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Weston — A man angry after a domestic dispute opened fire in a Wisconsin bank, killing two long-time employees, then killed an attorney at a nearby law firm and a detective trying to set a perimeter outside an apartment complex before he was finally captured, police said. His wife was unhurt.
The man, whom police would not identify, was hospitalised on Thursday under police guard with nonfatal wounds, police said.
Citing an ongoing investigation, police released few other details of the shootings on Wednesday, including why the attorney was targeted and where the man's wife was. They said investigators had worked through the night to process multiple crime scenes and had more work ahead.
"It was a domestic incident," Everest Metro Police Chief Wally Sparks said. He called it an isolated incident that "evolved into tragic crimes".
The victims were identified as Everest Metro police Detective Jason T. Weiland, 40; Marathon Savings Bank employees Dianne M. Look, 67, and Karen L. Barclay, 62 and attorney Sarah H. Quirt Sann, 43.
Officials said Weiland was among officers who responded to the apartment complex in Weston following attacks at the bank in nearby Rothschild and the law firm in Schofield. The suspect was taken into custody after a standoff at the apartment complex.
Weiland spent 18 years in law enforcement, all in the Wausau area, including the last 15 years with the Everest Metro police force. He is survived by a wife and two children.
Look had been the branch manager at Marathon Savings since 1998, when she and her family returned to Wisconsin from South Dakota. She is survived by her husband of 25 years and their two children.
Barclay moved to Wisconsin in 1993 and had worked at the bank for more than five years. She is survived by a daughter and two granddaughters, ages four and seven.
The bank shooting was reported around midday. Officers arrived to find two people were shot and the suspect had fled.
A second call came about 10 minutes later from Tlusty, Kennedy and Dirks law firm. The action then moved to an apartment complex in Weston.
Dozens of police vehicles were parked on Thursday in front of the apartment complex, which was ringed by yellow crime-scene tape. Officers could be seen walking around with clipboards. Jason Smith, a deputy administrator for the state Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation, said more than 100 officers were investigating.
Kelly Hanson, a 21-year-old woman who lives in the complex, told The Associated Press that she looked out of her apartment window at around 1:15 pm on Wednesday to see a squad car approach, and a few seconds later heard a gunshot and saw an officer fall.
She said other officers put the wounded policeman in an armoured SWAT vehicle and took him away. She couldn't tell if he was alive or dead.
Janet Schoenfeldt, who owns a hair salon behind the bank, said she was at the front desk around 1 pm on Wednesday when squad cars poured into the parking lot, followed by ambulances. An officer then told her to close her shop and get out of the area.
"It's a sad reality. Someone taking innocent lives over something he's upset about," Schoenfeldt. "We're a small-knit community. You just don't think it will happen here. Everybody says that, but you know what? It does happen here."
