US: Hospital gunman kills mother, then himself

A man who became distraught as he was being briefed on his mother’s condition by a surgeon at Baltimore Hospital pulled a gun and shot and wounded the doctor, then killed his mother and himself in her room.

The gunman, 50-year-old Paul Warren Pardus, had been listening to the surgeon yesterday when he “became emotionally distraught and reacted ... and was overwhelmed by the news of his mother’s condition”, said Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld.