U.S. gunman killing 4 still on the run a day after Waffle House shooting

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Xinhua) -- A 29-year-old gunman was still at large on Monday despite intensive police hunt, a day after he shot four people to death at a Waffle House in southern U.S. state of Tennessee.

No one has reported seeing Travis Reinking, the identified suspect who fled the restaurant in Nashville's Antioch neighborhood barefoot and shirtless early Sunday morning, according to police.

Police believed the suspect may be armed with one of the four guns seized from him last year after he tried to enter the White House.

During Monday morning commute, police vehicles with flashing lights could be seen parked throughout the area every quarter of a mile, according to local media reports.

Local police with weapons were combing through wooded areas around, while search dogs were seen across the street from the Waffle House, said the reports.

Schools in Antioch, about 12 miles southeast of downtown Nashville, were on lockout on Monday with no guests or visitors allowed to enter, said police.

Reinking, described as a white man with short hair from the state of Illinois, fled on foot, nude, after shedding his coat following the shooting around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, police said. The vehicle the gunman arrived in is registered to him.

Two of the victims died in the parking lot outside the restaurant, and one inside, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said. A fourth person died later at the hospital.

Reinking was said to have suffered from mental problems for years. He once claimed that singer Taylor Swift had been stalking him. The authorities once arrested him and seized his weapons after he tried to cross a security barrier near the White House last year.

The shooting took place less than two miles from a mass shooting that killed one with nine injured at an Antioch church during Sunday morning services in September. Enditem