New York (AFP) – Five people, including a police officer and a suspected gunman, were dead following a shooting Monday at a skyscraper in central Manhattan, US media reported. The incident began around 6:00 pm (2200 GMT) when reports of gunfire prompted hundreds of police to a busy office district on the storied Park Avenue, an area popular with tourists and visiting businesspeople.
Police said the scene, an office tower block at 345 Park Avenue home to hedge fund giant Blackstone, auditor KPMG, and the National Football League, had been “contained and the lone shooter is dead,” without providing details about the identity of the suspect. A worker from a nearby office building wept as she left the area after a local lockdown was lifted, while another described a gunman going floor to floor as staff prepared to leave for the day.
“Four people, including a New York Police Department officer, were killed in today’s shooting in Midtown Manhattan,” a law enforcement source told broadcaster CNN, adding that the suspected gunman died from what is believed to be a “self-inflicted injury.” Mayor Eric Adams said on X that an officer had been “struck down” and expressed his “deepest sympathies” to the family of the officer, although a department spokeswoman said she could neither confirm nor deny an officer had been killed.
“At this time, the scene has been contained and the lone shooter has been neutralized,” police commissioner Jessica Tisch wrote on X. Office worker Shad Sakib told AFP that he was packing his things to leave work when a public address announcement warned him and his colleagues to shelter in place. “Everyone was confused with like, ‘wait, what’s going on?’ And then someone finally realized that it’s online, that someone walked in with a machine gun,” said the witness who wore a grey suit jacket.
“He walked right into a building right next door. We saw the photo of him walking through the same area that I walked through to get lunch here. You would think it won’t happen to you, and then it does.”
– ‘Floor by floor’ –
Another witness, a woman who declined to give her name as she left the vicinity of the shooting, told AFP, “I was in the building. He went floor by floor,” while a second woman wept as she left the scene. Witnesses told AFP the incident happened in an office block that is home to the Blackstone investment company. Police officers deployed a drone near Park Avenue at the height of the evening rush hour as dozens of officers swarmed the area, some carrying long guns and others wearing ballistic vests.
A number of ambulances had gathered in the vicinity, and several helicopters hovered above the scene. Police repeatedly pushed back journalists and members of the public who gathered to see what was happening in the normally calm but busy area of Midtown Manhattan. The area is home to several five-star business hotels, as well as a number of corporate headquarters and financial and law firms.
Earlier, the mayor had told New Yorkers that “there is an active shooter investigation taking place in Midtown right now. Please take proper safety precautions if you are in the vicinity and do not go outside if you are near Park Avenue and East 51st Street.” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she has been briefed on the shooting. The frontrunner in the race for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, wrote on X that he was “heartbroken to learn of the horrific shooting in midtown and I am holding the victims, their families, and the NYPD officer… in my thoughts.”
© 2024 AFP
