NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man opened fire in a building where services are provided to immigrants in the New York town of Binghamton Friday, killing a number of people and taking up to 40 hostages, local media reported.
Several media reports said four people were dead. The news director of WNBF radio told CNN up to 13 people may have been killed, citing police and other unnamed sources.
Four people were removed from the American Civic Association building on stretchers and taken to hospitals, the Press & Sun-Bulletin newspaper reported on its website.
A police special weapons and tactics team was on the scene and the shooter was still inside, the newspaper said, citing police. Television coverage showed police armed with rifles, some carrying shields, deployed around the building.
As MAN (MAN.XE) as 41 people were inside the building when a man entered and started shooting, WBNG television news reported on its website, citing police scanners.
Some people escaped to a basement and more than a dozen were hiding in a closet, WBNG said, reporting that emergency dispatchers had been in contact with people inside.
The American Civic Association building is used to teach English and provide other services to recently immigrants to the United States who are preparing for U.S. citizenship, Bob Joseph, the news director for WNBF radio, said in an interview with CNN.
He said his sources described the shooter as an Asian man in his 20s, and that the shooter may have blocked the rear entrance to the building with a parked car.
Police closed down surrounding streets and locked down a high school, WBNG said.
Binghamton Mayor Matthew Ryan, who was at the scene, said there was a hostage situation and the shooter had a high-powered rifle, the Press & Sun-Bulletin said.
Binghamton is about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of New York City with a population of about 45,000.
Last month, a man killed 10 people, many of them family members, in a shooting rampage in Alabama.
Mass shootings have become more frequent in recent years in the United States, where guns are widely available for purchase and the right to own weapons for self defence and hunting is defended by many.
On April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia, became the site of the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history when a student gunman killed 32 people and himself.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by David Storey)