Empire State Building shooting: several shot

Several people have been shot outside the Empire State Building, one of New York's most popular tourist attractions.

Reports varied as to how many people had been shot, with a New York police source saying eight people in total had been shot. The New York Post newspaper said 10 people had been shot, with three dead, including the gunman.

According to The Post, two men who were apparently coworkers began arguing in the middle of the street during morning rush hour. They began fighting on the pavement, before one man suddenly drew a gun and opened fire. New York police then shot the gunman.

Police sources also told the Reuters news agency that the shooter has been shot dead. Other reports suggested at least one victim had been shot dead as well.

A fire department spokesman says it received a call about the shooting just after at 9am local time on Friday and that emergency units were on the scene within minutes.

The shooting occurred at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, just beside the city's famous skyscraper.

Several blocks around the site of the shooting were closed to vehicles, causing rush hour traffic snarls.

“This is the last thing you are expecting to see walking to work – someone shot dead in broad daylight in Midtown,” Sid Dinsay, 38, who works in a PR firm on Fifth Avenue, told the Post.

“I am shocked – something like this is enough to rattle your nerves. My nerves are rattled right now.”

Police sources also said there is not apparent link to terrorism.

The shooting comes a fortnight after a gunman murdered at least six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Wade Michael Page was a white supremacists who had previously served in the US army, and shot dead six people, as well as injuring three.

Following the Wisconsin shooting, President Barack Obama said mass killings were occurring with "too much regularity" and should prompt soul searching by all Americans.

That shooting followed the Aurora, Colorado massacre, when a gunman killed 12 and wounded 58 during a midnight screening of the new Batman film The Dark Knight Rises.

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York has been one of America's biggest gun law reform advocates.

He has bemoaned the fact that neither President Obama nor his Republican challenger Mitt Romney had detailed plans to address the issue in the wake of the Colorado tragedy.

"Soothing words are nice, but maybe it's time that the two people who want to be President of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it."