Police reportedly capture gunman who held staff hostage in a Japanese post office

Police in Japan ended an eight-hour standoff with a gunman at a post office Tuesday by arresting the suspect after two hostages were freed safely an attack authorities said could be related to an earlier shooting at a hospital.

The man had entered the post office with a gun in Warabi, north of Tokyo, about an hour after the hospital shooting in which two people were wounded in the nearby city of Toda.

Footage on NHK television showed an elderly man sitting between two police officers in the back seat of a police car that drove past reporters and headed to a local police station.

Police said they captured the gunman when they stormed into the building, about an hour after the second of the two postal staff who remained in the building had escaped unhurt. The other hostage had walked out safely nearly two hours earlier, according to NHK reports.

Read more: ABC News