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SWAT teams converged on a southern Clearwater neighborhood overnight after a man shot three people outside a home and then barricaded himself inside his own house, authorities said.
One shooting victim was flown to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg and the other two were taken to local hospitals by ambulance, authorities said. No other information about the victims or their conditions was immediately available.
The shooting took place on Beverly Circle, just east of Keene Road and just north of Lakeview Road at about 1:50 a.m. today, authorities said.
Both Clearwater police and Pinellas County sheriff's deputies responded to the scene because the shooting took place at a home in unincorporated Pinellas, and the suspect retreated to his neighboring home, which is just inside the city of Clearwater.
After the shooting, the man went to his home and barricaded himself inside. The Clearwater police SWAT team initially responded, and later the Sheriff's Office's SWAT team relieved Clearwater police. A hostage negotiator was trying to talk to the suspect, authorities said.
"We're at the point where we're attempting to communicate," sheriff's spokesman Mac McMullen.
Some homes in the area around the shooting had been evacuated, authorities said, and Keene Road was closed between Lakeview and Druid Road.