A shooter has been killed, three victims are dead and seven more are being treated after a shooting by a Saudi student at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, on Friday morning.
The commander of the base joined the Escambia County sheriff and the mayor of Pensacola in a joint press conference just before 11 a.m. Eastern, roughly four hours after the mass shooting.
Sheriff David Morgan said those shot include two sheriff's deputies, one hit in the arm and one in the knee. Both are being treated at a local hospital and are expected to recover; the deputy shot in the knee is in surgery, he said.
The shooting scene unfolded over two floors of a classroom building at the air station, officials said, beginning around 6:30 a.m. The sheriff's office, which holds an agreement with the air station for emergency response, sent officers to the scene. One of those officers shot and killed the shooter.
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Eight shooting victims were transported to local hospitals, and one ultimately succumbed to wounds, officials said.
Morgan and NAS Pensacola Commanding Officer Capt. Tim Kinsella declined to say what prompted the shooting.
Officials later revealed the shooter was an aviation student from Saudi Arabia -- a second lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force who was attending training on the base.
In a tweet Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump said King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia had called "to express his sincere condolences" regarding the shooting.
"The King said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people," Trump tweeted.
Multiple news outlets reported that the FBI had taken the lead of what is now a global investigation.
The base will remain closed, Kinsella said, while officials gather more information.
"My heart goes out to the families of the deceased and of the wounded," he said. "They are part of our Navy family."
Morgan emphasized that the region is secured and there was no evidence of additional shooters.
"I would tell you this strikes home, particularly for me as a retired military member," he said. "Walking through the crime scene was like being on the set of a movie."
Kinsella declined to specify where exactly the shooting took place on the base; next-of-kin notifications are still being made, officials said. He indicated there were no immediate plans to ramp up security on the base.
"Security is an ever-changing, ever-evolving thing," he said. "We'll look at lessons learned from this. I will say that I’m very, very proud of the response my security department had. I think it could have been a lot worse if we didn’t train the way we do."
Pensacola Mayor Grover C. Robinson IV expressed sadness and condolences on behalf of the community.
"We will overcome this, but certainly today is a tragic day," he said.
NAS Pensacola is the initial training base for all naval aviators, including those from the Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard; it's also the home base for the elite Navy aerial demonstration team The Blue Angels.
This is the second active-shooter situation on a U.S. naval installation in just a few days.
On Wednesday, an enlisted sailor shot three Defense Department civilian workers, two fatally, at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii before killing himself.
-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com; follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
