starks said in an update. The hospital is on lockdown, the representative said.
Police say preliminary information indicates the shooter fired at one victim and then two people went to the victim's aid. The shooter then fired at those two people, police say, according to initial information.
"We have no reason to believe the victims knew the suspect," Montgomery County Assistant Chief Darryl McSwain said. "But we are certainly looking at all angles."
A woman was walking towards Macy's when a man approached her and asked where she was going, one witness told News4's Chris Gordon. When the woman didn't answer, the suspect reached into his car, pulled out a gun and started shooting. The woman was shot in the shoulder, and two men who were not involved in the initial confrontation also were wounded, the witness said.
The mall on Democracy Boulevard off I-270 was not locked down, a witness said. A man who answered the phone in the mall's management office said he could not confirm whether the mall ever was locked down Friday.
Stay with News4 for more details on this developing story.
Photo Credit: WRC
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