Thread: BLOODBATH at Immigration Center in NY!!

Gunman kills 12, wounds 4 at center for immigrants
By ANNA GORMAN Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
April 3, 2009, 11:31PM

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Heather Ainsworth AP
Police gather outside the suspect's home.

MORE ON THE SHOOTINGS
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What the police chief said
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BINGHAMPTON, N.Y. -- For immigrants in this chilly Rust Belt city, the doorway to America leads through the friendly building on Front Street. But Friday, the American Civic Association — a place crowded with recent arrivals taking English classes and citizenship exams — became a killing zone.
A gunman had barricaded the back door of the immigration services center with a car, thwarting escape, then entered through the front door. Opening fire, he killed 13 people and seriously wounded four others before apparently committing suicide.
Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said the gunman gave no warning. "I don't think there was any conversation," he said.
As he entered the building, the gunman killed one receptionist and shot another in the stomach. She pretended to be dead, hiding under a table and waiting for a chance to call 911 while the gunman moved down the hallway and sought out more victims in a nearby room. There, he opened fire on a group taking a citizenship class.
Police arrived less than 2 minutes after receiving the receptionist's call at 10:31 a.m., Zikuski said. Amid the carnage they found a body believed to be the shooter's along with two hand guns, body armor and ammunition. He apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"We have no idea what the motive is," Zikuski said, but added the shooter was "no stranger to the civic association."
An anonymous law enforcement source told the Associated Press that the gunman had an identification card that said his name was Jiverly Voong, 42. Authorities searched the gunman's home Friday and confiscated computer hard drives, a brown rifle case and luggage.
Binghamton Mayor Matthew Ryan, who described Friday as "the most tragic day in Binghamton history," said Voong reportedly had been laid off from his job at IBM nearby. "I believe he was trying to get assistance (at the center) for obtaining employment," Ryan said.
"The word was he lost his job and was pretty distraught. ... If the story checks out, it's obvious that he was very concerned about being unemployed and not dealing with it well."
A Binghamton city spokesman said Jiverly Wong may be the shooter, but that could not be confirmed. An IBM employee said Jiverly Wong was not an IBM employee.
During the shooting, 26 people sought refuge in a boiler room. Afterward, the SWAT team removed 37 people from the building, four of them critically injured. Many were immigrants who spoke little or no English.
As part of the effort to determine who might be a shooter, officers led some people from the building in flex cuffs, but they were ruled out as suspects, authorities said.
Binghamton is a town of about 46,000 people, located at the junction of two rivers some 140 miles northwest of New York City. Ryan described it as "a very proud city," with 30 languages spoken at local schools and a long history of welcoming immigrants.
The city's main street features old, four-story brick buildings typical of the industrial Northeast, with a sprinkling of ethnic restaurants and food marts. The Binghamton area is known as the birthplace of IBM, which has suffered job cuts in recent years.
"We really celebrate all the cultures here," Ryan said. "Because there has always been a strong immigrant population here, I just think it's been somewhat of a natural fit."
New York Gov. David Paterson noted that Friday's violence followed two other mass gunshot slayings in the last month. The first was in Samson, Ala., where a gunman shot 10 people before killing himself, and in Oakland, Calif., where four police officers were killed.
"When are we going to be able to curb the kind of violence that is so fraught and so rapid that we can't even keep track of the incidents?" the governor said.
President Barack Obama issued this statement: "Michelle and I were shocked and deeply saddened to learn about the act of senseless violence in Binghamton, N.Y., today. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and the people of Binghamton. We don't yet know all the facts, but my administration is actively monitoring the situation, and the vice president is in touch with Gov. Paterson and local officials to track developments."
The shooting resonated with groups that work with immigrants around the U.S.
"Everyone who works with the immigrant community is heartbroken," said Judy London, directing attorney of the immigrant rights project at Public Counsel in Los Angeles. "Any time a tragedy happens in a workplace that is similar to yours, it hits close to home," she said.
Ali Noorani -- executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy group in Washington, D.C. -- said he urged people to resist using the shooting for political purposes in the immigration debate. Any workplace shooting is horrific, he said, but this was even more tragic because it occurred at a place that gives hope to newcomers to the country.
"This is truly an American tragedy in that these were people who were looking to become the newest of our American communities," Noorani said. "So many people come to this country fleeing persecution or violence, and here they were studying to become citizens, only to become victims of violence."
Ryan said that a family center had been set up in Binghamton, where relatives could find out about the victims.
"By process of elimination, families are probably starting to realize they lost a loved one," he said.
The American Civic Association, the mayor said, has been a mainstay of the community. The group assists immigrants and refugees with resettlement, citizenship, family reunification, interpreters and translators. Many of its clients have fled war and conflict in other countries and were working to build new lives in the U.S., according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
The committee, a network of organizations serving immigrants and refugees, said the Binghamton group was one of its partner agencies. It issued a statement saying that it was "shocked and saddened by the shooting" and announcing that it established a fund to help the community.
"Our hearts go out to the victims, their families, and the Binghamton community," the statement read. "We know the entire community of Binghamton will rally around the American Civic Association, the people it serves and, in particular, the victims and their families."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6358424.html

ALIPAC wrote

This was a terrible tragedy. The only fortunate thing I can see about this incident so far is that the shooter was not a white American male. If that had been the case the political vultures eager to paint any case as an example of why Americans need our 1st and 2cd amend rights removed.

Having said that, I'll take it a step farther. I don't trust anything this so-called government does. The ongoing conspiracy to eliminate our right to bear arms can include staged violence to paint the ownership of guns as a bad thing..all part of a propaganda campaign. I wouldn't put NOTHING past these tratiors.

President Barack Obama issued this statement: "Michelle and I were shocked and deeply saddened to learn about the act of senseless violence in Binghamton, N.Y., today...We don't yet know all the facts, but my administration is actively monitoring the situation..

Stuff it, Obama, we don't need no stinkin comments from somone who has betrayed his country by appologizing for his fellow citizens' so-called arogance to the rest of the world and who has BOWED to the Saudi king..you are NOT my President. You sir, are an imposter and a complete fake.

It seems like ABC is the only site stating that he was a naturalized citizen. Other news sites are still using the label of 'immigrant.' ABC is also giving a motive this morning -his poor English skills and loss of job. Other sites are still saying no motive available.


NY Gunman Angry Over Poor English Skills, Job Loss
Mayor, police chief: Binghamton gunman angry, depressed over lack of English skills, job loss
By WILLIAM KATES
The Associated Press

BINGHAMTON, N.Y.

The man who police say killed 13 people in a shooting rampage inside an immigrant community center was depressed and angry over losing his job and about his poor English skills, the Binghamton mayor and police said Saturday.

Police Chief Joseph Zikuski told NBC's "Today" that people "degraded and disrespected" the gunman over his poor English. Mayor Matthew Ryan, speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," said the man, believed to be 42-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Voong, was angry about his language issues and his lack of employment.

On Friday, he barricaded the American Civic Association community center's back door with his car, walked in the front and started shooting with two handguns. Within minutes, a receptionist, 12 immigrants taking a citizenship class and the gunman were dead. Another receptionist, who played dead after she was shot in the abdomen, called 911 to get police to the scene within two minutes.

Zikuski said the injured receptionist stayed on the phone for 90 minutes, "feeding us information constantly," despite a serious wound in the abdomen.

"She's a hero in her own right," he said.

Four people were critically wounded in the Friday massacre, and 37 others made it out, including 26 who hid for hours in a basement boiler room while police tried to determine whether the gunman was still alive and whether he was holding any hostages, Zikuski said.

Investigators said they had yet to establish a motive for the shooting, which was at least the fifth deadly mass shooting in the U.S. in the past month.

The suspected killer carried ID with the name of 42-year-old Jiverly Voong, of nearby Johnson City, N.Y., but that was believed to be an alias, said a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The man was found dead in an office with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a satchel containing ammunition slung around his neck, authorities said. Police found two handguns — a 9 mm and a .45-caliber — and a hunting knife.

A second law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the handguns were registered to Jiverly Wong, another name the man used. Both officials were not authorized to speak publicly.

Initial reports suggested Voong had recently been let go from IBM. But a person at IBM said there was no record of a Jiverly Voong ever working there.

"He had lost a job recently and was somewhat angry," Ryan told ABC. "He had language issues, didn't speak English that well, and was really concerned about his employment situation."

The attack at the American Civic Association, which helps immigrants settle in this country, came just after 10 a.m.

The gunman parked his car against the back door before barging through the front and opening fire, apparently without saying a word. He then entered a room just off the reception area and fired on a citizenship class while terrified people scrambled into a boiler room and a storage room.

The center was filled with people from countries as far off as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, all working to become more a part of their new home — learning English, taking a class to gain U.S. citizenship. The gunman may have walked a similar path to become an American decades ago.

"I heard the shots, every shot. I heard no screams, just silence, shooting," said Zhanar Tokhtabayeva, a 30-year-old from Kazakhstan who was in an English class when her teacher screamed for everyone to go to the storage room. "I heard shooting, very long time, and I was thinking, when will this stop? I was thinking that my life was finished."

Police arrived in minutes, heard no gunfire and waited for about an hour before entering the building to make sure it was safe for officers. They then spent two hours searching the building. They led a number of men out in plastic handcuffs while trying to sort out victims from the killer or killers.

Gov. David Paterson said the massacre was probably "the worst tragedy and senseless crime in the history of this city." Noting mass killings in Alabama and Oakland, Calif., last month, he said: "When are we going to be able to curb the kind of violence that is so fraught and so rapid that we can't even keep track of the incidents?"

The center was holding class "for those who want to become citizens of the United States of America, who wanted to be part of the American Dream, and so tragically may have had that hope thwarted today," the governor said. "But there still is an American dream, and all of us who are Americans will try to heal this very, very deep wound in the city of Binghamton."

The police chief said the suspected gunman "was no stranger" to the community center and may have gone there to take a class. He said he had no idea what the shooter's motive was.

A woman who answered the phone at a listing for Henry D. Voong said she was Jiverly Voong's sister but would not give her name. She said her brother had been in the country for 28 years and had citizenship.

On Friday evening, police searched Voong's house and carried out three computer hard drives, a brown canvas rifle case, a briefcase, a small suitcase and several paper bags.

Waiting outside a Catholic Charities office where counselors were tending to relatives of victims, Omri Yigal said his wife, Delores, was taking English lessons when the gunman attacked. He had no word on what happened to her.

"They told me they don't have much hope for me," the Filipino immigrant said before going home to wait for a telephone call.

Dr. Jeffrey King, speaking at the Catholic Charities office, said he was certain his mother, 72-year-old Roberta King, who taught English at the community center, was among the dead.

Authorities read a list of survivors and his mother's name wasn't on it, he said.

King, one of 10 children, described his mother as a woman brimming with interests ranging from the opera to the preservation society to collecting thousands of dolls. He recollected a recent conversation in which he told her to enjoy her retirement.

"I said, 'Mom you're in your 70s,'" King said. "She said, 'What? You don't think I enjoy working?'"

They were talking about taking a trip to the Jersey shore this summer.

The shootings took place in a neighborhood of homes and small businesses in downtown Binghamton, a city of about 47,000 situated 140 miles northwest of New York City. The region was the home to Endicott-Johnson shoe company and the birthplace of IBM, which between them employed tens of thousands of workers before the shoe company closed a decade ago and IBM downsized in recent years.

A string of attacks in the U.S. in the last month left 44 people dead in all.

A gunman killed 10 people and himself in Samson, Ala.; shootings that began with a traffic stop in Oakland, Calif., left four police officers and the gunman dead; an apparent murder-suicide in Santa Clara, Calif., left six dead; and a gunman went on a rampage at a nursing home Sunday, killing seven elderly residents and a nurse who cared for them.

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http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=7255244

The judicial system is at fault for the cop killings in Oakland. The shooter had a long criminal record and should not have been on the streets. Of course our jails are so filled with illegal alien murderers and rapists, we have a revolving door for maggots like lovelle mixon.

Originally Posted by cvangel

Maybe he lost his job to someone here on a visa, we don't know what happened. He's obviously an immigrant himself if he's only been here 28 years and he's 42.

Some long term Green Card and recent immigrants are being replaced by foreign workers with temporary visas, such as the H-1B, that pretty much destroy all the work that legal immigrants put into being sponsored by one employer, staying put in one community and obeying the law only to find that an "untrained" temp from another country, often gaining admittance to the US with a fake resume, now has their jobs.

Since Congress and Hillary Clinton and all the rest are fanatical about expanding the H-1B visa program we will never get a full acounting of how immigration and temp workers played into all this.

Michele Malkin has more details for this awful event. If you go to the link she has more threads to explore.



Who’s responsible for the New York rampage?
By Michelle Malkin • April 4, 2009 10:29 AM

A sick, twisted, and evil man named Jiverly Voong ambushed an immigration center in Binghamton, New York. Recently fired from his job at IBM, Voong murdered 13 people, critically wounded four others, and then committed suicide.

It was a horrible bloodbath. Keep the victims and the families in your thoughts and prayers.

And then, brace for blame.

Because despite having no concrete information yet on what motivated this killer to go on his shooting spree, leftists have already decided: It’s all our fault. Who’s responsible? Click on the links:

IBM and corporate greed.

The Second Amendment.

The NRA.

Fox News.

Me. FreeRepublic.com RedState.com

Lou Dobbs.

“Your 2nd Amendment rights at work. The NRA is answerable for this.â€

ABC is saying he was ethnically Chinese but from Vietnam. Maybe the computers they've taken from his home will offer insight as to why he committed this attrocity. Surely not for a job loss and/or that those close to him made fun of his English. Why did he have so many alias's?? How does one become a citizen with so many names.


NY Gunman Angry Over Poor English Skills, Job Loss
Mayor, police chief: Binghamton gunman angry, depressed over lack of English skills, job loss
By WILLIAM KATES
The Associated Press

BINGHAMTON, N.Y.

The man who police say killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at an immigrant community center was depressed and angry over losing his job and about his poor English skills, officials said Saturday.

Police Chief Joseph Zikuski told NBC's "Today" that people "degraded and disrespected" the gunman over his poor English. Mayor Matthew Ryan, speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," said the man, believed to be 42-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Voong, was angry about his language issues and his lack of employment.

On Friday, he barricaded the American Civic Association community center's back door with his car, walked in the front and started shooting with two handguns. Within minutes, a receptionist, 12 immigrants taking a citizenship class and the gunman were dead. Another receptionist, who played dead after she was shot in the abdomen, called 911 to get police to the scene within two minutes.

Zikuski said the injured receptionist stayed on the phone for 90 minutes, "feeding us information constantly," despite a serious wound in the abdomen.

"She's a hero in her own right," he said.

Four people were critically wounded in the Friday massacre, and 37 others made it out, including 26 who hid for hours in a basement boiler room while police tried to determine whether the gunman was still alive and whether he was holding any hostages, Zikuski said.

Investigators said they had yet to establish a motive for the shooting, which was at least the fifth deadly mass shooting in the U.S. in the past month.

The suspected killer carried ID with the name of 42-year-old Jiverly Voong, of nearby Johnson City, N.Y., but that was believed to be an alias, said a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The man was found dead in an office with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a satchel containing ammunition slung around his neck, authorities said. Police found two handguns — a 9 mm and a .45-caliber — and a hunting knife.

A second law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the handguns were registered to Jiverly Wong, another name the man used. Both officials were not authorized to speak publicly.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=7255244

Looks like this person was a real immigrant, who became a citizen and for what ever reason he was unhappy and angry.

If he has been here 28 years, he may have been a refugee.

Dixie

This guy was from another country and came here and ended up killing a bunch of Americans, same with the killer at Virgina Tech.

Sounds like we need to be more careful who we let come here.

I went to school with many refugees and they came over as children who had already seen some horrific things in there lives. I knew kids that survived active war zones and saw family members blown to bits or had injuries. I've been to war through their stories. "War is Hell".

Some of those kids became doctors, others became criminals and some were unstable when they got here and some were not. They got here with what was left of their sanity and family.

This man may have fallen through the cracks, if he has been here 28 years.

Dixie