4 killed at Tennessee Waffle House as police search for seminude suspect

(CNN) – Nashville police are asking residents to lock their doors and stay alert after a seminude gunman killed four people at an area Waffle House.

“Keep your doors locked, keep your eyes open. If you see this individual — if you see a nude guy walking around this morning — call the police department immediately,” Metro Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said.

Police are asking for the public’s help in finding suspect 29-year-old Travis Reinking of Morton, Illinois. Authorities said the gunman arrived in a vehicle registered to Reinking, though the gunman was last seen walking away from the scene naked.

The melee started around 3:23 a.m. (4:23 a.m. ET) in Antioch, southeast of Nashville.

After sitting in the truck for a few minutes, the gunman came out wielding an “assault-type rifle” and fatally shot two people outside the Waffle House, police said.

“He then went inside the restaurant (and) continued firing,” Aaron said.

Some witnesses suffered cuts on their faces from shattered windows. Two more victims inside the restaurant were fatally shot.

The carnage stopped only because of the heroics of a customer who heard the gunshots and hid near the restaurant’s bathrooms.

Police said the customer monitored the gunman’s moves from afar and leaped into action when he saw an opportunity to stop him.

“He saw the gunman looking at his rifle. At that point, the shots had stopped. So he decided to rush the gunman, actually wrestled that assault rifle away, tossed it over the counter. At that point, the gunman then fled,” Aaron said.

“He is the hero here, and no doubt he saved many lives by wrestling the gun away and then tossing it over the counter, and prompting the man to leave.”

Police said the assailant shed his jacket and fled on foot. Later Sunday morning, he apparently “clothed himself with a pair of pants,” Aaron said.

“A man believed to be Travis Reinking was last seen in a wood line near Discovery at Mountain View Apts. on Mountain Springs Drive near the Waffle House,” police tweeted. “The man was seen wearing black pants and no shirt.”

So far, the motive for the shooting appears to be random, police said.