4 wounded in shooting rampage at Wisconsin office building ...

James B. Nelson and John Bacon Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Published 2:26 PM EDT Sep 19, 2018

A gunman opened fire at a Wisconsin software company Wednesday, wounding four people and sending panicked office workers scrambling to safety.

Mike Davis, Middleton city administrator, said the suspected shooter was critically injured. The conditions of the victims were not immediately released.

A phalanx of police vehicles and ambulances descended on the offices of WTS Paradigm at about 10 a.m. local time amid reports of an active shooter. Dane County Sheriff deputies and agents from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined local police at the scene.

"Please lock all doors, stay inside and shelter in place until further notice," Middleton Police tweeted. Then, later: "The lock down has been lifted. Officers and emergency personnel are still on scene so please avoid the area."

There were at least two officers involved in this shooting, according to police radio traffic. Another officer radioed that she was following an ambulance to a hospital "with the suspect."

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Dozens of officers converged on the building, which houses companies including WTS Paradigm and Esker. and at least one other company. Judy Lahmers, a business analyst at WTS Paradigm, said she was working at her desk when she heard shots. She said she fled the building and hid behind a car as the structure's glass entrance door shattered.

“I’m not looking back, I’m running as fast as I can. You just wonder, ‘Do you hide or do you run?’” she said.

She said she knew that one co-worker had been grazed by a gunshot but was OK. She called the shooting “totally unexpected. We’re all software people. We have a good group.”

Gabe Geib, a customer advocate at Esker Software, said he was working at his desk when he heard a couple of shots coming from next door which “sounded like claps.” He said he then saw people running “full sprint” away from the building.

“We knew at that point that something was going down. A ton of people were running across the street right in front of us,” he said.

School officials in neighboring Madison emailed parents saying police "have contained the situation in Middleton, and again, there is no threat to our schools."

Officers at the scene requested the state Department of Criminal Investigation respond to the scene. Officers also advised dispatchers that citizens in the area should "shelter in place" until given an all-clear by law enforcement.

Middleton is a suburb of Madison with about 17,000 residents.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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