Kentucky authorities on Friday searched for a gunman who robbed a pawn shop and killed three people at the store in Danville, just blocks from Centre College, Reuters reported on Friday. The city went on lock-down for several hours, as the suspect remained at large.
"It was a robbery and he has not been apprehended yet," Janice Spears, a manager at the Boyle County Kentucky Sheriff's office said.
ABC Gold Games & More Pawn Shop owners Michael Hockensmith, his wife Angela Hockensmith and customer Daniel P. Smith, were all shot dead by the gunman, who was descibed as a heavy-set man in his 40s, Danville's police chief Tony Gray said.
Two children in the building were unharmed.
Local elementary and secondary schools were on lockdown following the shooting as a precaution in the morning, but was later lifted around noon, and classes resumed about two hours later.
"We made the decision to put our campus on a lockdown at 10:15 a.m., just as the college's annual family weekend was beginning," the Centre College the director of communications said,
"You don't expect something like this to happen in Danville," one resident said.
