Portion of Hamburg Pavilion temporarily locked down after suicide in parking lot
Several stores in Hamburg Pavilion were temporarily locked down and lanes of Man o’ War Boulevard were closed briefly Thursday afternoon when a man shot himself in a vehicle in the parking lot of Target.
Police say they were called to the parking lot for a report of a suicidal person, and when an officer approached the vehicle involved they heard a gunshot.
Initially, officers could not be sure who the shot was fired at, so they asked people to shelter in place, police Lt. Scott May said. Once enough police officers had arrived and they could approach the vehicle safely, they quickly learned that a man had shot himself, May said.
The man who was shot was taken to a local hospital where he died of his injury, May said.
Two Eastern Kentucky University students, Hailey Hayden and Abigail Burnside, were inside Target during the incident.
The two said they had to stay in the store for about 30 minutes, and that initially there was a lot of confusion. While the two stayed at the back of the store with about a hundred other shoppers, there was no official word of what was happening outside, Hayden said.
After a while, a police officer came into the store and told shoppers he could escort them back to their cars, Hayden said.
No officers or shoppers in the area were injured during the incident, May said.
This story was originally published March 7, 2019 at 8:20 PM.
