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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Florida hostage standoff leaves 7 people dead

    Florida hostage standoff leaves 7 people dead

    Reuters10:44 a.m. CDT, July 27, 2013

    MIAMI -- Seven people were shot and killed at an apartment building in a Miami suburb early Saturday, including the suspected gunman who was holding two hostages when a SWAT team moved in, police said.

    The hostages were rescued unharmed, Hialeah Police Sergeant Eddie Rodriguez told NBC News.

    The standoff began on Friday evening during an argument between the gunman and the husband and wife who ran the apartment complex. Their bodies were among the six found after the SWAT team moved in on Saturday morning, police said.

    The gunman lived in a fourth-floor apartment with his mother, the Miami Herald quoted the landlords' daughter, Shamira Pisciotti, as saying.

    The couple, 78-year-old Italo Pisciotti and 68-year-old Samira Pisciotti, went to the unit to discuss a problem with the gunman, who opened fire and killed them both, their daughter told the newspaper.

    Three other victims were found shot to death in that building and one was walking into a building across the street when the gunman shot him from a balcony, police said.

    The shooter was barricaded inside a fifth-floor apartment with the two hostages when police negotiators made contact with him during the night. The SWAT team swarmed in after the talks broke down about 2 a.m., the Herald said.
    The apartment complex in the blue-collar, mostly Hispanic community housed about 90 families.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-florida-hostage-standoff-20130727,0,6128319.story
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  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    CBS/AP/ July 27, 2013, 3:20 PM

    Pedro Vargas ID'd as gunman behind deadly rampage in Hialeah, Florida

    Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET

    HIALEAH, Fla. Police say the gunman who killed six people and took two others hostage before a SWAT team fatally shot him was a 43-year-old resident of the South Florida apartment complex.
    "I'm heartbroken," Mayor Carlos Hernandez told reporters during a Saturday afternoon news conference. "It's an extremely sad day in Hialeah."
    Police spokesman Carl Zogby has identified the man as Pedro Vargas.
    Zogby says the incident began when Vargas set his apartment on fire Friday evening. The building managers noticed smoke and ran to his apartment, and Zogby said he shot and killed the couple when they arrived.
    Shamira Pisciotti told CBS Miami station WFOR-TV the gunman shot both her parents, 68-year-old Samira and 78-year-old Italo Pisciotti, who were property managers at the apartment complex.
    "I heard about 15 to 20 shots, and so I went outside, and my neighbors were screaming that my parents have been shot," Pisciotti said.
    Zogby says Vargas ran back into his burning apartment and fired 10 to 20 shots into the street from a balcony, killing a third victim.
    Police say Vargas eventually barricaded himself in an apartment where he took the hostages.
    Zogby says the whole incident lasted eight hours, with the hostages held at gunpoint for about three.
    Police got a call around 6:30 p.m. Friday that shots had been fired in the building, a five-story structure with dozens of apartments in Hialeah, a suburb a few miles north of Miami.
    Ester Lazcano lives two doors down from where the shooting began and said she was in the shower when she heard the first shots, then there were at least a dozen more.
    "I felt the shots," she said.
    Miriam Valdes, 70, lives on the top floor — one floor above where the shooting began. She said she heard gunfire and later saw smoke and what smelled like burned plastic entering her apartment, and ran in fear to the unit across the hall.
    Zogby said the gunman moved from floor to floor, eventually barricading himself in an apartment with two hostages.
    A crisis team was able to briefly establish communication with the man. Sgt. Eddie Rodriguez said negotiators and a SWAT team tried talking with him from the other side of the door of the unit where he held the hostages.
    Valdes said she heard about eight officers talking with him as she stayed holed up at the neighboring apartment. She said officers told him to "let these people out."
    "We're going to help you," she said they told him.
    She said the gunman first asked for his girlfriend and then his mother but refused to cooperate.
    Rodriguez said the talks eventually "just fell apart." Officers stormed the building, fatally shooting the gunman in an exchange of gunfire.
    "They made the decision to go in there and save and rescue the hostages," Rodriguez said. Both hostages survived.
    Rodriguez said police discovered two people, a male and female, shot to death in the hallway in front of one unit. Three more, a male and two females, were found shot and killed in another apartment on a different floor.
    Neighbor Fabian Valdes lives across the street and said he heard shots fired, then looked out his window and saw a man lying on the floor, outside the front lobby. He was on his back and had his arms and legs outstretched.
    Fabian Valdes said he was in shock. "It's something you never expect," he said.
    Zulima Niebles said police told her that three of her family members were among the victims. She said her sister Merly Sophia Niebles, her sister's husband, and her sister's daughter Priscila Perez, 16, were all shot and killed.
    Zulima Niebles' husband, Agustin Hernandez, was moving the family's things out of the apartment building and into his car Saturday. Among them were several photos, one showing the teen girl smiling in a red graduation gown, another of his sister-in-law in a white dress and pearls.
    Marcela Chavarri, director of the American Christian School, said Priscila Perez, 16, was about to enter her senior year at the school.
    "She was a lovely girl," Chavarri said through tears. "She was always happy and helping her classmates."
    In Hialeah — a suburb of about 230,000 residents, about three-quarters of whom are Cuban or Cuban-American — the street in the quiet, apartment-building-lined neighborhood where the shootings occurred was still blocked by tape Saturday afternoon.
    The building where the standoff occurred is an aging, beige structure with an open terrace in the middle. The apartment where neighbors said the shooting started was charred, the door and ceiling immediately outside burned black.
    The building across the street where the man was shot is called Casa Royal, or Royal House in English.
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57595796/pedro-vargas-idd-as-gunman-behind-deadly-rampage-in-hialeah-florida/
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  3. #3
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Florida gunman kills 6 in standoff with police

    Pedro Vargas set fire to his South Florida apartment, killed 6, and held another 2 hostage at gunpoint for three hours before a SWAT team stormed the complex and fatally shot him Saturday, according to police and witness accounts.

    BY ALEXIA FODERE IN HIALEAH, FLA. AND CORINNE LESTCH / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
    UPDATED: SUNDAY, JULY 28, 2013, 12:44 AM

    HIALEAH POLICE DEPARTMENT
    Cops say Pedro Vargas, 43, set a combustible liquid on fire to start the blaze.


    A Florida madman went on a rampage in his apartment complex, killing six innocents, shooting it out with police and holding two people hostage for three hours before cops shot him dead.

    Pedro Vargas, 43, began his eight hours of terror early Friday evening by torching the fourth-floor apartment he shared with his mother in the building in Hialeah, just a few miles north of Miami.

    Building managers Italo Pisciotti, 79, and his wife, Camira Pisciotti, 69, noticed smoke and ran to Vargas’ residence.

    Neighbor Nelson Flores said he witnessed an argument as Pisciotti wanted to call the police — but Vargas insisted he hold off, since he had something to hide.

    ALAN DIAZ/AP
    Miami-Dade morgue workers carry out a body out at the scene of a fatal shooting in Hialeah, Fla.

    The feud ended when Vargas whipped out a 9-mm. pistol and shot the Pisciottis dead. “It’s going to give me bad dreams,” Flores said of what he saw.

    GASTON DE CARDENAS / EL NUEVO HERALD/EPA
    Authorities at the scene of shooting at an apartment building in Hialeah, Fla.


    “Mr. Pisciotti wanted to call police and the gunman didn’t, because he was living there illegally with his mother under Section 8 (housing laws),” Flores told the Daily News.

    Vargas then shot the couple, Flores and police said.

    “I have never seen anything like this before, and I know it’s going to give me bad dreams,” Flores added.
    ALAN DIAZ/AP
    City of Hialeah rescue workers walk down a staircase at an apartment building after a fatal shooting at the complex.

    After shooting the managers, whose 9-year-old granddaughter was waiting in the family apartment police said , Vargas ran back into his burning unit and opened fire from a balcony — killing Carlos Gavilanes, 33, who was parking his car after returning from work.

    Gavilanes’ body was found next to the vehicle.

    The crazed gunman then barged into a third-floor apartment and unloaded on a helpless family of three.

    Killed were Patricia Simono, 54; his wife Merly Niebles, 51; and their 17-year-old daughter, Priscila Perez, whose body was found in the bathtub.

    GASTON DE CARDENAS / EL NUEVO HERALD/EPA
    Shamira Piscioti cries while speaking on the phone after her parents were shot to death.


    More than 100 police officers arrived at the scene after receiving a call at 6:30 p.m. Friday, setting in motion an hours-long gun battle.

    Vargas traded shots with the officers during a frightening chase, with cops following the gunman from one floor to the next.

    “He kept running from us as he fired at us and we fired at him,” said Lt. Carl Zogby, a Hialeah Police Department spokesman.

    Vargas eventually barricaded himself in an apartment where he held two hostages at gunpoint for three hours.

    ALAN DIAZ/AP
    City of Hialeah, Fla., police block off the area of an apartment building at the scene of a fatal shooting in Hialeah, Fla.

    Negotiators tried speaking to Vargas from the other side of the door — but the talks “just fell apart,” said police.

    “He was speaking Spanglish and not making any sense so it was impossible,” Zogby told the Daily News. “We offered food and drinks but he wouldn’t accept it.”

    Cops used a small robot-mounted camera, which showed the hostages pleading for their lives on their knees.

    ALAN DIAZ/AP
    The apartment building where a fatal shooting took place is shown in Hialeah, Fla.

    A witness said the gunman asked for his girlfriend and his mother, but refused to cooperate.

    The officers finally threw tear gas over the apartment’s balcony and stormed through the door, fatally shooting Vargas in an exchange of gunfire.

    The hostages, identified as Zoeb and Sarrida Nek, were shaken up but not hurt.

    “Our procedure is that we don’t wait, we enter and engage,” said police spokesman Carl Zogby. “We believe that it was our pursuing him that made him run for cover and barricade himself in that apartment, and kept him from killing more people.”

    Police recovered a 9-mm. pistol and several rounds of ammo. They don’t yet have a motive.

    Other victims discovered include married couple Merly Niebles and Patricia Simono, and their 19-year-old daughter, Priscilla Perez, who were killed when Vargas kicked in their door and opened fire.

    One of Perez’s grieving co-workers at Lyn’s Furniture store said he had a bad feeling when she didn’t show up at their usual breakfast before work.

    “She was so sweet and kind,” said the co-worker, who declined to give his name. “She was studying and working at the same time. It’s so sad.”

    With Lisa Lucas and News Wire Services
    clestch@nydailynews.com


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