New York Shooting – 2 Dead, Several Injured
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Empire State Building Shooting Suspect Had Been Fired
A man who had been fired from his job a year ago shot and killed a former co-worker outside New York City’s Empire State Building and at least nine others were wounded in a brief gunbattle with two police officers, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
The mayor said some of the wounded “may have been accidentally” shot by police officers.
Speaking near the crime scene, Bloomberg told reporters the man, identified as Jeffrey Johnson, 58, had been fired from his job at Hazan Import Corp., which specializes in women’s accessories, last year and returned to his former offices to confront a coworker.
After a dispute with the coworker, the Johnson pulled a .45 caliber handgun and shot his former coworker three times, killing him.
The victim, who was 41, was not immediately identified.
As Johnson left the scene of the shooting, he was followed by a construction worker, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. The construction worker alerted two NYPD officers who confronted the man. Johnson pulled his gun again, at which point the police drew their own weapons and killed him.
“He tried to shoot at the cops… We do not know if he got any shots off,” Bloomberg said.
Minutes after the shooting, witnesses posted graphic images of some victims on social networking websites, some clearly showing blood on the ground.
One witness to the shooting, Cyrus Balanlayos, told ABC News he was on a bus just outside the Empire State building when he heard several, very quick gunshots.
“I looked up and saw hundreds of people running north. It seemed like a Godzilla film,” Balanlayos said. “I saw two bodies on the ground right in front of the bus.”
Balanlayos said that after he got off the bus he saw another two other people who appeared to have been shot, one man and one woman.
“All I heard was, ‘Oh my god, Oh my god,’” he said.
THIS IS A REPOST OF A STORY I FOUND:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/shots-fired-empire-state-building/story?id=17072385#.UDfLBsgsDfI
P.S. Sad, sad story out of New York today. Please pray for the victims and their families.