Gunman kills 13 at NY state immigration center

[kwame k]

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – A gunman opened fire on a center where immigrants were taking a citizenship exam Friday in downtown Binghamton, killing 13 people before apparently committing suicide.

The suspected gunman carried identification with the name of 42-year-old Jiverly Voong of nearby Johnson City, N.Y., a law enforcement official said.

But the name is an alias that the man has used in the past, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and was talking on condition of anonymity.

"It obviously was premeditated," said Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski, noting the gunman blocked the rear exit with his car. "He made sure nobody could escape."

Police did not mention a motive. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, whose district includes Binghamton, said the gunman had recently been let go from IBM in nearby Johnson City.

The man entered a foyer at the American Civic Association and shot two receptionists, Zikuski said. One receptionist was killed, but another pretended to be dead, then crawled a desk and called 911, he said. Police responded within two minutes.

Zhanar Tokhtabayeva, a 30-year-old from Kazakhstan, said she was in an English class when she heard a shot and her teacher screamed for everyone to go to the storage room.

"I heard the shots, every shot. I heard no screams, just silence, shooting," she said. "I heard shooting, very long time ... and I was thinking, when will this stop? I was thinking that my life was finished."

The gunman entered a room just off the reception area and continued firing, the chief said. He fired on a citizenship class, Rep. Hinchey said.

"People were there in the process of being tested for their citizenship," Hinchey said in a telephone interview. "It was in the middle of a test. He just went in and opened fire."

Twenty-six people hid in a boiler room and 37 people were safely removed from the building, Zikuski said. Four people are in critical condition.

Most of the people brought out of the building couldn't speak English, the chief said.

The suspect's body was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an office, according to the law enforcement official who reported the man's identification.

Waiting outside a Catholic Charities office where counselors were tending to relatives of victims, Omri Yigal said his wife, Delores, was taking English lessons when the gunman attacked. He had no word on what happened to her.

"At this point, I know the scale of what happened, but I just hope Delores is OK," the Filipino immigrant said. "I haven't got any information. ... The only thing I have right now is hope."

The gunman's connection to the center isn't clear, Hinchey said.

"One of the first questions is going to be, what motivated this?" he said. "What caused this to happen? What was the kind of person who did it?"

A woman who answered the phone at a listing for Henry D. Voong said she was Jiverly Voong's sister but would not give her name.

Asked if she was aware that he might have been involved in the shooting, she said: "How? He didn't have a gun. I think somebody involved, not him. I think he got shot by somebody else."

"I think there's a misunderstanding over here because I want to know, too," she said.

The American Civic Association helps immigrants in the Binghamton area with naturalization applications, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The association describes itself as helping immigrants and refugees with counseling, resettlement, citizenship, family reunification and translators.

Alex Galkin, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, said he was taking English classes this morning when he heard a shot and quickly went to the basement with 20 other people.

"It was just panic," Galkin said.

The association's president, Angela Leach, "is very upset right now," said Mike Chanecka, a friend who answered a call at her home as Leach wept in the background.

"She doesn't know anything; she's as shocked as anyone," Chanecka said. "For some reason, she had the day off today. And she's very worried about her secretary."

At the junction of the Susquehanna and the Chenango rivers, the Binghamton area was the home to Endicott-Johnson shoe company and the birthplace of IBM, which between them employed tens of thousands of workers before the shoe company closed a decade ago and IBM downsized in recent years.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers George M. Walsh and Chris Carola in Albany; Kimberly Hefling and Devlin Barrett in Washington; Michael Hill in Binghamton; John Wawrow in Buffalo, N.Y.; and the AP News Research Center.


Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hostage_shooting)

[kwame k]

Jesus, what makes people go off like this?

[ELVIS]

The Government, so they have more reason to strip us of our guns...

[Jesus Christ]

Jesus, what makes people go off like this?

That is a question that even the Messiah cannot answer, My son.

(Jesus wept..... :cry2: )

[LoungeMachine]

The Government, so they have more reason to strip us of our guns...

Oh, STFU with that shit, moron.

:rolleyes:

Racism probably had more to do with motive, considering where he just got laid off from.

Racism. Look in the mirror.

[chefcraig]

The Government, so they have more reason to strip us of our guns...

So...essentially this is a charade put on by the U.S. Government to discredit the NRA and embarrass gun ownership? Cool. Lately I've started to feel out of sorts, and have been questioning my grip on things. So it comes as a terrific relief to realize that others are farther around the bend than I'll ever be.

By the way, got any news on the whereabouts of Kennedy's brain or that alien gas station on the moon?

[kwame k]

There are certain guns that should be banned and certain people who shouldn't be allowed to own guns. Having said that, if they would just enforce the existing laws and close up the loopholes, I'd be happy.

[kwame k]

.......... or that alien gas station on the moon?

Wonder what gas prices are and if it's a full service station.

[kwame k]

That is a question that even the Messiah cannot answer, My son.

(Jesus wept..... :cry2: )


Thanks for the effort, Lord.
P.S. Why haven't you answered my prayers? No hurry, just wondering.

[swage33]

Either he blamed the victims for the pain he was experiencing or he wished to save them from it.

[Nickdfresh]

The Government, so they have more reason to strip us of our guns...

The families would wish to thank you about your heartfelt, "Christian" sympathies...

[kwame k]

What in the hell is going on in this country?


A string of attacks in the U.S. in the last month left 44 people dead in all.

A gunman killed 10 people and himself in Samson, Ala.; shootings that began with a traffic stop in Oakland, Calif., left four police officers and the gunman dead; an apparent murder-suicide in Santa Clara, Calif., left six dead; and a gunman went on a rampage at a nursing home Sunday, killing seven elderly residents and a nurse who cared for them.

Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hostage_shooting)

[Jesus Christ]

Thanks for the effort, Lord.
P.S. Why haven't you answered my prayers? No hurry, just wondering.

Ye should seeth My "inbox" right now!

Verily, the economic tribulation brought upon thy country by the Son of Bush hath increased prayers considerably.

And sadly, as ye can see with this story, some go the other direction searching for answers and are lost in their own darkness. :(

[Jesus Christ]

The Government, so they have more reason to strip us of our guns...

Gregory, that is not a very compassionate thing to say. :(

[kwame k]

Ye should seeth My "inbox" right now!

Verily, the economic tribulation brought upon thy country by the Son of Bush hath increased prayers considerably.

And sadly, as ye can see with this story, some go the other direction searching for answers and are lost in their own darkness. :(


Understood, Lord. If you could just let me run into the chick I was chatting up at the bar the other night, I lost her number. No hurry.

[BITEYOASS]

Jesus, what makes people go off like this?

RW nutjob talk show hosts. That is just my theory.

[kwame k]

RW nutjob talk show hosts. That is just my theory.:biggrin:

[LoungeMachine]

Thanks for the effort, Lord.
P.S. Why haven't you answered my prayers? No hurry, just wondering.

He did answer them.

The answer was no

:gulp:

Yeah, why is the "Christian" poster in here has the least amount of sympathy for the victims?

[sadaist]

Ye should seeth My "inbox" right now!

(

Reminds of the Jim Carrey movie where he just hit "Yes" reply to all. I'm guessing there are too many requests like "Dear God, please do such and such for me" rather than "Dear God, please help me remain strong and find my own strength to be able to handle such and such".

But then, God is just a spaghetti monster, so best just to pray for some Parmesan cheese or extra meatballs.

[kwame k]

But then, God is just a spaghetti monster, so best just to pray for some Parmesan cheese or extra meatballs.

I'm on a diet, now what:biggrin:

[kwame k]

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – Jiverly Wong was upset over losing his job at a vacuum plant, didn't like people picking on him for his limited English and once angrily told a co-worker, "America sucks."

It remains unclear exactly why the Vietnamese immigrant strapped on a bulletproof vest, barged in on a citizenship class and killed 13 people and himself, but the Binghamton police chief says he knows one thing for sure: "He must have been a coward."

Jiverly Wong had apparently been preparing for a gun battle with police but changed course and decided to turn the gun on himself when he heard sirens approaching, Chief Joseph Zikuski said Saturday.

"He had a lot of ammunition on him, so thank God before more lives were lost, he decided to do that," the chief said.

Police and Wong's acquaintances portrayed him as an angry, troubled 41-year-old man who struggled with drugs and job loss and perhaps blamed his adopted country for his troubles. His rampage "was not a surprise" to those who knew him, Zikuski said.

"He felt degraded because people were apparently making fun of his poor English speaking," the chief said.

Wong, who used the alias Jiverly Voong, believed people close to him were making fun of him for his poor English language skills, the chief said.

Until last month, he had been taking classes at the American Civic Association, which teaches English to immigrants and helps them prepare for citizenship tests.

Then, on Friday, he parked his car against the back door of the association, burst through the front doors and shot two receptionists, killing one, before moving on to a classroom where he claimed 12 more victims, police said.

The police chief said that most of the dead had multiple gunshot wounds. Wong used two handguns — a 9 mm and a .45-caliber — for which he had obtained a permit more than a decade ago.

The receptionist who survived, 61-year-old Shirley DeLucia, played dead, then called 911 despite her injuries and stayed on the line while the gunman remained in the building.

"She's a hero in her own right," he said.

Police initially said it took 90 minutes to rescue her. On Saturday, Zikuski said it was actually 39 minutes, and he said the police response followed all proper procedures.

"The police did the right thing," he said.

DeLucia remained in critical condition Saturday. The chief said she and three other hospitalized victims were all expected to survive, and that police were in no hurry to question her.

"We're giving her a break. There's no reason to put her through that," he said.

Binghamton police are withholding the names of victims until they have notified relatives and can release all the names at once. Each autopsy takes two to four hours, and authorities are struggling to track down families around the globe.

Wong's tactics — including the body armor and copious ammunition — fit him into a category of killers called "pseudo-commandos," said Park Dietz, a criminologist and forensic psychiatrist at UCLA who analyzed the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in 1999.

Barricading the back doors to trap his prey "was his way of ensuring that he could maximize his kill rate," Dietz said. "This was all about anger, paranoia, and desperation."

Wong was born in Vietnam to an ethnically Chinese family. He moved to the States in the early 1990s and soon afterward became a citizen, friends and relatives said. He worked at IBM for a time, friend Hue Huynh said, but decided to move to California.

There, he worked for seven years at a caterer called Kikka Sushi, eventually making $9 an hour, said Paulus Lukas, the company's human resources manager.

"He was really good at doing his job — we respected him for that," Lukas told the Los Angeles Times. "He's never late, he's always punctual. And when he finishes his job, he goes home. He doesn't complain, he doesn't argue with people. He gets along."

But one day he simply didn't show up for work, Lukas told the Times. Early last year, he called asking the company to send his tax forms to a New York state address.

Back in New York, he worked at the Shop-Vac plant in Binghamton. Former co-worker Kevin Greene told the Daily News of New York that Wong once said, in answer to whether he liked the New York Yankees, "No, I don't like that team. I don't like America. America sucks."

Zikuski said Wong was fired from that job, where he assembled vacuum cleaners. That's apparently when things really started to go downhill.

"People who end up doing this particular thing have an accumulation of stressers in their lives, and ultimately there is the one that broke the camel's back," Dietz said. "Job loss is one of the big ones, and those stressers are happening more often this year."

Huynh, the 56-year-old proprietor of an Asian grocery store in Binghamton frequented by the gunman's sister, ran into Wong at the gym recently and noted that he was complaining about how he couldn't find work.

His unemployment benefits were only $200 a week, and he lamented his bad luck, she said.

"He's upset he don't have a job here. He come back and want to work," Huynh said. Her husband tried to cheer him up by saying that he was still young and had plenty of time to find work.

Wong's story is similar to how friends were describing the recent trials of a man accused of opening fire on Pittsburgh police officers during a domestic dispute Saturday, killing three of them. They said he had recently been upset about losing his job; police say that, like Wong, he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

A woman reached at the home who identified herself as Wong's sister told The Associated Press late Friday she did not believe he was the gunman. "I think somebody involved, not him," she said.

That's not an unusual response, Dietz said.

"What will be revealed if the investigation goes deep enough is that many people in a shooter's world knew that he was angry, mad, unreasonable, scary at times, and recently some of them came to learn that he was threatening and armed," said Dietz, who is not involved in the Binghamton investigation.

"They've known that for a long time, but none of them did what they should have done with that information."

State police got tips suggesting that Wong may have been planning a bank robbery in 1999, possibly to support a crack-cocaine addiction, Zikuski said. But the robbery never happened, and Zikuski had no other information.

Wong's father was well-known in the Binghamton area through his work years ago at the now-defunct World Relief Organization, helping recent immigrants find a doctor and obtain food stamps.

"Everyone, when they come to America, he's the one who helps," said Ty Tran, who came to the United States in 1990.

Mark Preston, 48, a neighbor of the gunman in Johnson City, outside Binghamton, said people in the family keep to themselves but often tended the bushes in their yard.

"They grow great vegetables and roses," he said.

___

Associated Press writers John Wawrow in Buffalo, N.Y., and John Kekis in Binghamton contributed to this report.

Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090405/ap_on_re_us/binghamton_shootings)

[kwame k]

Jesus, with over 6 million people out of work, I wonder how many more rampages there are going to be.

[Nitro Express]

Jesus, what makes people go off like this?

People who feel they have nothing to lose and want revenge and attention. They know they are going to die but they want to sting what they hate most and go down in a blaze of glory with the police.

Basically, these people have been percolating in hate for a long time. Normal people don't exist in this realm of hate and so normal people don't get it. That's because normal people have something to live for. These nut cases are lost and full of so much hate and hopelessness, they just snap and fullfill their fantasy that they have prepared for.

[Nitro Express]

Oh, STFU with that shit, moron.

:rolleyes:

Racism probably had more to do with motive, considering where he just got laid off from.

Racism. Look in the mirror.

Bad economies always flames the racial hate. Just look at what the failure of the Reichs Mark did in Germany. Do you think the Hollocaust would have happened in a good economy? Desperate and angry people always need a scape goat. Heck. The fighting stopped in Northern Ireland when the economy got better there and they will go back to killing each other once the economy sours and they need a scape goat again.

People have been doing this for thousands of years.

[Nitro Express]

There are certain guns that should be banned and certain people who shouldn't be allowed to own guns. Having said that, if they would just enforce the existing laws and close up the loopholes, I'd be happy.

The thing is. People who are capable of mass murder are capable of doing anything. Guns laws aren't going to stop maniacs. You can buy anything if you want it bad enough. Just look at the drug trade. If you want to score a weapon and you want it bad enough. Laws won't stop you.

The people we are talking about here are basically suicidal and there seems to be more and more of them. If they don't do it with a gun, they will do it a different way. Hell. Pick a busy sidewalk and hit the accelerator of your car and steer into the killing zone. Rent a big truck for more damage.

Guns are tools. The problem is the mind of these maniacs. We seem to live in the age of fruit salad.