Policemen at the scene of the crime. (Al Jazeera)

Multiple people were killed, including a police officer, and at least three other officers were injured during a standoff with at least one gunman in a kosher grocery store here Tuesday, officials said.

There were multiple deceased inside Jersey City Kosher Supermarket, said Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop. He didn’t say how many and didn’t identify the victims.

There is no evidence that the shooting was an act of terrorism, said Jersey City Director of Public Safety James Shea. The three surviving officers were being treated for their injuries. One was shot in the shoulder. Two others were hit by shrapnel.

The gunfight erupted after New Jersey police and law-enforcement officials responded to reports of an active-shooter situation on a commercial strip of Martin Luther King Drive on the city’s south side, law-enforcement officials said. Dozens of emergency vehicles, including armored vans, and police armed with assault rifles, swarmed the area, witnesses said.

An incident at a nearby cemetery preceded the shootout in the grocery store, Mr. Fulop said.

The gunfight lasted for more than an hour, with bursts of shots every 15 minutes, said Ethridge Stone, a 59-year-old who lives near the scene.

“I’ve never heard rapid gunfire like I heard today,” he said.

Victoria Ferencz, in Monroe, N.J., said her son Moishe Ferencz, who is Hasidic, has owned the grocery store for several years. Mid-afternoon on Tuesday she said his wife was still inside the store, and he was worried about her. The couple has three young children, she said.

“It’s an African-American neighborhood and he says he gets along with everybody,” Ms. Ferencz said. “He is nice to everybody and everybody is nice to him.”

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said President Donald Trump had been briefed on the shooting and was monitoring it.

Trump on Twitter called the shooting “horrfic,” adding that his “thoughts & prayers are w/ the victimes & their families.”

The immediate area around the shooting also is home to 60 or 70 Hasidic families, according to Rabbi Avi Schnall, director of the New Jersey office of Agudath Israel of America.

The kosher grocery store, the only one in Jersey City, a nearby yeshiva and the shul next door to the store, are the nexus of the community, he said. It was too early to assume that the shooting was bias-related, Rabbi Schnall said.

The gunfire sent residents scrambling and prompted businesses and schools in the area to go into lockdown. At least eight nearby public schools were also placed on lockdown and all students and staff are safe, said officials with the School District of Jersey City.

At Sacred Heart School on Bayview Avenue near Martin Luther King Drive and Bidwell Avenue, an official said the school had been on lockdown since shooting began at around 12:15 p.m. The official said no injuries at the school had been reported.

“It’s very chaotic,” said Pamela Johnson, the founder of the Anti-Violence Coalition of Hudson County, who lives near the scene of the shooting. “Pedestrians are running everywhere. Store owners were hitting the ground, dodging bullets. People were running for cover.”

A spokesman for the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office said its officers and Jersey City Police Department officers responded to the shots. A spokesperson for the Jersey City Police Department declined to provide an update on the situation. (WSJ)