The shooter, named as 32-year-old Eduardo Sencion, used an AK-47 assault rifle in the early morning attack in Carson City, in which three Guardsmen were among the dead and two injured before he turned the gun on himself.

Three people were pronounced dead shortly after the shooting, with the fourth, a female member of the National Guard, confirmed overnight.

“This is a real tragic event,” Sheriff Ken Furlong said, adding in a briefing late Tuesday that he believed it was “the largest single shooting incident to occur in Carson City history.”

Witnesses called emergency services shortly after 9:00 am (1600 GMT) when they saw an armed man in the parking lot of the International House of Pancakes, a chain restaurant.

The five National Guard members -- two women and three men -- were having an informal meeting when Sencion — also known as Eduardo Perez-Gonzalez -- came in and fired on their table, Furlong said.

The sheriff’s office said he then went outside, where “his shooting spree continued into the restaurant’s parking lot, culminating in him turning the gun on himself.”

Mexican-born Sencion — a Carson City resident with a US passport and no criminal history, according to police records — initially survived, but died later of his wounds.