Multiple casualties after shots fired at Chicago hospital

CHICAGO: At least three people, including  attacker, were killed and  five others sustained injuries in firing  at Chicago's Mercy Hospital on Monday.

According to details, officers responded to an active shooting near Chicago's Mercy Hospital, the Chicago Police said on its social media channels.

There were reports of "multiple victims" including a wounded officer in "critical condition."

"Reports of shots fired in the vicinity of 26th and Michigan near Mercy Hospital," tweeted Anthony Guglielmi, chief communications officer for the Chicago Police Department.

He asked the people to "avoid area, adding," heavy police response incoming," Guglielmi also tweeted that officers were "doing a methodical search" of the hospital. At least one "potential offender" was also shot, he wrote, urging the public to avoid the area.

TV footage showed people filing out of the hospital into a parking lot with their hands in the air.

The shooting came less than two weeks after a gunman killed 12 people in a California music bar packed with college students.

That rampage followed the worst anti-Semitic attack in modern US history, when a gunman opened fire on worshipers at a synagogue in the US city of Pittsburgh on October 27.

The incidents have added to the growing outcry over gun safety in the United States, where there have been more than 300 mass shootings this year.