CHICAGO : Two people were killed and a third was critically injured during a Monday morning shooting at a suburban Detroit office building, authorities said.

A disgruntled worker who was fired last week from an accounting firm in the building was arrested after a dramatic high-speed chase after another driver recognised his Ford Fusion as the getaway car described on the radio.

The man identified as Anthony Lacalamita, 38, wove across an interstate highway, even driving up onto the grass shoulder at one point before surrendering without incident, sheriff Robert Pickell said at a press conference.

Pickell said Lacalamita gave no explanation for the shooting and little was found in his car except for a 12 gauge pump shot gun and three shells.

He was "very subdued. Very, very subdued," Pickell told reporters.

"When you are going at speeds of 120 miles an hour and he's gone through some of that, after - right after, if you can imagine right after he was arrested, it was almost like - it's over."

Local media said the accounting firm changed the security access codes after Lacalamita was fired, but he managed to make it into the office and then made a "beeline" for the three people he shot.

Live video on CNN showed workers fleeing down the front steps, as police trucks shielded them from the potential line of fire. Employees of other firms in the building were barricaded inside their offices as police searched for the shooter.

"We were one of the last groups to get out," Bill Adgate of LPL Financial told the network.

"So we were probably the most terrified more than likely just because time is the thing that moves emotions."

Adgate and his co-workers used tables, chairs and filing cabinets to block the three entrances to their office and did their best to stay calm after they heard shots in the firm a floor below.

"Obviously, the nerves got the better of all of us, but I think everybody did very, very well."

The accounting firm, Gordon Advisors, posted a notice on its website saying it would remain closed on Tuesday in memory of "our beloved Madeline Kafoury." - AFP/de