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Deadly Shooting Outside Empire State Building

Aug 24, 2012  •  Post A Comment

A gunman reportedly exchanged gunfire with police in a crowded area this morning outside New York’s Empire State Building, leaving at least two people dead — including the shooter — and injuring at least eight others, CNN reports.

Contradictory details continued to surface today as TVWeek approached its publishing deadline, but in a press conference New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the shooting was believed to stem from a dispute between co-workers. Eyewitness accounts indicated that the shooter chased after a man and shot him in the head and that an unarmed security guard chased the gunman down 5th Avenue.

New York police said the shooter was one of the two people initially known to be dead, with witnesses saying he was shot at least three times. The man was wielding a large gun, described initially as a shotgun but later identified by authorities as a 45-calibre handgun.

“Local and federal authorities converged on the building around 9 a.m. after reports of gunfire, and have since closed several streets around 5th Avenue and 34th Street in Manhattan,” the story reports.

The shooter was identified during Mayor Bloomberg’s press conference as Jeffrey Johnson, who apparently had been laid off from his job and may have returned to shoot his former boss. The man reportedly wore a business suit and carried a briefcase during the shooting.

2 Comments

  1. How is that possible? NY has about the toughest anti-gun laws in the nation. We need MORE laws! We need a law that makes it a crime to shoot someone – oh, that already is a law. How about a law to make it a crime to steal a gun? Oh there already is a law for that too! I know, how about a law that you can’t buy a gun in a state where you don’t live – so that is a law already too. So then with all these laws I guess more laws really won’t change anything. But it sounds so good when politicians talk about new laws. I guess they think voters are really stupid and will feel safe with a lot of new laws. Please don’t think I am insensitive to the victim and family, the shooting is tragic and wrong. Keep in mind that the gun didn’t operate on its own and the strong laws in NY did nothing to prevent the tragic shooting. Without a gun the perp would have used a knife, bomb, car or ball bat. It is never about the weapon but the person using it. But I expect only the gun will be focused on by the media and unrealistic timid liberals.

  2. Thanks for jumping right in and stirring up the shit in anticipation that all those baaaaddddd and scaaarrryyyyy liberals are going to demanding the gun you have nervously clenched between your ass cheeks. In it’s way, your preemptive rant is more pathetic than the knee jerk reactionaries who immediately think every gun crime is the final straw that will make the world melt down all their guns and hold hands, singing that they want to buy the world a Coke (or snort some coke or something).
    Look, I’m an actual Liberal and it pisses me off that the same Righties who get all pissy about being thrown into the same group as the militants who want to sweep into the White House, armed to the teeth and ‘arrest’ our ‘socialist’ President think it’s okay to do the same thing and rant on about how all Liberals want to ban guns, take away all of your hard-earned money and give it to pot smoking homosexuals who spend their days trying to think of new ways to spend your money. Neither are accurate and I’m sick of the worlds ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ being used like they’re topping the list of Carlin’s words you can’t say on television.

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