A retirement home resident on Monday shot at firefighters who responded to a report of an explosion at the Southern California facility, killing a veteran fire captain and leaving a second firefighter and another resident wounded, officials said.
Investigators believe based on a preliminary investigation that the man, Thomas Kim, had set a fire early on Monday morning to draw first responders to his second-floor apartment at the retirement home in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, and then opened fire, Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna said.
Kim, 77, was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and arson.
Photo: AP
Investigators were still working to determine Kim’s motive, Luna said.
The shooting happened shortly after firefighters arrived at the 11-story retirement facility at about 4am and found some windows blown out, activated sprinklers, the smell of gas and a fire that they extinguished, authorities said.
Firefighters were searching the building when shots rang out and the two firefighters were hit, Long Beach Fire Chief Michael DuRee said.
Fire Captain Dave Rosa, who had worked for the department for 17 years, died at a hospital on Monday morning, DuRee said.
He is survived by a wife and two children — aged 16 and 25 — the chief said.
The other firefighter, Ernesto Torres, was released from the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery, officials said.
An elderly resident at the retirement home was also shot and was in critical, but stable condition in hospital, Luna said.
The specific circumstances of how the resident was shot were not immediately known.
“Long Beach lost a hero today,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said.
Eighty senior citizens remained evacuated from the retirement home on Monday afternoon, and were being offered health services and counseling at a local community center, the mayor said.
Dozens of firefighters stood at attention and saluted as a flag-draped coffin carrying Rosa’s body was brought out of the hospital on Monday afternoon and loaded into a coroner’s van.
Community members waved US flags along the street outside the hospital as the procession of police and fire vehicles escorted the van to the coroner’s office.
Luna said a revolver was recovered after Kim was taken into custody. He had a prior arrest for car theft, the police chief said.
“There’s still is a large puzzle we’re trying to put together. There’s still a lot of information we don’t know,” he said.
Investigators also found two “suspicious devices” when they arrested Kim and had called the bomb squad to “render those safe,” Luna said.
Detectives still have “a lot of questions about the devices that were found and the suspect’s intent,” Luna said. “That’s the environment we work in today, as law enforcement and firefighters. You go to these scenes and you never know what’s on the other side of those doors.”
Pamela Barr, who lives in the building, said she was awakened by fire alarms and did not panic because false alarms are not uncommon.
She tried to go back to sleep, but then learned what was happening by watching TV news.
Firefighters later evacuated the building and put residents on buses.
“This is a lot to deal with,” said Barr, 73, as she sat with her son in a car, waiting to be allowed back in the tower, where she lives on the ninth floor on the opposite end of the building from where the fire occurred.
Barr said she had not heard of any troubles involving residents of the facility, where she has lived for seven years. She described it as clean, well run and secure.
Gloria Ford, 58, who lives a few blocks away, was awakened by screaming sirens earlier and came to check out the scene.
“I’m very sorry about it. I’m sick about it,” she said about the death of the firefighter. “It’s just mad.”
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
RSS