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Tuesday, Jan 29, 2013 4:45 PM UTC

Doctor shot dead in exam room; man in custody

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Doctor shot dead in exam room; man in custodyPolice investigate as medical personnel exit the scene outside a medical office near Hoag Hospital where shots were fired on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013, in Newport Beach, Calif. Police say a doctor has been shot and killed and a man is in police custody. (AP Photo/The Orange County Register, Joshua Sudock) (Credit: AP)

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Police say a 75-year-old man is being held on suspicion of fatally shooting an Orange County physician in his examination room.

Newport Beach police spokeswoman Kathy Lowe identified the suspect on Tuesday as Stanwood Fred Elkus of Lake Elsinore. His bail was $1 million.

Police say Elkus shot and killed Dr. Ronald Franklin Gilbert on Monday afternoon at the medical office near Hoag Hospital. Gilbert, a 52-year-old Huntington Beach resident, was a urologist.

Police say as many as seven shots were fired, but no motive was released.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

A doctor was fatally shot in an examination room of an Orange County medical office, and the man who police believe shot him was taken into custody in the same room without a struggle, authorities said.

Several 911 calls reported six or seven shots fired Monday afternoon at the medical office near Hoag Hospital in Orange County, Newport Beach police spokeswoman Kathy Lowe told The Associated Press. Officers found a man dead from gunshot wounds in a patient examination room, Lowe said.

They took into custody another man in the room.

The victim was a doctor, Deputy Chief David McGill told the Los Angeles Times. The doctor’s name and relationship to the gunman weren’t immediately clear.

Witnesses told several media outlets the doctor was a urologist. The floor of the shooting included the offices for Orange Coast Urology, which lists three doctors on its staff. A phone message at the clinic said the office was closed.

Becky Calderwood said she works two doors down from the office where the shooting took place, and said the gunman was a patient.

“I sit right at the front desk, I would have caught the first bullet,” Calderwood told the Times.

No one else was injured or targeted, Lowe said. “It does appear to be an isolated incident,” she said.

Detectives were interviewing employees and patients in the building.

Kristen Cotty, who works as an office supervisor at a lab one floor above, said she thought the gunfire was construction noises.

“What’s going on with the world today?” she told the Orange County Register. “I mean, schools, now I got to worry about going to work. This has got to stop.”

By Shaya Tayefe Mohajer

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