One dead in US office shooting, gunman flees

One person was killed and four others wounded Wednesday in a shooting at an office building in Phoenix, Arizona, but the gunman fled before police arrived, a spokesman and reports said.

Police surrounded a nearby home for several hours and identified the suspected gunman as a 70-year-old man, but he was not found inside the house, and officers urged anyone who spotted him to exercise caution.

The shooting was not believed to be random, the police spokesman said. The wanted man was named as Arthur Douglas Harmon, and a vehicle linked to him was being sought, according to local TV channels 12 News and Fox10.

"At this point we don't believe he is in the area," Sergeant Tommy Thompson of the Phoenix Police Department told reporters.

"This doesn't appear to be a random type of incident."

One of the people wounded was an attorney for Phoenix law firm Osborn Maledon, the company said, adding that lawyer Mark Hummels Was representing a client in a mediation when he was shot, FoxNews reported.

The victim who died was not named.

The incident came as former Arizona lawmaker and shooting victim Gabrielle Giffords made a dramatic appeal in Washington to Congress, saying "You must act" to reduce the epidemic of US gun violence.

Giffords was shot in the head in January 2011 while meeting with constituents in Tucson, Arizona, in an attack which killed six people including a federal US judge and a nine-year-old girl, and wounded 14.