An armed man sowed terror Monday evening in a skyscraper from the center of New York, killing at least four people before killing himself, said the mayor of the city
We lost four souls in a new act of insane violence, ‘regretted Eric Adams at a late press conference in the evening, not counting the shooter who apparently returned his weapon against him.
Three men including a police officer, as well as a woman, were killed, while another individual is in critical condition, said officials, without mentioning a possible mobile at this stage.
The emergency services were called on Monday around 6:00 p.m. (00:00 Tuesday in Switzerland) in the Midtown Manhattan business district.
The surveillance cameras filmed a man descending with a black car, armed with an assault rifle M-4. He then entered the building and immediately shot the policeman before watering the hall of bullets, reported the New York police chief Jessica Tisch.
The assailant had obviously decided to target the 345, Park Avenue, a large office building which houses premises of the Professional American Football League (NFL), the Blackstone finance giant and the KPMG consulting and audit firm, according to Ms. Tisch.
She said she thinks that the suspect, from Las Vegas and who presented history of psychiatric problems, had acted alone.
Several media, including CNN and the New York Post, show a photograph of a mustachioed man walking alone in the street with a long rifle in his right hand, dressed in sunglasses and a dark jacket.
Quickly, hundreds of police officers, some bearing bulletproof vests and heavy weapons, and many ambulances, arrived on the scene, noted an AFP journalist.
‘From one floor to another’
‘I was in the building, it went from one floor to another’, told AFP, near there, a witness who refused to give his name.
According to the New York Times, the shooter died on the 33rd floor.
New York ‘police’ carefully conducts research at 345, Park Avenue. If you are in this building, please stay where you are, “wrote the mayor of the city Eric Adams on X.
Shad Sakib worked in a nearby building when he was ordered to confine himself inside.
‘Everyone wondered what was going on, until someone said it is online, that someone returned with a machine gun,’ he told AFP. ‘He got into the building right next to it. We saw a photo of him walking there even where I go to go and get lunch ‘, added this witness.
Helicopters flew over the area, a stone’s throw from Central Park.
The left -wing candidate at New York town hall, Zohran Mamdani, said he was torn ‘by the news.
An assassination in December
With more firearms in circulation than residents, the United States displayed the highest firearm mortality rate in all developed countries.
The shootings are a recurring scourge that successive governments have so far failed to stem, many Americans remaining very attached to their arms.
In 2024, more than 16,000 people, not to mention suicides, were killed by firearm, according to the NGO Gun Violence Archive.
Last December, Brian Thompson, the boss of the country’s largest health insurer, United, was assassinated in the street in this same district of Midtown in Manhattan.
Luigi Mangione, a young computer engineer, was arrested and charged in this case. In April, he pleaded not guilty of homicide before a Federal Tribunal in Manhattan.
/ATS
