The gunman then left the bank, took an elderly man hostage, pushed him to the ground and fatally shot him in the head, Police Chief Isaiah McKinnon said. Police surrounding the bank then shot the gunman dead.
"It was a matter of minutes but I'm sure for those people there, it must have been an eternity," McKinnon said.
It was the second deadly big-city shootout at a bank in 11 days.
McKinnon identified the gunman as Allen Lane Griffin Jr., 21, of either Detroit or Ferndale, a Detroit suburb. The chief and family members said Griffin apparently had been depressed about personal problems.
Griffin began the rampage two blocks from the bank yesterday morning by shooting a jogger in the face and stealing a Volvo, which he drove to the bank, police said.
After shooting three people in the bank, McKinnon said, "he made all the people who were on the floor start to sing the Lord's Prayer. He then sang with them, and he was yelling to them obscenities and again singing."
Griffin then walked around the room with a shotgun in one hand and a walking cane in the other, McKinnon said. As he left the bank, officers outside were yelling to try to stop an elderly man from approaching the building.
"As they did that this man ran up, grabbed the elderly gentleman and held him as hostage," McKinnon said. "They yelled to him to let go ... he pushed him to the ground and shot him in the head."
At that point, McKinnon said, officers fired five or six times and killed Griffin.
Griffin had been wanted for violating probation. He was arrested in 1988 on a burglary charge and in 1993 on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and controlled substance violations, McKinnon said.
McKinnon said it appeared that the idea of a holdup was an afterthought.
"Certainly he came into the bank and was asking for money at some point but I don't know what his ultimate goal was," he said.
Griffin was dressed in a gray-and-white camouflage jacket and hat, McKinnon said.
"It appears as if we have a person who walked in to kill," McKinnon said. "He walked into the bank and was killing."
Stanley Pijanowski III, assistant vice president and manager of that branch, was one of the victims. Pijanowski, 52, of Bloomfield Hills had worked 29 years with Detroit-based Comerica, said Comerica Chairman and Chief Executive Eugene Miller.
Also killed was retail sales representative James L. Isom, 25, of Warren, who had worked for the bank four years.
Assistant branch manager Lisa Griffin, 38, of Warren was in fair condition at a hospital. McKinnon said she was not related to the gunman.
The 23-year-old man shot before the bank attack was hospitalized in serious condition. Police said the man had been walking or jogging with his dog when he was shot.
After a botched holdup at the Bank of America in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, two men died in a brazen gunfight with police.
Sixteen police officers and civilians were wounded or injured in the battle, which was televised live by news helicopters.
Detroit shooting witness Belinda Crawford said she was approaching an outside automatic teller machine when she looked inside and saw a man with a shotgun yelling at a woman.
"You could hear through the glass. He was yelling loud, 'Get Down!' He just told her to get down," Crawford said.
Witness Charles Easterly said he saw the gunman leave the bank carrying a shotgun.
About the same time another man arrived at the bank and was getting out of his vehicle, Easterly said.
"The guy with the gun went over, grabbed him, put the gun up to him and the cops started moving in," he said.
Tom Fisher, senior vice president for branches for Comerica, said he couldn't think of how the rampage might have been prevented.
"We spent over $2.5 million over the last couple of years just on increasing security measures in our branches," Fisher said.
"In the sense where we're dealing with a deranged gunman, I'm just not sure there's anything any of us can do to totally protect ourselves in that kind of circumstance."
Miller, the bank president, said bank officials share the grief of the victims' families.
"This is a very sad day for all of us at Comerica and the community," he said.
AP PHOTO
Police investigators look over the body of the hostage who was shot and killed outside of the Comerica Bank yesterday during a bank shootout.