A gunman at NASA's Johnson Space Center near Houston apparently killed himself after holding a hostage for hours this afternoon.
Early Friday afternoon, police surrounded an engineering building at the space facility after receiving reports that a gunman was inside. The standoff lasted for hours, and news came that the man, reportedly a contract employee, had barricaded himself in the building.
But after SWAT teams heard a gunshot, they decided to enter the building. On the second floor, they found that the gunman had shot himself in the head. They also saw that a male hostage was dead from a gunshot to the chest.
Another hostage, a woman, was unharmed but had been restrained with duct tape. Capt. Dwayne Ready, a spokesperson with the Houston Police, said they are still determining the sequence of events.
"We are working with the FBI to do a thorough investigation," Ready said, "and we're going to leave it up to the investigators from this point."
He did not have the identities of the gunman or victims. NASA officials say that Mission Control and its space operations were not affected by the incident.
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