Ten people, including a police officer, have been killed by a gunman following an hours-long stand-off at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.
The attack ended with police detaining an injured suspect at the King Soopers market.
The shooting was live-streamed by witnesses and broadcast on YouTube.
Among the dead was 51-year-old Eric Talley, who was the first police officer to respond to the shooting.
“This is a tragedy and a nightmare for Boulder County,” the area’s district attorney, Michael Dougherty, said.
“These were people going about their day, doing their shopping. I promise the victims and the people of the state of Colorado that we will secure justice.”
No other details have been released about the nine other victims or a motive for the attack.
The grocery store is located in a busy shopping plaza in Boulder, a north-central Colorado city about 30 miles away from the state capital of Denver.
The supermarket attack comes less than a week after a mass shooting that left eight dead, including six Asian women, at three spas in Atlanta.
The incident began at about 14:30 local time on March 22 when the suspect entered the supermarket and began firing.
Shoppers and employees of the store said they had to dive for cover or run to safety as the shooting unfolded.
Some of the stand-off was captured on camera by a passer-by, showing victims near the grocery store.
Gunshots can be heard as he runs away from the shop.
The video continues, with police arriving on the scene and surrounding the market.
The Boulder police department later warned people to avoid the area and told them not to “broadcast on social media any tactical information you might see”.
Eyewitnesses said the suspect was armed with a rifle. A police source told CNN it was an AR-15 style rifle, a semi-automatic gun that has been used in several mass shootings across the US.
Aerial footage later showed a handcuffed, shirtless man with an apparent injury to his leg being put onto a stretcher for treatment. Authorities did not say whether he was the suspect or not.
Speaking at a press conference, Boulder police chief Maris Herold confirmed that a suspect was in custody and was receiving hospital treatment.
Maris Herold named the officer killed as Eric Talley, a father of seven who had been with the Boulder Police Department since 2010.
The names of the other victims will not be released until relatives have been informed.
Aurora shooting suspect James Holmes, who shot and killed 12 people in a theater in 2012, was found sane by two experts immediately following the attack, prosecutors say.
James Holmes, 27, has admitted the killings, but pleaded not guilty on grounds of insanity.
He opened fire during the midnight premiere of a Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado, in July 2012.
Officials say he was wearing body armor, threw smoke canisters and shot at people trying to escape.
If the jury finds him not guilty on grounds of insanity, James Holmes will spend the rest of his life in a mental institution for the criminally insane.
Otherwise James Holmes faces the death penalty.
During opening statements on April 27, District Attorney George Brauchler said both mental health evaluators agreed on James Holmes’ mental state at the time of the attack.
“Both of them said the same thing – that the guy was sane when he tried to murder all those people in the theatre,” he said.
Prosecutors have argued the attack was clearly premeditated, with James Holmes planning and amassing weapons for months, as well as elaborately booby-trapping his apartment to kill anyone who tried to enter.
His parents wrote a letter to the Denver Post in December calling for his life to the spared.
Robert and Arlene Holmes said their son was “not a monster”, but suffers from severe mental illness.
The trial comes after two and a half years of complicated legal questions related to the death penalty and the insanity plea, and after nearly three months of jury selection.
The mental health evaluations could be a key factor. Judge Carlos Samour ordered a second mental health exam after prosecutors said the first one was biased. Defense lawyers objected to a second test.
At the time of the shooting, James Holmes was a graduate student in neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Denver, but was withdrawing from his studies after failing a key exam.
When he was arrested, James Holmes’ hair had been dyed red in an apparent reference to the Joker, a Batman villain.
James Holmes appeared dazed in his first court appearance, and cameras were banned from further hearings.
Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes’ trial has been postponed indefinitely on Thursday.
District Judge Carlos Samour ordered the delay as attorneys on both sides debated whether the suspected shooter should undergo another psychiatric evaluation.
James Holmes’ trial had been set to begin with jury selection on February 3.
The 25-year-old faces charges of killing 12 people and wounding 70 others during the 2012 attack at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, during a premiere of The Dark Knight.
His attorneys have not disputed that he committed the shootings but have entered plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
James Holmes’ trial has been postponed indefinitely
Throughout a roughly 40-minute hearing on Thursday, James Holmes appeared expressionless as he sat in shackles and in a red prison jumpsuit and grown-in beard. He did not interact with his defense team or the bailiffs.
Prosecutors are challenging at least one of three aspects in the states’ first mental health evaluation and are seeking another examination. The findings of the evaluation have not been publically disclosed but the fact that prosecutors want further evaluation suggests the first exam might have found Holmes was insane.
If James Holmes were found by jurors to have been insane at the time of the shooting, he would be committed to state hospital instead of prison. As such, the findings of any psychiatric evaluations are crucial to the case.
Judge Carlos Samour set future hearings on further testing and other pre-trial issues for December 17 and 18.
A hearing scheduled for November 22 and a capitol motions hearings scheduled from December 2 to December 20 have been cancelled, but in the course of discussion today, the judge indicated he hoped that the trial could start as early as April.
A judge has ruled that cameras will be banned from next week’s hearing when James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado cinema shooting, is to be formally charged.
James Holmes, 24, is accused of opening fire at a midnight showing of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, last Friday, killing 12 and wounding 58.
Judge William Sylvester has denied a request by Denver-area media for expanded coverage on 30 July.
The suspect’s lawyers had objected to the media’s request.
His first court appearance on Monday was filmed, despite the defence team’s objections.
He appeared dazed as he sat in court in a burgundy jail suit with dyed orange hair, prompting media speculation about his mental state.
According to a report on ABC News, the suspect has been forced to wear a face guard because he kept spitting at prison officers.
Judge Sylvester’s order on Tuesday follows calls from some victims’ family members to avoid using the suspect’s name and his photos.
James Holmes is accused of opening fire at a midnight showing of the new Batman movie, killing 12 and wounding 58
“I don’t want the media to be saturated with the shooter’s name,” said Jordan Ghawi, whose 24-year-old sister Jessica was killed in the shooting.
Police were not allowing residents of James Holmes’ apartment building to return on Tuesday, as investigators continued to work there.
Officials reportedly found 30 grenades and several gallons of gasoline inside the apartment, rigged into a booby-trap.
Twenty of the wounded remained in hospital on Tuesday, including six in critical condition.
Batman star Christian Bale visited victims at the Medical Center of Aurora in the afternoon, the hospital’s president confirmed.
“It was good for the patients,” Bill Voloch told the Denver Post.
“We hope it was therapeutic for them, and all the staff really appreciated him coming.”
Bill Voloch said that the actor had asked to visit, but requested that the media not be notified. A Facebook photo of Bale at the hospital was posted online.
The actor also met paramedics, doctors and police officers involved in treating people in the aftermath, as well as visited a makeshift memorial to the dead.
Meanwhile, a heavily pregnant 21-year-old woman who escaped the cinema shootings gave birth to a baby boy on Tuesday morning.
Katie Medley’s husband Caleb, a 23-year-old aspiring comedian, was shot in the head and remains in a critical condition.
A small group of Democratic lawmakers in Washington renewed calls on Tuesday to ban high-capacity gun magazines.
But with November’s elections looming, congressional leaders and President Barack Obama said there would be no movement on gun control in the near future.
Senator Robert Menendez, among the few calling for tougher laws, conceded calls for legislation were unlikely to succeed, but said it was important to start a debate.
“I hope that this does spark a national conversation about where we go in terms of reasonable gun control measures,” Senator Robert Menendez said.
The shooting has heightened security at cinemas, and over the weekend three men were arrested in separate incidents:
• A Maine motorist with weapons in his car was arrested after telling authorities he had been on his way to shoot a former employer, a day after watching The Dark Knight Rises
• About 50 people panicked and fled a showing of the movie at a cinema in Arizona during a confrontation involving an apparently intoxicated man
• In Los Angeles county, a 52-year-old man was arrested after reportedly shouting to moviegoers about Colorado and asking if anyone had a gun
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