A doctor who had lost his job at a New York hospital opened fire with an assault rifle inside the building on Friday, killing another physician and wounding six other people before taking his own life in a burst of apparent workplace-related violence, officials said.
The shooter, wearing a white medical coat, stalked two floors of the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, in the New York borough of the Bronx, and tried to set himself on fire before police searching the building found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot, New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill said.
One female physician was shot to death and six other people were wounded, five seriously, including one who was shot in the leg, O’Neill said at a news conference.
The shooting was an “isolated incident” that appeared to be “a workplace-related matter,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said, adding that it was “not an act of terrorism.”
The shooter was armed with an assault rifle, O’Neill said.
Neither the mayor nor police immediately identified the suspect or any of the victims.
O’Neill said the shooter was a former employee of the 972-bed hospital.
In an interview with WABC News, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz identified the shooter as Henry Bello and said he had been fired by the hospital.
Other media reports said Bello was 45 years old.
The New York Times and the New York Daily News reported, citing unnamed sources, that Bello had resigned from the hospital rather than face termination over accusations of sexual harassment.
Bello had received a limited permit to practice as an international medical graduate in order to gain experience so he could be fully licensed, but that permit expired one year ago, the Times reported, adding that he also had a pharmacy technician license from California.
The Daily News said he had been a pharmacy tech at the hospital before he quit in 2015.
Bello, a Nigerian, earned a medical degree from Dominica’s Ross University and later worked briefly as a pharmacy technician for Metropolitan Hospital Center in Manhattan in 2012, according to David Wims, a lawyer who represented Bello in an unemployment insurance claim against that hospital.
Details about the shooting were still sketchy.
Authorities said the rampage unfolded shortly before 3pm when the shooter went on a rampage on the 16th and 17th floors of the hospital.
He and the slain physician were both found on the 17th floor, while the six other victims were found on the 16th floor, O’Neill said.
The incident sent waves of panic throughout the hospital, and police swarmed the building searching for the shooter.
Adding to the pandemonium was the shooter’s attempt to set himself ablaze, which apparently triggered the hospital’s fire alarm system and halted elevator service, hampering efforts by first responders to reach victims and evacuate the building.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not