Two Killed, Four Injured in Clovis Public Library Shooting

A fatal shooting has rocked a tiny New Mexico town, leaving two people dead.

Two people were killed and four others injured in a shooting at a downtown public library in Clovis, PEOPLE confirms.

At a press conference Monday evening, Clovis Police Chief Douglas Ford said the shooter, reportedly a 16-year-old male, has been taken into custody. “We immediately went into the building and made contact with the suspect who gave up,” he said.

Ford said the suspect’s motive is unclear as the investigation is at a “very young stage.”

Ford said the two fatalities were female. The four injured, two males and two females, were initially taken to the Plains Regional Medical Center in Clovis.  “Three of them have been sent to Lubbock, Texas,” Tom Phelps, the interim city manager with the City of Clovis tells PEOPLE.

The ages of those killed and injured in the incident have not been released as police notify the families.

“We have been hit hard and we are a community that will get back up,” Clovis Mayor David Lansford said, at the press conference.

The shooting at the Clovis-Carver Public Library in Clovis, which is located 200 miles east of Albuquerque, started around 4:13 p.m. Monday.

Vanessa Aguirre told the Eastern New Mexico News that she was in the library with her son when the suspect came in and shot into the air. “It all happened so fast,” she said. “We took off fast. My purse is still in there.”

Joseph Tapia, a resident of Clovis, tells PEOPLE he was driving by the library when officers drove past him to the scene.

“Two cops cut us off to get to the library and we pulled off to the side and saw cops with their guns drawn,” Tapia says.

Tapia says he saw a handful of officers run into the building and then start bringing out the injured. “One of the cops came running out and he was with one of the workers there and she had blood dripping from her arm,” he says.

A few minutes later, he says, the suspect was brought out in handcuffs. “He kind of walked across like nothing,” he says of the suspect. “He was flipping his hair back and forth.”

“It is unreal,” he adds. “You hear about it in other places but not Clovis.”

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Kim Tipton, who works in the building across from the library, says she became aware of the shooting after she saw a woman and her daughter running out of the library.

“You knew something was wrong,” she tells PEOPLE. “I know the girl. She wouldn’t be running for no reason.”

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Tipton says the police were on the scene quickly. “The library is only six blocks from the police station and right across the street from the courthouse,” she says.

“I walked out of my office and all you could see was city, state, and county police all pulled up to the back and front of the building.”

 

 

 

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