The Latest: Official: Hostage may have calmed Belgian gunman

BRUSSELS – The Latest on Belgium shooting (all times local):

10 a.m.

Belgium's interior minister says the woman taken hostage inside a school in Tuesday's shooting in Liege may have talked the gunman down and helped to avoid more deaths.

Jan Jambon, Prime Minister Charles Michel and King Philippe visited the woman in hospital, where she was being treated for shock.

Jambon told broadcaster RTL that the woman "was very courageous and perhaps, but this we will have to verify, she helped avoid more victims in the school."

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9 a.m.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon says that a man who shot dead two police officers and a bystander in Liege on Tuesday had already killed another person the day before the attack.

Jambon told broadcaster RTL Wednesday that the shooter, identified as Benjamin Herman, "also committed a murder the night before."

Jambon confirmed that the person was a former inmate who did prison time with Herman. Herman is alleged to have killed the man on Monday evening by hitting him over the head with a blunt object.

Herman was killed in a shootout with police on Tuesday after stabbing two female police officers, stealing their handguns and shooting them. He also shot dead a man sitting in a nearby car.