BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Police in Alabama fatally shot two suspects Saturday following separate shooting incidents 75 miles apart that left several others, including two officers, wounded.

Authorities said Jason Letts, 38, of Jemison opened fire early Saturday morning at a hospital in Birmingham, wounding a police officer and two employees before being shot and killed by another officer.

Police were sent to St. Vincent's Hospital around 4 a.m. to check on a report of an armed man inside the facility. Two officers who arrived separately converged on the suspect on the hospital's fifth floor.

"When the officer encountered the suspect, there was immediate gunfire from the suspect," Birmingham Police Sgt. Johnny Williams said. He said detectives were still trying to establish a motive.

A handful of cardiac patients and several staff members were on the fifth floor, hospital spokeswoman Liz Moore told reporters during a news conference. She said the hospital is secure and stable, and patient care was not interrupted.

"In light of the recent mass shooting in Connecticut, too many of these incidents end with unimaginable tragedy," Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper said in a statement.

In a separate incident, police officers in eastern Alabama shot an assailant armed with an AK-47 assault rifle toward the end of a pursuit that left several people injured, authorities said.

The pursuit began after a shooting in Cleburne County, Oxford police Lt. L.G. Owens told The Anniston Star. The county is near the Georgia state line.

Oxford Police Chief Bill Partridge said a woman and two children were shot, but he did not know their conditions. Continued...