|
#1
●
04-10-2009, 12:51 PM
|
|
Gunman Kills 13 at Binghamton Immigrant Center
A gunman in body armor killed 13 people during an English class at an immigrant services center in Binghamton, New York, on April 3, 2009, before killing himself, according to police and news reports. Police identified the shooter as Jiverly Wong, 41, a naturalized U.S. citizen who had come from Vietnam with his ethnic Chinese family in 1990. Investigators said Wong had studied English at the American Civic Association, which helps immigrants settle and prepare for citizenship, until he stopped attending weeks earlier. Binghamton police said Wong blocked the building's rear door with a car, then entered through the front and opened fire. Most of the dead were shot in a classroom where an English class was under way, among them the teacher, Roberta King. Broome County dispatchers logged the first 911 calls around 10:31 a.m. Receptionist Shirley DeLucia, 61, was shot in the stomach but feigned death and stayed on the phone with a dispatcher for 39 minutes, relaying information from beneath a desk, authorities said. Three other people were wounded. Officers arrived within minutes, but a tactical team did not enter for about 40 minutes. Autopsies later showed every victim had died before officers could have reached them, police said, findings that blunted early criticism of the delay. Wong shot himself as the team moved in. Police said Wong fired 99 rounds from two legally purchased Beretta handguns. Days later, a Syracuse television station received a package he had mailed the morning of the attack, containing photographs of him posing with guns and a rambling letter that blamed police for what he described as years of persecution. "Cop bring about this shooting," he wrote. The dead ranged in age from 22 to 72 and included immigrants from Brazil, China, Haiti, Iraq, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam, along with two U.S. citizens. It was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in New York history. The audio posted here is law enforcement radio traffic from the response, recorded off a police scanner.
__________________ Support the site and our continued existance by upgrading to a Green Name |