5 killed, including 2 police, in rural China shooting

BEIJING (AP) — Five people were killed, including two police officers, in a shooting Tuesday in rural northern China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The early morning shooting in Hebei province's Suning county marked a rare incidence of gun crime in China, where private ownership of firearms is illegal.

The gunman, 40-year-old Liu Shuangrui, who was among those killed, had suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, Xinhua said. He turned a double-barreled shotgun on his neighbors, killing two of them, before police arrived at the scene, the news agency said.

Two officers were then shot to death, including the political commissar of the county police department, before Liu was shot and killed, Xinhua said, adding that five other people were injured in the shooting.

A Suning police officer reached by phone said she had no information about the incident and calls to local government spokesmen rang unanswered.