Story Highlights • Security guard shoots gunman after attack on woman
• Atlanta police describe shooting as "domestic situation"
• CNN writer witnesses man shoot woman near newsroom
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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A man shot and killed a woman inside the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Tuesday afternoon before being shot by a security guard.
The gunman was dragging the woman by her hair minutes before shots were fired, said one witness, who tried to intervene and was told to get out of the way by the attacker.
The witness, who had gone to get help from a guard, then heard the gunfire immediately outside CNN.com's newsroom at about 1:30 p.m.
John Helton, a CNN.com producer, had a direct view of the gunman through glass doors. "I saw him coming down the escalator pulling her along, around the corner; he ran into the plant and that's when they started struggling," he said. (Read more witness accounts)
"She seemed to be trying to wrestle free of him," he said.
Helton said the woman appeared to be shot at point-blank range. "He looked like he had the gun right on top of her head and shot her." (Gallery: Scenes from the shooting)
After the shots, CNN.com writer Brad Lendon said, the gunman "looked around, his head turning in my direction. I don't know if he saw me, but at that moment the gravity of what I'd witnessed hit me. I turned away and tried to find the safest way I could out." (Watch Brad Lendon describe what he did next )
The gunman was then shot by Capt. Odell Adams, who joined Turner Security in 1996, according to a spokesperson for Turner, the parent company for CNN.
Preliminary reports indicate that the suspect was shot in the face, a law enforcement source said on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
Ambulances transported the gunman and the victim, 22-year-old Clara Riddles, to Grady Memorial Hospital. Riddles, who witnesses said appeared to be pregnant, died from her injuries. The shooter was undergoing surgery and was in "severely critical condition," the hospital said. (Watch suspect at gunpoint, wounded woman on floor )
Riddles, who lived in the Atlanta suburb of College Park, worked for the Omni Hotel, according to Investigator Betty Honey of the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office. The gunman has not been named, but Atlanta police called the shooting a "domestic situation," and said the gunman was an ex-boyfriend of Riddles.
The CNN Center was particularly busy Tuesday, following Monday night's NCAA championship game in the nearby Georgia Dome.
Omni spokesperson Michael Sullivan is refusing to comment on the incident.
One woman, who was visiting the CNN Center, said she saw security guards running with their guns drawn.
"The kids were pretty shaken up and it was pretty scary. And it wasn't until we came back in after the fact and looked up on the CNN screen that we had learned what had really happened," she said.
The CNN.com newsroom was temporarily evacuated. Some workers had already scrambled out of the building seeking cover after hearing shots.
A domestic dispute resulted in shots being fired around the Headquarters of CNN in Atlanta, GA on Tuesday, killing a woman and critically wounding the ex-boyfriend who pulled a gun on her according to the authorities. The man and woman were arguing near the main entrance of the complex when the man shot her, police officer James Polite said. The armed man was then shot by a CNN security guard.
CNN Headquarters, Atlanta
The woman was Clara Riddles, 22, of College Park, said Caryn Kboudi, a spokeswoman for the Texas-based Omni Hotel chain.

Upon arrival at Grady Hospital, Riddles was pronounced dead said hospital spokeswoman Denise Simpson. The shooter, a man in his late thirties, and Riddles's ex-boyfriend, Arthur Mann was in stable condition. He is being charged with murder, Police said.

Victims were seen being carried out of the building on stretchers. Mann's face was covered in blood and his shirt had been removed.

CNN also reported that the offices of its Internet operations, CNN.com, were immediately evacuated. Video footage also showed police pointing guns at a man lying on the ground at the bottom of an escalator inside the building.

An announcement over the building's PA system announced that there had been gunfire "with potential casualties." Police cordoned off an area by the escalators near the main entrance, facing Centennial Olympic Park - a park that had been the site of a bombing that killed a woman and injured more than 100 people during the 1996
Summer Olympics.

"I heard four or five shots. I really didn't see it. I got out of there quick," said Jas Stanford, 27, who had been helping take down a temporary stage in the park used for college basketball's. When Mann fired his gun, security guard Odell Adams shot him, said Lisa Tobias, director of corporate responsibility for Turner Broadcasting System, which operates CNN.

Turner officials are satisfied with the response of Adams and the Atlanta police, Tobias said. The company does not discuss its security publicly, she said, but "we are constantly evaluating our procedures to make sure that we have ensured the safety of CNN employees and visitors." Besides the Omni Hotel, the CNN complex also includes a large atrium and a food court. It is connected to Philips Arena, the home of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks.

In the food court, Trina Johnson, 44, of Atlanta, was with her daughter on a family outing. "All of a sudden we heard a big boom. We thought it was an explosion," Johnson said. "We didn't see the gun. Everybody just started running."

Soon afterward, CNN coverage of the shooting was being shown on large-screen televisions inside the atrium, near where the shooting had taken place.

On Monday, a woman was shot and killed at the University of Washington in Seattle by an ex-boyfriend on whom she had sought a restraining order, police said. The man killed himself afterward.