A woman went on a shooting rampage in a US mail processing plant where she used to work, killing five people and critically wounding another before committing suicide, police said on Tuesday.
Early police reports had put the death toll at seven in the immediate aftermath of the shooting spree which erupted on late Monday in the Californian coastal town of Goleta, about 160km northwest of Los Angeles.
"An act of violence is always a shock to the soul, but especially in a community such as ours, where our neighbors are our friends, and where violence of any kind is extremely rare," said Goleta mayor Johnny Wallace.
"A day in the office should not result in death."
SWAT teams rushed to the US Postal Service office and found two bodies in front of the building and another in a doorway, Santa Barbara Sheriff Jim Anderson told reporters.
The woman believed to be responsible for the shootings, who was dismissed from the facility in 2003, was among the dead found inside. She apparently shot herself in the head, sheriff's deputies said.
A motive for the attacks was being sought, and investigators had yet to determine whether the woman targeted her victims or randomly killed her former co-workers, according to US Postal Service inspector Randy DeGasperin.
The woman was placed on medical disability after her bizarre behavior at the facility in 2003 prompted co-workers to call police, who forcibly removed her from the building, DeGasperin said.
"It was more for the safety of herself given the nature of her behavior," DeGasperin said, declining to give details.
"She wasn't threatening people at that time. Employees had reported that her behavior was strange," she added.
The woman evidently followed the car of a postal facility employee through a parking lot security gate on Monday night.
She then did likewise to get into the locked building, DeGasperin said.
Her electronic pass key had been deactivated after she was placed on medical disability, according to the inspector.
It remained to be determined how long she was in the building before she began shooting, apparently with a rapid-fire pistol, deputies said.
"Deputies responded to reports of shots fired and found two victims deceased of gunfire in the front loading area of the mail sorting facility," sheriff's Sergeant Erik Rainey said.
Police SWAT teams quickly sealed off the building, evacuated the more than 50 workers inside and combed the 24-hour sorting office searching for victims and survivors, some of whom hid inside.
Postal Service inspectors said that officers found a total of six bodies, one of them the suspected gun-woman's.
The attack by the woman is the latest in a string of high-profile shootings by US mail workers over recent years which gave rise to the colloquial expression "going postal," indicating a high level of anger and frustration exploding into violence in the workplace.
In the first highly-publicized event in August 1986, postal worker Patrick Sherrill shot and killed 14 fellow employees in Oklahoma.
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