BINGHAMTON COPS: KILLER FIRED 98 ROUNDS IN A MINUTE+

FOX NEWS

BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK

 Binghamton Police

Binghamton, N.Y., police released these undated photos of Jiverly Wong, the gunman who killed 13 and himself on April 3.

 

ABC NEWS

BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK

Even if police officers had immediately entered the immigrant center where a gunman had just shot down 13 people, the victims' injuries were so severe that none would have survived, a county prosecutor said Sunday.

The shooting at the American Civic Association stopped shortly after the first 911 calls came in at 10:30 a.m. Friday, but police didn't enter the building until nearly 45 minutes later.

Survivors reported huddling for hours in a basement, not knowing whether they were still in danger after the gunman, 41-year-old Jiverly Wong, killed 13 people.

Medical examiners who conducted autopsies reported that the victims' injuries were so severe they would not have survived, Broome County District Attorney Gerald F. Mollen said.

"We definitively can say nobody was shot after police arrival, and nobody who had been shot could have been saved even if the police had walked in the door within the first minute," Mollen said.

The prosecutor's comments came at a news conference Sunday, an hour before officials released a list of names and home countries of the victims.

Four Chinese were among those killed, and a Chinese student was also shot in the arm and leg but survived, officials said. The other victims came from Haiti, Pakistan, the Philippines, Iraq, Brazil, Vietnam and the United States.

The first 911 calls came in at 10:30 a.m., police Chief Joseph Zikuski said at a news conference. The callers spoke broken English, and it took dispatchers 2 minutes to sort out what was happening, he said.

Patrol officers arrived at 10:33 a.m., five minutes before a wounded receptionist called police to report a gunman in the building, Zikuski said. Police had earlier said it was that call that brought them to the immigration center.

When police arrived at the scene, the gunfire had stopped, so they believed there was no "active gunman" in the center and decided to wait for the SWAT team to arrive, Zikuski said.

The SWAT team entered the building until 11:13 a.m., 43 minutes after the first call to police.

"I'm not sure why they wouldn't have gone in there if the shooting was already done," said Kent Moyer, president of California-based World Protection Group, which offers protection services for corporate, commercial, industrial, entertainment, residential and retail clients. "What is happening all across the board in law enforcement is they've switched the tactic. They're not relying on waiting until the SWAT team gets there."

Moyer said many law-enforcement agencies conduct rapid-response training where the uniformed patrol officers are taught that "once they have sufficient backup, that they go in prior to the SWAT team getting there."

Zikuski contrasted the scene with the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, in which 15 people died, including the two teenage gunmen. There, he said, it would have been better for police to enter the building as quickly as possible since it was obvious the gunmen were still alive and shooting.

"At Columbine, there were numerous shots ringing out and law enforcement stood by," he said. "I was, quite frankly, horrified when I knew that."

Pressed on why police didn't go into the building, Zikuski said information they were getting from the receptionist — specifically whether Wong was still alive — was uncertain enough to warrant caution. And unlike Columbine, police in Binghamton could be more deliberate because the gunman had stopped firing by the time they arrived.

"He was dead. We didn't know it," Zikuski said. "If there's a bunch of cops laying on the floor shot trying to rescue somebody else, it's not going to help anybody. All I can tell you is that we did what was expected and was the right thing to do under the circumstances. We did the right thing."

Zikuski said his officers would have gone into the building if shots had still been flying.

"If you arrive on the scene — the first two to four guys — and there's an active shooter, they enter," he said.

That is standard protocol today.

"Most law enforcement agencies have already changed their policies," Moyer said. "Obviously, that's something the state has to re-evaluate whether what they did was effective or not."

When reporters repeated the line of questioning on timing, Mollen jumped in to defend the police chief, a 30-year veteran of the force who has served as interim chief three times in the past 15 years.

"I don't think it's fair to ask Chief Zikuski to respond to hypotheticals," Mollen said, adding that there would be a full review and report on the shooting, including the police response.

A former FBI agent who was also a member of a SWAT team said the response was appropriate.

"Lord, that seems like that was fast," said Harold Copus, who now runs a consulting company based in Atlanta. "When something like this happens, as you can imagine, it's mass confusion."

Wong was "an avid gunman" who had recently visited a firing range weekly, Zikuski said, but authorities still don't know his motive.

Authorities don't know whether he had a particular target, and Zikuski said the choice of targets may have been random.

Officials have said Wong was apparently upset about losing his job at a vacuum plant and about people picking on him for his limited English.

VIDEO 

pressconnects.com

BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK

Jiverly A. Wong  

Police painted a portrait of a troubled man, frustrated by his failure to speak English. But they may never know why Jiverly A. Wong, 41, turned to mass murder.

Wong opened fire on a classroom at the American Civic Association on Friday, killing 13 people before taking his own life.

Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski today identified Wong as the killer in Binghamton’s first mass slaying.

Originally with the last name of Voong, at some point the shooter changed his last name to Wong, Zikuski said at a noon press conference, clearing up confusion as to the shooter’s correct name. Wong lived in the Town of Union, just outside Johnson City, with his mother, father and sister.

People close to Wong told police they weren’t surprised that the man turned to violence, he said. People had made fun of Wong due to his difficulty speaking English, leading him to feel "degraded," his loved ones told police.

New York Department of Motor Vehicle records indicate Wong used a hearing aid.

Police have not yet released the names of the 13 people who were killed, besides Wong. Zikuski said his department hopes to release the names of the dead by the end of the day today.

A 72-year-old Binghamton woman who taught at the American Civic Association is among those who died, her family confirmed this morning.

Roberta King was among the 14 people who died at the Front Street location, said her son-in-law, Todd Lerner. King was substitute teaching for another teacher Friday at the Civic Association.

Wilson and Lourdes hospitals are currently conducting autopsies on the victims, each of which takes 2 to 4 hours.

The police chief said Wong attended English language classes at the American Civic Association until early March, when he dropped out.

Wong was wearing body armor, which may have indicated intentions to take on police. Zikuski, however, speculated that the sound of the sirens prompted him to kill himself instead.

"He must have been a coward," he said.

Besides wounding a receptionist and killing another woman near the lobby, all of Wong’s victims were in one classroom. Wong didn’t speak when he shot the two women in the lobby, the surviving receptionist -- identified by her Conklin neighbors as Shirley DeLucia -- told Binghamton police.

DeLucia is expected to survive her injuries, as are the other three people who were wounded in the attack, Zikuski said.

The victims who died sustained multiple gunshot wounds, the police chief said. Police are investigating how many shots were fired and whether Wong reloaded.

Zikuski painted a picture of a troubled man who police had looked at in 1999 after receiving a tip that he was planning a bank robbery and had a cocaine habit. Wong did have a minor criminal incident somewhere out of state, but Zikuski didn't have details.

That may be California -- where he allegedly worked for a sushi company as a deliveryman. Paulus Lukas, a human resources manager for the Kikka Sushi company in Inglewood, Calif., said he is more than 99 percent sure that Jiverly Wong is the same one who worked for Kikka for almost seven years as a deliveryman.

The company sent last year's tax forms to a Jiverly Wong in Broome County after Wong moved from California, Lukas said in a telephone interview. Wong's motor vehicle record in New York also shows him having moved to California during the past decade.

Lukas described Wong as a hard worker who did not befriend colleagues on the job.
"He tried to avoid conversations," Lukas said. "But he was good at doing his job."

He obtained permits for two pistols in 1996 or 1997. These were the pistols used in the shooting, police said.

Wong last worked at Shop-Vac, but was terminated when the plant closed in November, police said.

Broome County District Attorney Gerald F. Mollen will issue a report on possible motive after investigating the case.

Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan said the city has fielded calls from nine different countries as people try to find out the fate of their loved ones.

Thirty-three people escaped the shooting unharmed but shaken, after a harrowing three-hour ordeal. Of those 33 people, 26 barricaded themselves in a basement boiler room, others hid in a classroom just feet from the dead.

Many of the victims and survivors were recent immigrants, taking English and citizenship classes and were on the path to American citizenship. Others were the teachers of those classes.

The shooting stunned a community that has had just one murder since the beginning of 2008. Ryan called it "the most tragic day in Binghamton history."

An account of the shooting paints a terrifying picture:

Having already blocked the rear door with a car, Wong went into the building through the front door, firing as he entered. He immediately shot DeLucia.

DeLucia, shot in the abdomen, played dead while the man shot and killed another receptionist, then moved left into a classroom to continue his shooting spree.

From under her desk, DeLucia called 911 at 10:31 a.m., telling a dispatcher she had been shot and that a man with a handgun was in the building and had fired several more shots.

Binghamton police were on the scene two minutes later. By that time, all the shooting was done.

Abdelhak Ettouri, a Moroccan immigrant and Johnson City resident, poked his head out of another classroom when he heard the first two shots, and saw a dead body.

Through an interpreter, Ettouri said he tried to escape through the back door, only to discover it was blocked. He ran downstairs and spent three hours holed up in the basement. Other students braced themselves against the door in case the shooter made his way down there.

Ettouri said between 12 and 14 shots were fired in succession. "Tak-tak-tak-tak," he said, describing the sound of the shots.

Zikuski said police removed 37 people from the building at 131 Front St., including four injured people. The dead were left in the building until shortly before 6 p.m.

According to scanner reports, a 1993 Toyota at the scene was registered to Henry Voong of Johnson City. He said the car's owner told police the perpetrator borrowed a car to apparently attend a class at the Civic Association.

Wong used two semi-automatic handguns. Both handguns used in the shooting are registered to Wong, the police chief said.

Authorities later searched the home of the suspected gunman, carrying out three computer hard drives, a brown canvas rifle case, a briefcase, a small suitcase and several paper bags.

The American Civic Association helps immigrants and refugees with immigration and personal counseling, resettlement, citizenship, family reunification and translators. It also intervenes with emergencies, including fighting hunger and homelessness, according to information from the association's Web site.