The Latest on two shootings in two days in South Carolina hospitals (all times local):
9:15 p.m.
Authorities have charged a 27-year-old man with attempted murder and kidnapping in a shooting that wounded a police officer in a South Carolina emergency room.
An arrest warrant says Kevin Boyce Patterson dragged his father at gunpoint across the waiting room at Laurens County Hospital around 2 a.m. Thursday.
Authorities say a Greenville Health Authority Police Department officer confronted and was shot by Patterson.
Investigators say the officer fired back, hitting Patterson in the arm.
The hospital said in a statement the officer was treated and released. His name has not been made public.
The State Law Enforcement Division said in a statement Patterson has been booked in the Laurens County jail. Records did not indicate if he had a lawyer who could comment.
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2:50 p.m.
Authorities say a police officer shot while confronting a man in a hospital emergency room in South Carolina has been treated and released.
Prisma Health spokeswoman Sarah Moore said the armed man was visiting the Laurens County Hospital emergency room around 2 a.m. Thursday when a Greenville Health Authority Police Department officer and a state trooper tried to talk to him.
Moore said in a statement that the incident report about the shooting says the man fired at the police officer, who fired back and wounded the man in the arm. His condition was not released.
It is the second hospital shooting in South Carolina in two days. Authorities say a nurse was shot Wednesday at Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg by a man who had come to the hospital a day before to seek mental health treatment.
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7:05 a.m.
Police in South Carolina say a shooting inside a hospital has left a police officer and a suspected gunman injured – the second hospital shooting to take place in the state in two days.
A spokesman for the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division says the suspect was being treated early Thursday at the Laurens County Memorial Hospital in Clinton when he shot the hospital’s police officer and tried to flee.
The Greenville Health Authority Police Department officer returned fire, striking the suspect. Both were receiving treatment at the hospital for injuries. Their conditions were not immediately available.
Authorities say that on Tuesday, an armed man seeking mental health treatment was turned away from the Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg and disarmed. His girlfriend was told to bring him back Friday for treatment. Instead, he showed up with another gun Wednesday and opened fire in the emergency room, injuring a nurse.
The nurse was taken into surgery after the shooting and was in critical condition Wednesday afternoon.
Authorities identified the gunman in that incident as 23-year-old Abrian Dayquan Sabb. Affidavits provided by the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office say Sabb has been charged with attempted murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of violent crime.
