Man shoots dead 4 kids

The 15-year-old girl had been shot in a bloody rampage, but she managed to call the police before the gunman could kill more people.

Before she was taken to hospital in critical condition, the teen gave the police the gunman's name and where he was believed to be going after he fled.

She told them Ron Lee Haskell, 33, had intended to kill another family at their home.

Haskell had killed four children of his relatives and two adults looking after them in the late-afternoon shooting in the middle-class suburb in Spring in Houston, Texas, AFP reported.

He led the police in a half-hour chase before stopping a few kilometres from the crime scene.

During the resulting four-hour stand-off, he sat in his car with a gun held to his head as he was surrounded by about 50 police with their guns drawn.

Streaming video footage from television station KTRK showed Haskell's car sandwiched between two trucks, with more than a dozen patrol cars waiting to pounce.

TAKEN INTO CUSTODY

The heavy-set blond man eventually walked out of the car with his hands raised, then laid down on the ground to be taken into custody.

ABC News said the victims were boys aged 14 and four, and two girls aged nine and seven. One of the children died after arriving at a hospital.

A man and a woman, aged 39 and 33 respectively, were also shot dead.

Constable Ron Hickman said the violence stemmed from "obviously a domestic situation that went south, probably a divorce or separation".

He had initially said the 15-year-old was the gunman's daughter, but the authorities later backed away from the statement, saying that their relationship was unclear.

The children were also earlier identified as the biological or adopted children of Haskell and his estranged wife, who lived out of state, but police later said it did not appear he was the father.

Haskell has been charged with capital murder and multiple murders. Capital murder carries the death penalty in Texas.

This article was first published on July 11, 2014.
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