by ANDREW DeMILLO
AP

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A man barged into the Arkansas Demo­c­ra­tic head­quar­ters and opened fire Wednes­day, fatally shoot­ing the state party chair­man before speed­ing off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the sus­pect after a 30-mile chase.

Police said they don’t know the motive of the sus­pect, who they described as about 50 years old but whose name has not been released. How­ever, they said that moments after the shoot­ing he pointed a hand­gun at the build­ing man­ager at the nearby the Arkansas Bap­tist head­quar­ters. He told the man­ager “I lost my job,” said Dan Jor­dan, a Bap­tist con­ven­tion official.

Chair­man Bill Gwat­ney died four hours after the shoot­ing. The 48-year-old for­mer state sen­a­tor had been plan­ning to travel to the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion later this month as a superdel­e­gate. He had backed Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton but endorsed Barack Obama after she dropped out of the race.

Clin­ton and her hus­band, for­mer Pres­i­dent and for­mer Arkansas Gov. Bill Clin­ton, issued a state­ment say­ing Gwat­ney was “not only a strong chair­man of Arkansas’ Demo­c­ra­tic Party, but ... also a cher­ished friend and confidante.”

Wit­nesses said the gun­man entered the party offices shortly before noon and said he wanted to see Gwatney.

“He said he was inter­ested in vol­un­teer­ing, but that was obvi­ously a lie,” said 17-year-old party vol­un­teer Sam Hig­gin­botham. He said that when the sus­pect was refused a meet­ing with Gwat­ney, he pushed past employ­ees to reach the chairman’s office.

Lit­tle Rock police spokesman Lt. Terry Hast­ings said the sus­pect and Gwat­ney intro­duced them­selves to one another, at which time the sus­pect “pulled out a hand­gun and shot Gwat­ney sev­eral times.” Hast­ings didn’t say what the two dis­cussed, but said their dis­cus­sion was not a heated one.

After the sus­pect avoided spike strips and a road­block along U.S. 167 near Sheri­dan, police rammed his car, spin­ning it, said Grant County Sher­iff Lance Huey. He got out of his truck and began shoot­ing, and state police and sheriff’s deputies fired back, strik­ing him sev­eral times, he said.

Hast­ings said inves­ti­ga­tors found at least two hand­guns in the suspect’s truck.

The state Capi­tol was locked down for about an hour until police got word the gun­man had been cap­tured, said Arkansas State Capi­tol police Sgt. Char­lie Brice.

Gov. Mike Beebe, a Demo­c­rat who served with Gwat­ney in the state Sen­ate, had been on a flight to Spring­dale in north­west­ern Arkansas. He returned to Lit­tle Rock and joined an impromptu vigil at Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal after what he called a “shock­ing and sense­less attack.” Gwat­ney had been Beebe’s finance chair­man dur­ing the governor’s 2006 campaign.

“Arkansas has lost a great son, and I have lost a great friend. There is deep pain in Arkansas tonight because of the sheer num­ber of peo­ple who knew, respected and loved Bill Gwat­ney,” Beebe said.

Karen Ray, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Repub­li­can Party of Arkansas, sent her work­ers home early “out of an abun­dance of caution.”

“Our hearts go out to every­one at the Demo­c­ra­tic head­quar­ters. What a tragedy,” Ray said. “This is just a very upset­ting, trou­bling and scary thing for our staff as well.”

Sarah Lee, a sales clerk at a flower shop across street from the party head­quar­ters, said that around noon Gwatney’s sec­re­tary ran into the shop and asked some­one to call 911.

Lee said the sec­re­tary told her the man had come into the party’s office and asked to speak with Gwat­ney. When the sec­re­tary said she wouldn’t allow him to meet with Gwat­ney, the man went into his office and shot him, Lee said.

Last Novem­ber, a dis­traught man wear­ing what appeared to be a bomb walked into a Clin­ton cam­paign office in New Hamp­shire and demanded to speak to the can­di­date about access to men­tal health care. A hostage drama dragged on for nearly six hours until he peace­fully surrendered.

The con­fronta­tion brought Clinton’s cam­paign to a stand­still just five weeks before the New Hamp­shire pri­mary. Secu­rity for her was increased as a pre­cau­tion. She said she did not know the suspect.