LOS ANGELES: At least one person opened fire in the Southern California city of San Bernardino on Wednesday, and early reports said there were as many as 20 victims, authorities said.
The San Bernardino Police Department said in a tweet that it had “confirmed 1 to 3 possible suspects” and multiple victims in the shooting and called it an “active shooter” incident.
The San Bernardino Fire Department said in a post on Twitter that it was responding to reports of 20 victims.
“SBFD units responding to reports of 20 victim shooting incident in 1300 block of S. Waterman. SBPD is working to clear the scene,” the city fire department said on Twitter.
A spokeswoman from nearby Loma Linda Medical Center said the hospital was expecting patients momentarily.
“We're all kind of on standby right now - it could be any minute,” spokeswoman Briana Pastorino said.
Dozens of people were seen coming out of an area building, which was ringed by heavily armed police.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the shooting took place at about 11 a.m. at a social service office in San Bernardino.
The shooting took place near a golf course where an employee said that staff had been told to stop all activities.
The man, who did not want his name used, said the area houses office and industrial buildings.
The shooting comes just days after a lone gunman killed three people during a standoff at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.
Back in October, a gunman went on a shooting rampage at a college in the US state of Oregon, killing 10 people and wounding seven before he died in a shootout with police.
The shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Charleston in June was one of the worst attacks on a place of worship in the country in recent years, and comes at a time of lingering racial tensions.
The deadliest in recent years include the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, when 32 were killed, and the December 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, when a total of 27 people died, including 20 children.
In August 2012, six people were shot dead at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin by a neo-Nazi US military veteran.
There have been 142 school shootings in the United States since the Sandy Hook massacre, according to data compiled by Mass Shooting Tracker.
