Four killed, including gunman, at Aurora, Colo., townhome

Four people died at an Aurora, Colo., townhome early Saturday morning, including a gunman who barricaded himself inside for hours, police said.

Around 9 a.m., police said the suspect shot at officers from a second-story window. They returned fire, hitting the man. The suspect was pronounced dead in an upstairs bedroom.

Inside the home, police discovered two other men and one woman dead.

Another woman was able to escape early Saturday morning when she jumped from an upstairs window, and called police around 3 a.m., Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson told the Denver Post. The woman, who escaped unharmed, told police she saw three bodies that “appeared lifeless,” police said.

Several neighboring homes were evacuated and police sent out emergency notifications to neighbors at 3 a.m., KUSA-TV , an NBC affiliate, reported.

“After we arrived on scene, there were no more shots fired up until he fired at us,” Carlson told the Associated Press. “During this time he was all over the house. He moved furniture. He was throwing things. He was agitated. He was irrational.”

Aurora, a Denver suburb, is where a gunman killed 12 people and injured at least 70 others at a movie theater July 20.

[Updated at 1:41 p.m., Jan. 5: Carlson said in an email to the Los Angeles Times that there was no indication the four people had any connection to the theater shooting.]

Police said they told the suspect by phone and a bullhorn to exit the townhome. Police reached him by phone “intermittently” over several hours and the suspect hung up multiple times on hostage negotiators, police said.

Authorities did not release the name of the victims or suspect.

andrew.khouri@latimes.com

@khouriandrew