Hostage over at U.S. restaurant, 1 dead, gunman shot

A hostage situation at a restaurant in Charleston, U.S. state of South Carolina, has ended after police shot and injured a gunman, the city's mayor said Thursday.

Mayor John Tecklenburg said the restaurant employee shot by the gunman earlier has died.

Interim Charleston Police Chief Jerome Taylor said all the hostages were rescued safely but did not specify the number of the hostages.

The assailant was shot by police and taken to a local hospital in critical condition.

Earlier, the man, believed to "a disgruntled employee" reportedly shot one person and held several other hostages in the restaurant in downtown Charleston.

The shooting is not an act of terrorism or racism, Tecklenburg told a press conference.

"It's a disgruntled employee who has come on the scene of his employment," he said.

The shooting was reported just after noon in downtown Charleston near a row of restaurants and shops popular with tourists, according to Charleston Police spokesman Charles Francis.

Local reports said the police department sent SWAT teams and a bomb disposal unit to the area. Police asked people to stay inside and those outside to avoid the area.

Witnesses, who left from a back door of the restaurant, said a man emerged from the kitchen with a gun in his hand, saying "there's a new boss in town."

The site is a few blocks away from Emanuel AME church, where a white man killed nine black members of a church during a prayer service in 2015. The gunman was sentenced to death early 2017.