Friday, April 3, 2009

Deadly rampage at N.Y. immigrant center

Source: CNN



At least one gunman began shooting Friday in an immigration services building in Binghamton, New York, killing at least 12 people, Gov. David Paterson said.

A gunman is among the dead, law enforcement officials said.

"This is a horrible situation," Paterson said. "There's no available data on what's going on there other than the fact that lives have been lost."

The local police command center said SWAT teams are still inside, clearing the building.

A law enforcement source said that more than a dozen people were wounded.

Two people were seen being led from the building in plastic handcuffs, WBNG reported. It was not immediately known whether the two were under arrest.

The shootings began about 10:30 a.m. ET at the American Civic Association, which helps immigrants and refugees, the source said.

The source said there may have been 20 to 40 people taken hostage.

The American Civic Association helps immigrants and refugees with a number of issues, including personal counseling, resettlement, citizenship and reunification, and provides interpreters and translators, according to the United Way of Broome County, which is affiliated with the association.


Like most of you, I've been glued to CNN as details come in.

Reports are describing the shooter as a young male of Asian descent. Police are looking for someone who speaks Vietnamese to help them with translation so one would assume either the shooters or hostages are Vietnamese. Now there are reports that the shooter is dead.

I'm sure more details will come out about motive and why such a thing could happen.
Very sad all around :(

Looks like these people were in the immigrant center to either take a course on how to pass the citizenship test or taking the citizenship test itself. If they died while doing that, that's so sad! :(

2 comments:

Anh Khoi Do said...

My thoughts for these immigrants.

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