Gunman's suicide ends Sacramento rampage

A Californian security guard who went on a murderous rampage against his former colleagues at the weekend turned one of his armoury of weapons against himself after a night-time chase through the suburbs of Sacramento and a shoot-out with police.

Joseph Ferguson, a 20-year-old Sacramento native, crashed a stolen car into a lamppost outside a fast-food restaurant while being pursued. When the police closed in, they found he had committed suicide.

He killed five people in all, four of them employees of the Burns Security outfit where he worked until last week. Two others, a police officer and a bystander, were shot during the final 40-minute pursuit.

Police said Ferguson had become angry after breaking up with his girlfriend – one of the first people he killed – and being suspended from his job for vandalising her car. He had threatened to wreak even more havoc than Nikolay Soltys, a Ukrainian immigrant alleged to have killed six people in Sacramento three weeks ago.