A distraught Arlington man shot a doctor before killing himself and his mother at Johns Hopkins Hospital on Thursday.
Police said 50-year-old Paul Warren Pardus became overwhelmed when the doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, briefed him on his mother’s condition outside her room.
Pardus then pulled a semiautomatic handgun from his waistband and shot the doctor once in the abdomen, Baltimore Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld said.
After shooting the doctor, police said, Pardus went into the room of his mother, Jean Davis. Authorities then locked down that part of the building.
Police entered the room when the two appeared to be unresponsive about two hours later. Each had a single gunshot wound to the head.
The shooting prompted discussions about safety at the east Baltimore hospital.
Harry Koffenberger, vice president of security for the hospital, said the facility doesn’t have metal detectors because it “is not realistic” to place them at the campus’ 80 entrances.
But all of those entrances, one hospital staffer said, are a reason employees are sometimes concerned about safety.
The employee said the staff has long been concerned about “retribution situations” and how well the hospitals’ entrances are monitored.
The Joint Commission, an independent health care oversight group, reported this summer that violence is rising at hospitals nationwide. The group said hospitals should evaluate their risk by studying the area and crime rates, as well as providing extra security in the emergency department and conducting background checks of prospective employees.
Koffenberger said about 400 unarmed security guards and 150 uniformed off-duty police officers patrol the hospital’s 44-acre campus. The guards have magnetic wands, he said, to search high-risk patients.
And Thursday’s shooting has prompted an assessment of the hospital’s security, he said.
Police and Hopkins officials said the situation was contained to the eighth floor of the Nelson building, the main hospital facility. Only that area was placed in lockdown, officials said.
The rest of the hospital and education complex remained open, including the emergency department.
Pardus used an alias at the hospital, and police originally identified the gunman as Warren Davis.
Police said it wasn’t clear when Pardus killed himself and his mother during the standoff and no one heard those shots. Authorities would not say what his mother’s condition was that so enraged Pardus.
Ron Daniels, the university’s president, praised police and hospital employees for their response to the shooting.
“Those who were directly involved did what they needed to do, calmly and ably,” he said in an e-mail to Hopkins students and staff. “Those who were not directly involved kept on doing what they are there to do: The hospital remained in operation.”
