Around 11:30 Wednesday morning, Mitchell Police received a call about a gunman entering a downtown building.
Police quickly began the process of locking down area schools and businesses , and told people to get out of harms way.
Shirley Smith of the Mitchell Senior Center says they were about to serve lunch to about 25 seniors... until she noticed what was going on outside. "When I saw them come by the front window here... I saw the officer with his gun at the ready come down the street. Two of them."
The seniors were escorted out the back and taken to the City Offices. Other business owners say it was pure mayhem outside.
"State trooper pickup, cops, our Mitchell P.D., all up against the building with their big guns," explains Kristal Reisig.
Kristal Reisig and Joleen Werthington quickly left their shop... And their thoughts then went to their children.
"The next thing we thought of is, 'Our kids are in school,' says Werthington. "(Reisig) has a child and I have a child that go to the grade school and we both have kids that go to the high school and that was our first thought as we got loaded up."
Preliminary reports say the man with the gun is mentally unstable, and an employee at City Offices say the suspect was transported to the psych ward at the Scottsbluff hospital.
Some feel today's events could have been much worse. "The way things are happening nowadays, if there had been any problems or had been a weapon," adds Smith. "They could have just as easily came into the Senior Center here."
Fortunately, nobody was injured. Mitchell Police Chief Mike Cotant has not returned phone calls about today's events, but we will have more information on this incident as it becomes available.
