Gunman wounded as Charleston hostage situation ends

The mayor says a hostage situation in a Charleston, South Carolina, restaurant has ended with the gunman being shot by police.

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said the restaurant employee shot by the gunman Thursday has died.

Authorities are now saying that only one person was taken hostage. Police initially had estimated that there were “a couple” and a “small number” of hostages.

Tecklenburg says the man who took the hostages is in critical condition.

Authorities did not release the names of the gunman or the man killed.

One of the restaurant’s owners, John Aquino, told WCSC-TV that a dishwasher who had been fired came back to the restaurant and shot a chef to get revenge.

“This is not an act of terrorism. This is not a hate crime. It is a disgruntled employee,” Tecklenburg said.

Peter Siegert, 73, and his son Peter Siegert IV, 45, were quoted by The Post and Courier of Charleston as saying that just after several waitresses and kitchen workers walked out the door without saying a word, a man in an apron with a gun came out of the kitchen and locked the front door.

He said, “‘I am the new king of Charleston,'” the Siegerts said.

The man told diners to get on the floor and move to the back of the restaurant. The Siegerts said they escaped out a back door and didn’t know how many people were left behind.

The site is a few blocks away from Emanuel AME church, where nine black members of a church were killed by a white man during a June 2015 Bible study. Dylann Roof was sentenced to death in the case.