Cedric Ford

KANSAS — A man killed up to four people and wounded as many as 20 others on Thursday in a shooting spree in central Kansas that began on roadways and ended at his work site, where authorities shot and killed him, the local sheriff told reporters.

The gunman appears to have driven around in a car, opening fire at three locations before entering the building of a lawnmower manufacturer in the town of Hesston, Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton said at a news conference.

The shooter, identified by a dispatcher with the Sheriff’s Department as 38-year-old Cedric Ford, began his attacks at about 5 p.m. local time in the town of Newton, where a man driving a truck was shot in the shoulder, Walton said.

Witnesses speaking with local television stations also identified the shooter as Cedric Ford.

Soon after, the suspect shot a person in the leg on another street on the way to his worksite at Excel Industries, a large employer in Hesston, which is less than 9 miles (14 km) northwest of Newton, Walton said.

The gunman opened fire in the parking lot of the manufacturing plant, then entered the work site and continued his shooting spree, the sheriff said. Other employees told local media they fled in panic.

“This is just a horrible incident that’s happened here,” Walton said. “There are going to be a lot of sad people before this is all over.”

The shooter killed three or four people, and wounded as many as 20 others before he was killed by authorities, the sheriff said.

The series of shootings about 35 miles north of Wichita come less than a week after a Michigan man who worked as a driver for car-hailing service Uber was charged with killing six people during a shooting rampage.

A number of mass shootings in the United States have elevated gun control as a campaign issue in the November U.S. presidential election.

A dispatcher for the Harvey County, Kansas, sheriff’s department said officers believe a Facebook page belonging to someone named Cedric Ford who lists his place of work as Excel Industries was that of the shooter. The page shows images of guns along with what look like family photos.

A spokesman for the local Via Christi Hospital St. Francis said they have taken in six patients from the shooting, with five in serious condition and one in fair condition.

Wesley Medical Center is treating three patients, said the facility’s spokeswoman Susan Burchill. She had no further details.

“Please send your thoughts and prayers to the people of Hesston tonight,” Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said in a statement.

An Excel employee told local television station KSN that she was just steps away from the shooter before she made her escape.

“I’ve been through quite a bit but nothing like that; that’s terrifying,” the woman, who did not give her full name, told the station.