Grand Rapids:
Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk says the man suspected in seven Michigan shooting deaths has killed himself and two hostages he was holding are safe.
Belk said 34-year-old Rodrick Shonte Dantzler fatally shot himself inside a home where here had been holding the hostages Thursday night.
Dantzler had released a 53-year-old female hostage unharmed earlier in the evening. Two other hostages had remained in the home.
A manhunt for Dantzler began after four people were found dead in one Grand Rapids home and three were found in another across town. Belk says the dead included two children.
The frantic search included a high-speed chase through downtown Grand Rapids during which Belk says the suspect shot two other people. They did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
Records show Dantzler was discharged from state prison in 2005 after serving time for assault less than murder. A spokesman for the prison system said he had not been under state supervision since then.
Sandra Powney lives across the street from one of the homes where the shootings happened and said she had seen Dantzler at the ranch house, where a couple has lived for more than 20 years with two adult daughters.
Powney said she had been at home all day and did not realize anyone had been killed until police converged on the cul-de-sac in the midafternoon.
"For a while we couldn't come outside," she said. "They didn't know if there was someone still inside the house."
Neighbors said police converged on Dantzler's home after the shootings a few miles away.
Sonia Bergers said Dantzler lived in the home with a woman she assumed was his wife and their daughter, a girl who appeared to be about 10 years old.
Mary Lahuis said she and her husband had returned home after having coffee at a nearby fast-food restaurant.
"We were in the house, and police went down our street, running with guns," she said. "They told us to get in the house."
Of Dantzler she said: "You would see him going up and down the street. And you'd hear him going up and down the street."
Lisa Schenden lives with her husband and their children, ages 11 and 8, two blocks from the home where four people were killed. She said the homeowners are a couple whose daughter has a daughter with the suspect.
Schenden said she did not hear the shooting either, but she saw the suspect and his daughter drive up to the house earlier in the day.
"Just last night, my kids went over there swimming, and I went over with them," she said.