A Long Beach Memorial Medical Center employee killed two co-workers at the hospital Thursday, sending patients and workers scrambling into offices and bathrooms for cover, before walking outside and fatally shooting himself.
Mario Ramirez, 50, of Alhambra shot co-workers Kelly Hales, 56, of Redondo Beach, and Hugo Bustamante, 46, of Cypress, before shooting himself, according to the Long Beach Police Department.
Ramirez and both of the men he shot all worked in an outpatient pharmacy at the hospital.
Police responded to a report of shots being fired at the hospital in the 2800 block of Atlantic Avenue at 11:47 a.m. and found the two victims shot near the entrance to the emergency room, Long Beach police Chief Anthony Batts said.
Bustamante was pronounced dead at the scene. Hales was pronounced dead later, police said.
When additional police units arrived, officers found Ramirez dead outside the north entrance to the emergency room, Batts said.
Witnesses told reporters at the scene that Ramirez casually walked through the hospital lobby and repeatedly shot one man, then another, before taking his own life. One woman at the scene said Ramirez told her to leave the area.
Local
Charity Perez, whose husband works at the hospital, described Ramirez as "a great, wonderful guy." A neighbor described him as a quiet and polite family man who would often go jogging with his wife.
