South Carolina Shooting In Rock Hill: 5 Things To Know

ROCK HILL, SC — Two young children and a prominent South Carolina doctor are among five people killed in the latest mass shooting to occur in the United States.

The Associated Press reported the suspected gunman, a former NFL player, is also dead, according to people briefed on the investigation.

On Wednesday afternoon, police were called to a home just south of Rock Hill, a city of about 73,000 people on the other side of the state line from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Among the five people fatally shot were Dr. Robert Lesslie, his wife, their two young grandchildren, and two others.

RELATED: Slain South Carolina Doctor Wrote Of Faith, Life's Fragility

Suspect Found In SC Killing Of 2 Children, 3 Adults

The gunman was former NFL player Phillip Adams, who killed himself early Thursday, according to a report by The Associated Press.

News of the shooting came the same day President Joe Biden issued executive actions on guns to address what the White House calls a “gun violence public health epidemic," The AP reported. Biden has faced increased pressure to act on gun violence after recent mass shootings targeting massage workers in Atlanta and a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.

RELATED: Biden Tightens Some Gun Controls, But Says More Is Needed

Here's what else we know about the shooting in South Carolina:

1. Five people were killed.

Dr. Robert Lesslie, 70, and his wife, Barbara Lesslie, 69, were pronounced dead at the scene along with grandchildren Adah Lesslie, 9, and Noah Lesslie, 5, according to an AP report citing the York County Coroner's Office.

A man who had been working at the home, 38-year-old James Lewis, was also found shot to death outside, authorities said.

A sixth victim, Robert Shook, 38, of Cherryville, North Carolina, was flown to a Charlotte hospital, where he was in critical condition “fighting hard for his life,” cousin Heather Smith Thompson told AP.

At Thursday's news conference, York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson played audio of two 911 calls, according to AP, including one from an HVAC company that employed Lewis and Shook. One of the men, the caller said, had called him “screaming” and saying that he had been shot, and that his coworker was shot and “unresponsive.”

“I think there’s been a bad shooting,” a different man said in a second 911 call, saying he was outside cutting his grass and heard “about 20” shots fired at the Lesslie home before seeing someone leave the house.

2. The suspect was a former NFL player.

Adams, 33, played in 78 NFL games over five seasons for six teams, AP reported. He joined the 49ers in 2010 as a seventh-round draft pick out of South Carolina State, and though he rarely started, he went on to play for New England, Seattle, Oakland and the New York Jets before finishing his career with the Atlanta Falcons in 2015.

He had suffered multiple injuries in the NFL, including concussions and a broken left ankle.

Tolson said evidence at the scene led authorities to identify Adams as a suspect. He said they went to Adams' parents' home, located near the Lesslie home, evacuated them, and tried to talk Adams out of the house.

Eventually, police said they found Adams dead of a gunshot wound to the head, AP reported.

Adams’ father told a television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, he blamed football for his son's problems. He said it also might have led him to commit Wednesday’s violence.

“I can say he’s a good kid — he was a good kid, and I think the football messed him up,” Alonzo Adams told WCNC-TV. “He didn't talk much and he didn't bother nobody.”

RELATED: Gunman Identified In Rock Hill Mass Shooting That Left 5 Dead

3. Adams knew Dr. Lesslie.

The source who confirmed Adams' identity to The AP said the former football player had been treated by Lesslie.

However, Tolson would not confirm that Adams had been the doctor's patient.

4. Dr. Lesslie practiced medicine in Rock Hill for more than 40 years.

Lesslie was founder of Riverview House Calls & Riverview Hospice and Palliative Care, according to its website, and had been practicing in Rock Hill since 1981. A personal biography page said Lesslie and his wife had been married for 40 years, raised four children and had nine grandchildren.

"Dr. Lesslie has been one of those people that everybody knows," York County Police spokesman Trent Faris told reporters, according to a CNN report. "If you are from Rock Hill and you are from around this area, the people who are involved are very prominent and very well known in York County."

5. Police are uncertain of the shooter's motive.

Tolson said investigators had not yet determined a motive in the shooting deaths, according to AP.

“There's nothing right now that makes sense to any of us," Tolson said of the mass killing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.