Iowa man shoots and kills himself after firing on local law firm

A 40-year-old man armed with a handgun shot himself in the head on Monday afternoon when confronted by police responding to reports of shots fired at a business in Bettendorf, Iowa, a city spokeswoman said.

The shooting happened minutes after a white man matching his description fired several shots a few miles away at a law firm in a building that also has a military recruiting center, which was not a target, Bettendorf spokeswoman Lauran Haldeman said.

Haldeman said that Bettendorf police were responding to a report of shots fired at a prosthesis and brace-making business when they saw the man holding a handgun in the parking lot.

"When the suspect saw the officers he fired one round to his head," Haldeman said. "It was a fatal wound."

There were no other injuries in the Bettendorf shooting, she said.

Calls to the business, Miller-Meier Limb and Brace Inc, were not answered. The emergency room at UnityPoint Health-Trinity Bettendorf across the street from the fatal shooting was locked down during the incident, spokeswoman Erin Platt said.

About 10 minutes before the Bettendorf shooting and about 5 miles (8 km) away, Davenport police received reports of shots fired at a law firm in a building shared by a military recruiting office, Haldeman said.

Several shots were fired inside the Davenport building, but no one was wounded and the suspected gunman was not there when police arrived, Haldeman said. Two people received superficial injuries in the incident, she added.

All personnel from a U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office in the building were accounted for and unharmed, said Captain James Stenger, spokesman for the 9th Marine Corps Recruiting District.

(Reporting by John Peragine; Additional reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Writing by David Bailey; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Watch a report on the incident, as aired on KWQC-TV on Monday, below.