A gunman carried a cache of weapons past security in a giant envelope, chained a law office's doors closed and fatally shot three people before a police sniper killed him as he held a hostage at gunpoint, authorities said.
Officers entered through another door in the U-shaped office, and a SWAT officer shot the gunman from about 45m away, Superintendent Phil Cline said. There was no negotiation and the hostage was unharmed, he said.
The shootings on Friday afternoon at the 43-story Citigroup Center, which also houses a train station, sent office workers fleeing and stranded rush-hour commuters.
PHOTO: AP
Cline said the gunman, who was armed with a revolver, a knife and hammer, did not work in the office but demanded to see one of the victims who was killed.
"He was not employed there but we feel he did have previous encounters with the individuals in that office," Cline said.
Fire officials said they received reports of shots fired on the 38th floor, which houses law offices, around 3:15pm.
The shooter "grabbed a hostage and he was pointing a gun alternately at the hostage's head and his own head," Cline said.
There were about 30 people on the floor during the shooting. The law office specializes in patent law, officials said.
None of the dead victims, all men, or the gunman was identified. A fourth victim, a woman, was taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the foot, but was expected to be released later on Friday night, Rush University Medical Center spokeswoman Kim Waterman said.
Cindy Penzick, secretary in a law firm on the 37th floor, said that after a coworker told her she heard gunshots, a police officer with his gun drawn on their floor yelled at them to get out.
Penzick said she is usually calm, "But I have to tell you this was scary as hell."
People hurried down the escalators and ran from the skyscraper on the west side of downtown.
Keegan Greene, who works at Verizon Wireless on the first floor, was helping a customer when fire alarms began going off.
"One of the security guards came up to us and started saying, `Run, run, run, run, run,'" Greene said.
Service on the Metra commuter line was suspended for more than an hour and area buses were diverted while the incident unfolded. Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said all Metra crew mem-bers had been locked into secure areas before train service resumed just after 5pm.
Janet Buswell, an office manager on the 25th floor, said her staff learned of the incident when emergency flashers went off and they were told over building speakers to secure their offices and let no one in or out.
"It was a little tense, when you don't know what's going on," said Buswell, of RBC Dain Rauscher. "Of course this is the train station building, so there's always the fear that it could be targeted."
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS