Story highlights Victims identified 
 
 Suspect believed to be in abandoned building 
 
 The man is also believed to have blown up his house, source says 
 
 Schools and a hospital were in lockdown 
 
 A man suspected of killing four people and injuring two others in a 10-minute shooting spree in Herkimer County, New York, is believed to be surrounded by police, authorities said Wednesday. 
 
 The upstate New York man also is believed to have blown up his house, according to a federal law enforcement source briefed on the investigation. 
 
 Policing searching for Kurt R. Myers, 64, surrounded an abandoned building, State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico and Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. Myers ditched his vehicle following shootings at a barber shop and an auto maintenance business, police said. 
 
 Officials provided no possible motive. 
 
 Schools and a hospital in the Mohawk Valley area, about 70 miles west-northwest of Albany, went into lockdown while police searched for the suspect. 
 
 Police first received a report of a fire at a residence at 9:29 a.m., D'Amico said. The call was followed minutes later with reports of shootings at John's Barber Shop in Mohawk and Gaffey's Fast Lube in Herkimer, authorities said. 
 
 Myers allegedly spoke with individuals at the barber shop before firing multiple rounds, D'Amico said. 
 
 Harry Montgomery, 68, and Michael Rancier, 57, were pronounced dead at the scene. Two other people were in critical condition at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica. 
 
 Gaffey's employee Thomas Stefka and Michael Renshaw, a 20-year veteran of the State Department of Corrections, were killed at the auto business. 
 
 Police believe Myers drove away from the auto shop and left his vehicle outside an abandoned building in Herkimer before shooting at officers, D'Amico said. No officers were injured during the shootout. 
 
 Cuomo said he came to Herkimer to make sure the state was providing as many resources as possible. 
 
 "This is truly an inexplicable situation; there was no apparent, rational motive to the best of our knowledge ... to provoke these attacks," Cuomo said. "These are the types of peaceful, quiet communities that one would say 'this could never happen here,'" he said, referring to Mohawk and Herkimer. 
 
 "We're concerned about officer safety, so we're in no rush to bring this to a conclusion; we want to make sure no one else gets injured today," D'Amico said. 
 
 A 1973 drunken driving arrest is the only past incident on Myers' record, D'Amico told the media. 
 
 Reporters on Wednesday pressed Cuomo about New York's new gun-control laws, which were the first in the nation to be enacted after the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre. 
 
 The laws fortified New York's existing assault weapons ban, limited the number of bullets allowed in magazines and strengthened rules that govern the mentally ill, which included a requirement to report potentially harmful behavior. 
 
 Cuomo said he would discuss the laws later. 
 
 "Gun violence has been with us for a long, long time," the governor said. "I think the challenge for government, the challenge for society, is to do the best that it can." ||||| Authorities in upstate New York say the suspected gunman in a rampage at a car wash and a barbershop that left four people dead has been killed by police in a shootout. 
 
 This undated photo provided by the New York State Police shows Kurt R. Meyers, the man being sought in connection with the shooting of six people in two incidents in upstate New York, Wednesday, March... (Associated Press) 
 
 Police floodlights shine on the abandoned building on Main St. in Herkimer, N.Y. early Thursday morning March 14, 2013. Police kept vigilant watch there into Thursday morning, periodically blaring sirens... (Associated Press) 
 
 A man watches from the window of a barber shop as officials search down the street for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 in Herkimer, N.Y.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Law enforcement officers take cover along Main Street when shots were fired while searching for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, in Herkimer,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Law enforcement officers run for cover along Main Street in Herkimer, N.Y., when shots were fired while they were searching for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Law enforcement officers take cover along Main Street when shots were fired while they were searching for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on, Wednesday, March 13,... (Associated Press) 
 
 A law enforcement officer stands on Main Street in Herkimer, N.Y., during the search for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on, Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Authorities... (Associated Press) 
 
 Chief Joseph Malone of the Herkimer Police Department briefs the media on the search for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, in Herkimer,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Law enforcement officers walk along Main Street while searching for a suspect in two shootings Wednesday, March 13, 2013, in Herkimer, N.Y. Two people were shot and killed Wednesday morning at a car... (Associated Press) 
 
 This undated photo provided by the New York State Police shows Kurt R. Meyers, the man being sought in connection with the shooting of six people in two incidents in upstate New York, Wednesday, March... (Associated Press) 
 
 Law enforcement officers block off Main Street in Herkimer, N.Y., while searching for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on, Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Authorities... (Associated Press) 
 
 Law enforcement officers stand in an alley near Main Street while searching for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Authorities were looking... (Associated Press) 
 
 Law enforcement officers walk along Main Street in Herkimer, N.Y., while searching for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on, Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Authorities were... (Associated Press) 
 
 A police officer crosses Main Street as officials search for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on, Wednesday, March 13, 2013, in Herkimer, N.Y. A man neighbors said... (Associated Press) 
 
 People stand outside the Empire Diner near the police line as officials search for a suspect in two shootings that killed four and injured at least two on, Wednesday, March 13, 2013, in Herkimer, N.Y.... (Associated Press) 
 
 They say 64-year-old Kurt Myers was killed Thursday by police who had surrounded a block of small businesses in the village of Herkimer since Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 Trooper Jack Keller says police went into the building around 8 a.m. He says the shootout occurred in the basement, where Myers shot a police dog. Keller says police returned fire, killing him. 
 
 Myers' rampage started with a fire in his apartment in the nearby village of Mohawk on Wednesday morning. They say he then shot two people dead and wounded two others at a barbershop around the corner before killing two more at a Herkimer oil change and car wash business. 
 
 Hours later, a flurry of gunfire was heard near where police had narrowed their search. 
 
 A college and schools were locked down, and people told to stay inside as police hunted Myers. 
 
 THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. 
 
 A 64-year-old loner sauntered into a barbershop in upstate New York, coolly asked if the man cutting hair remembered him and then opened fire with a shotgun, the first shots in a burst of violence that would leave four dead, two critically wounded and people in this small village aching to find out what set the gunman off. 
 
 New York state police vowed to wait out Kurt Myers, the man suspected of gunning down the victims then holing up in an abandoned building. Police kept vigilant watch there Thursday morning, periodically blaring sirens in an apparent attempt to encourage Myers to surrender, if alive. Booms also were heard. 
 
 Police said Thursday they are confident he is still in the building, but don't know if he's dead or alive. 
 
 John Seymour, one of the men wounded in the attacks told his sister, Mary Hornett, the barbershop attack came out of nowhere. 
 
 "He just said that the guys were in the barbershop and this guy comes in and he says, `Hi John, do you remember me?' and my brother said, `Yes, Kurt, how are you?' and then he just started shooting," Hornett said. 
 
 Hornett said her brother, who was hospitalized in critical condition, was doing well after being shot in the left hand and right hip. 
 
 "My brother couldn't think of any reason why he would do such a thing," she said of Myers, a former customer who hadn't been in the shop for a couple of years. 
 
 Officers were fired on from the abandoned building on Wednesday afternoon while looking for Myers, state police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico said. At least one officer returned fire. 
 
 "We're in no rush to bring this to a conclusion," D'Amico said, adding that the main objective was to make sure no one else was hurt. 
 
 The shootings shattered the peace and rattled the nerves of Mohawk and Herkimer, two small villages about 170 miles northwest of New York City, separated from each other by the Mohawk River and the New York State Thruway. Police snipers waited on rooftops on a block of small businesses in Herkimer as they waited for Myers to emerge. 
 
 Police said Myers' rampage started with a fire in his apartment in the nearby village of Mohawk at about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. He then drove to John's Barber Shop around the corner and used a shotgun to kill two customers, D'Amico said, identifying them as Harry Montgomery, 68, and Michael Ransear, 57, a retired corrections officer. In addition to Seymour, the shop's owner, another customer, Dan Haslauer, also was listed in critical condition at a Utica hospital. 
 
 The gunman then drove to Gaffy's Fast Lube in nearby Herkimer and used the shotgun to kill Michael Renshaw and Thomas Stefka. Renshaw was a 23-year employee of the state corrections department who worked at Mid-State Correctional Facility near Utica. Stefka worked at Gaffey's and attended Mohawk Reform Church, where he played guitar during services. 
 
 Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in a press conference in Herkimer, called it "truly an inexplicable situation." 
 
 "There's no apparent motive to the best of our knowledge at this time to provoke these attacks," he said. 
 
 Police had not had any communication with Myers, whose only known police record was a 1973 drunken-driving arrest, D'Amico said. 
 
 Police were positioned in front of a block of small businesses topped with apartments in the village of Herkimer on Wednesday evening. 
 
 A local businessman, jeweler Fred Weisser, said police were trying to get people out while Myers was believed to be in a building next door. 
 
 "They're sending in a robot to check the place out," he said by telephone. "I guess we're stuck. We're between him and the cops. I don't want to step out and get clipped by a sniper." 
 
 Myles Smith, who lives in one of the apartments above the shops, said by cellphone he had heard police trying to talk to Myers. 
 
 "The snipers on the roof are sitting there," Smith said. "I ain't seen a whole lot of movement. I heard about five gunshots. I keep hearing them trying to talk him out, but I don't think he's coming out." 
 
 The rear of the small building where Myers lived was burned out, and police continued to guard the building, where they found guns and ammunition. It was unclear if they were in his apartment. 
 
 Neighbors said they barely knew Myers, who rarely spoke, left every morning in his red Jeep and came back. 
 
 Traci Randall said the only time she remembers speaking to her next-door neighbor was when he yelled at her son because he thought he had shot an air pellet at his Jeep. 
 
 "He would walk by himself. He was kind of a loner. No wife," she said. 
 
 Neighbors said he never had visitors or friends. Gary Urich said Myers wouldn't even say much as `Hi' to him when walking by his porch. 
 
 "I said, `How are you doing?' No response. He just walked by," he said. 
 
 Michele Mlinar, a bartender at Cangee's Bar and Grille in Herkimer, said Myers frequently went in and had a bottle or two of Coors Light and left without speaking to anyone. She said he was always alone and she didn't even know his name until police released his mug shot on Wednesday. 
 
 Cangee's owner Candy Rellin called Myers "just an odd little man." 
 
 The two villages are about 65 miles east of Syracuse on opposite sides of the Mohawk River _ which connects the Erie Canal to the Hudson River and from there, the sea _ in a region known as the Mohawk Valley. 
 
 James Baron, the mayor of Mohawk described his village as close-knit and friendly, "the kind of place where you'd say, `Oh, it would never happen here.'" 
 
 Elizabeth Cirelli was shocked by Stefka's slaying. He was a neighbor in Herkimer. 
 
 "He was a great guy, a really nice person. This is horrific. We really couldn't believe it," she said. 
 
 Herkimer County Community College lifted a lockdown during the afternoon, and schools near the scene released students. D'Amico said most of the three-block neighborhood around the search scene was evacuated. 
 
 Herkimer is a village of 7,700 named for the German immigrant family that settled in the western Mohawk Valley in the 1720s. The economically distressed villages are 2 miles away from Ilion, where a 2-century-old Remington Arms gun plant is a major employer. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Chris Carola and Mary Esch in Albany and Tom McElroy in New York contributed to this report.
– Kurt Myers, the suspect in an upstate New York shooting spree, has been killed in a shootout with police, the AP reports. Cops surrounded Myers, 64, in an abandoned building yesterday afternoon, and had traded fire with him. This morning, police entered the building and Myers shot a police dog. Police returned fire, killing him. CNN adds that cops still have no motive; witnesses say Myers entered a barbershop yesterday and said, "Do you remember me?" before opening fire. He is also thought to have blown up his own home. "This is truly an inexplicable situation; there was no apparent, rational motive to the best of our knowledge," said Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier; he was on the scene in Herkimer County. Meanwhile, the names of the four people killed in the shooting spree have emerged: Harry Montgomery, 68, and Michael Rancier, 57, were reportedly killed in the barbershop after Myers spoke with people there; and worker Thomas Stefka and corrections department worker Michael Renshaw were killed at an auto shop. Myers was a former customer at the barbershop but hadn't been there in years, according to the sister of the owner, who was wounded. Just before shooting, "he says, 'Hi John, do you remember me?' and my brother said, 'Yes, Kurt, how are you?'"