Gunman dead in Empire State Building shooting spree

Gunman was store clerk who was fired from his job at the Empire State Building, New York City police say. Ten people were shot, and two are dead, including the gunman.

|
(AP Photo/WABC-TV)
In this frame grab from WABC-TV, emergency personnel respond to reports of several people being shot outside the Empire State Building, Friday, Aug. 24, 2012, in New York. Authorities say the shooter is dead.

UPDATED at 11:10 am Friday

Two law enforcement officials in New York City say a recently fired store worker shot a former colleague to death and then randomly opened fired on others near the Empire State Building.

The officials say eight other people were struck by bullets but those injuries are not believed to be life threatening.

The officials say the gunman previously worked at a store inside the landmark skyscraper. The shooting happened at about 9 a.m. Friday at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue.

New York City police say hat the gunman is dead. A witness says the shooter was firing indiscriminately. CNN reported 10 people have been shot, two were killed, including the as yet unidentified shooter.

The shooting happened Friday morning at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. There are reports that the gunman was firing a shotgun.

A fire department spokesman says it received a call about the shooting just after at 9 a.m. Friday and that emergency units were on the scene within minutes.

The department says paramedics are evaluating eight people but some of them may not have been shot.

Aliyah Imam tells Fox 5 News that she was standing at a red light when a woman standing next to her fell to the ground. She says the woman was hit in the hip. She says the gunman was "shooting indiscriminately at people."

CNN reports that there is no terrorist link, according to a law enforcement source. The body of the shooter is under a sheet, lying on the sidewalk near the entrance of the Empire State Building.

Rebecca Fox told CNN that she was walking down Fifth Avenue to her job across the street from the Empire State building, and saw people running. She had headphones on, so didn't hear any shots. She saw woman who had been shot in the foot. She saw police surrounding the shooter on the ground in front of the building.

"It was a crazy scene," she said.

RELATED: How well do you know the US Second Amendment?

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Gunman dead in Empire State Building shooting spree
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0824/Gunman-dead-in-Empire-State-Building-shooting-spree
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe