Local, federal agencies investigate mass shooting at spa near suburban Milwaukee mall

October 21, 2012 at 4:36p.m.

Associated Press

BROOKFIELD, Wis.

Deputies searched today for a man suspected of wounding multiple people in a shooting at a spa near a suburban Milwaukee shopping mall.

Police released a photograph of the man they identified as Radcliffe Franklin Haughton, 45, of Brown Deer. They said he was still at-large and the public’s help was needed in tracking him down.

Brookfield police told WTMJ-AM the shooting happened about 11 a.m. Sunday at a spa across the street from the Brookfield Square Mall. The mall, a country club adjacent to the spa, a nearby hospital and other buildings were locked down, local media reported.

Brookfield Police Lt. John Beth said a bomb squad from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department was at the spa. He wouldn’t say why the unit was there but said it was not routine to have it respond to a shooting.

Spokesmen for the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said their agencies also had agents participating in the investigation.

Milwaukee FBI spokesman Leonard Peace said his agency sent a SWAT team and hostage negotiators, among others.

Online court records showed a temporary restraining order was issued against Haughton in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on Oct. 8 because of a domestic abuse complaint.

Beth Strohbusch, a spokeswoman for Froedtert Memorial Hospital — one of the buildings reportedly locked down — said four shooting victims were taken there, and three more were expected. She said none of the four already received were in critical condition.

The shooting took place at Azana Day Spa, a two-story, 9,000-square-foot building across from the mall in a middle- to upper-class community west of Milwaukee.

It was the second mass shooting in Wisconsin this year. Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old Army veteran and white supremacist, killed six people and injured three others before fatally shooting himself Aug. 5 at a Sikh temple south of Milwaukee.

The shooting at the mall took place less than a mile from where seven people were killed and four wounded on March 12, 2005, when a gunman opened fire at a Living Church of God service held at a hotel.