Evan Semon / Reuters

A woman reacts outside a townhouse complex following an overnight hostage situation in Aurora, Colo. on Saturday. Four people died including the gunman, according to police reports.

Updated at 4:45 p.m. ET: Two men and one woman were found dead inside a home in Aurora, Colo., after a gunman took them hostage early Saturday morning, police said in a news release. The gunman was shot and killed by police after hours of failed negotiation attempts.  

Another woman who had been inside the house was able to escape uninjured and alert authorities, the news release said. The woman told police that an adult male still inside was armed and had fired shots inside the home. She said she saw three people in the home who appeared lifeless as she was leaving.

This marks another shooting tragedy for Aurora, a suburb still reeling from the summer shooting in which a gunman entered a theater, killing 12 people and wounding 58 others. Residents in the city had just been debating whether the movie house chain's owner invited the victims’ families to a special event marking the Jan. 17 reopening, with some threatening to boycott the event. 

On Saturday, officers were called to a town home in the 16000 block of E. Ithaca Place shortly before 3 a.m. after reports of shots fired. Several nearby homes were evacuated for safety reasons and police sent out emergency notifications for the other residents in the area.

Officers took positions around the house and attempted to get in touch with the gunman, the news release said. Hostage negotiators arrived at the scene and were able to establish phone contact with the shooter. A SWAT team was also called at the scene.

Evan Semon / Reuters

Police survey the outside of a townhouse complex following an overnight hostage-taking incident in Aurora, Colo. on Saturday.

Police said phone contact with the gunman continued intermittently in the following several hours. Several times, the man was told by phone and by bullhorn to emerge from the house, but he apparently refused.

"He was behaving very irrationally throughout the incident and often hanging up on the negotiators," the news release read.

Around 8 a.m., SWAT members moved to the front of the house to break out a window, which caused the shooter to fire multiple rounds that hit the vehicle but did not injure any officers.

Police did not return fire, and shortly before 9 a.m., the gunman appeared in a second story window, firing again at the officers. Police returned fire, hitting the suspect, the news release said. Upon entering the home, police found the three deceased victims and the gunman was found dead in the upstairs bedroom.

Aurora Police Department Sgt. Cassidee Carlson said no names will be released until the coroner's office confirms the identities.

Meanwhile, a judge set a preliminary hearing for accused Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes for Monday. The hearing is expected to last the entire week. Hundreds of people, including victims, their family members, and members of the public are expected to come.

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Updated at 5:02 p.m. ET: PITTSBURGH -- A gunman opened fire inside a psychiatric clinic in Pittsburgh on Thursday in a shooting that left two people dead, including the gunman, and seven others injured, authorities said.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said a gunman entered the front door about 1:40 p.m. with two semiautomatic handguns and started firing. The gunman was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police, Ravenstahl said at a news conference. Hospital officials said seven people were injured, although at least one of the injuries was not a gunshot wound.  

A man who was in a nearby waiting room when the gunfire erupted said people scrambled to hide and decided they'd rush the shooter if he entered but he never did in the 15 or so minutes the ordeal lasted. Police later reported one of the dead was the gunman, according to NBC News affiliate WXPI.com.

There were no details about the second dead person. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center spokesman Paul Wood said it was unclear whether the injured people were patients, employees or visiting family members.

Among the injured was an officer who had been shot in the leg in the lobby of the clinic and taken to a nearby hospital about 1:45 p.m.

'Hide! Hide!'
Gregory Brant said he was in a waiting room on the first floor of the clinic building when pandemonium broke out.

"We heard a bunch of yelling, some shooting, people yelling, 'Hide! Hide!" he said. "Everyone's yelling, 'Stay down!"'

Brant, 53, and six other people, including a young girl and her parents, barricaded themselves inside the waiting room. But he said they did not feel safe because there were doors with windows along adjacent walls.

"The way the room was arranged, if he (the gunman) had gone to either window and would have seen us in there, he could have done whatever he wanted," Brant said.

The group crouched in a corner, hoping the gunman wouldn't see them as he went past, Brant said. The men in the group decided on the spot that if the gunman entered the room, they would rush him.

"We were kind of sitting ducks," Brant said. "Luckily, he didn't see us in there, and we didn't make eye contact with him."

Neighboring buildings were placed on lockdown after gunfire erupted near the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Oakland, a neighborhood east of downtown Pittsburgh.

Wood said media reports about a possible second armed suspect and a hostage situation at the clinic or at UPMC Presbyterian hospital were unfounded. "There was a rumor out there that there was a second gunman. That, we believe, was never true," Wood said.

Keith Srakocic / AP

Police gather on DeSoto street near the front entrance to the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic on the University of Pittsburgh campus, on Thursday in Pittsburgh.

A SWAT team was on the scene. A street was blocked off, and the area thronged with police. While most students were away on spring break, offices and buildings have been open.

Tweets from the UPMC said injured people were being treated there. "Police have told us there were 9 total victims at WPIC/Western Psych. 2 of whom have been confirmed dead. 7 being treated at UPMC Presby,’’ UPMC officials posted on the hospital's Twitter feed.

Hospital officials said two patients were in intensive care, two were released and three were being admitted. All were expected to survive.

'Terribly sad'
Pete Finelli, who lives two blocks from the clinic and once worked there as a student nursing assistant, said security guards are always at the part of the building where it the shooting is believed to have occurred, on the ground floor.

Patient rooms are on the upper floors, he said, but anyone on the first floor would have to be someone being either admitted or discharged.

"The only place a person would be on the first floor is the emergency room," he said.

Lawton Snyder, executive director of Pitt's Eye and Ear Foundation, said he and two other staffers were locked down about a block away, in a building that connects to the clinic. He said it was unnerving.

"Obviously I'm terribly sad for those injured. We're just hoping everybody's OK and things are resolved quickly and that they can apprehend those who are responsible," he said.

The clinic describes itself on its website as a top academic-based psychiatric care center. The University of Pittsburgh's Psychiatry Department is on the campus.

The Associated Press contribued to this report.

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