CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A fired dishwasher shot and killed a chef and held a person hostage for about three hours before he was shot by police at a crowded restaurant in a tourist-heavy area of downtown Charleston on Thursday, authorities and one of the restaurant’s owners said.

The hostage was freed with no injuries, Mayor John Tecklenburg said. The shooting took place at Virginia’s restaurant on the usually crowded King Street, a line of shops and nice dining that caters to both tourists and residents in South Carolina’s largest and most historic city.

Tecklenburg quickly said the shooting was “the act of a disgruntled employee” and not a terrorist attack or a hate crime in a city where nine black church members were killed by a white man two years ago.