An unidentified American soldier armed with a pistol fatally wounded herself after barricading herself in a building at Fort Lee, Virginia, sparking a lockdown of the Army base, officials said, according to The Associated Press.
The soldier entered the four-story Combined Arms Support Command Headquarters at about 8:45 a.m. and locked herself in an office, the AP reported. She shot herself in the head as police negotiated with her.
The woman was taken to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, where she was pronounced dead, the base said in a statement, according to the AP.
The soldier's identity has not been released pending notification of relatives, and the motive for the shooting was unknown, the AP reported.
WRIC TV, an ABC affiliate in Richmond, quoted base officials as saying the soldier was a sergeant first class and a 14-year veteran. She had been at Fort Lee for three years, according to the AP.
"We are sad for our soldier in arms that she faced those kinds of challenges that she thought she had to resort to those kind of actions," Major General Stephen Lyons, the base commander, said at a televised news conference, the AP reported.
Lyons said the soldier went on a "rampage" during talks with police, throwing things around the office and then opening fire, WRIC said, according to the AP. The pistol was a small-caliber handgun and not a service weapon, officials said. The shooting is under investigation.
The base was locked down for less than an hour but the gate near the building where the incident occurred and nearby streets were kept closed, base spokesman Stephen Baker said, the AP reported.
Fort Lee is about 100 miles south of Washington and according to the base's website is the Army's third-largest training site, according to the AP.
