INTERNATIONAL: A lone gunman shot five people to death and wounded a police officer on Monday during a Denver-area shooting spree that unfolded at various locations and ended with police killing the suspect, authorities have said.

Investigators have yet to determine a motive for the rampage, which began around 5 p.m. when the gunman shot and killed two women and wounded a man near downtown Denver, police said in a news briefing.

Anne Wilson, a shopper who was inside a cellular phone store in Lakewood when gunfire has erupted nearby has narrated that she heard "seven or eight gunshots, and then like another set of maybe five more." Danny Schofield, 38; and Sarah Steck, 28, were among the five people killed by the shooter. Another victim, 44-year old Alicia Cardenas owns a tattoo shop.

Police did not release the identities of the other two fatal victims. The shooter, Lyndon James McLeod, 47, was also killed in a gunfight with police. Two others, including a police officer whose identity has not yet been released, were injured in the shootings,

Wilson has added, store employees have quickly ushered her and other customers into a backroom behind security gates until the danger had passed. "It is scary, scary times we live in," she said.

According to police, the suspect then fled in a car and fatally shot a man in east Denver's Cheesman Park neighborhood before opening fire again in a west Denver community where no one was hit. The suspect twice exchanged gunfire from his vehicle with Denver officers pursuing him, disabling a police cruiser, police added.

Romero said that the gunman fled from Lakewood police when they attempted to pull him over and engaged in a running gun battle with officers before fleeing on foot and entering a hotel, where he shot and wounded a clerk. He then shot at police officers again, wounding one of them, before police shot him dead.