A gunman killed two police officers and three city officials last night when he stormed into a city council meeting in a suburb of St Louis, Missouri.
The gunman, who was later shot dead by police, killed one police officer in the car park outside City Hall in Kirkwood and killed another inside the building.
He rushed into the council meeting and began shooting people. Two of the dead were council members, and the other was an engineer.
The mayor, Mike Swoboda, suffered a gunshot wound to the head, and is critically ill.
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Witnesses said the gunman was a middle-aged local contractor who had feuded with the city council in the past and had twice been arrested for disrupting meetings in 2006.