Friday, April 3, 2009

Breaking News: Immigration Center Attacked! Fox News says 15 Dead, 26 Wounded

The American Civic Association in Binghamton, NY came under attack today. The association describes itself as helping immigrants and refugees with counseling, resettlement, citizenship, family reunification and translators.

Reports said two gunmen backed their car to block the side/back exit of the building at 10:30 am ET. They stormed into the center and began their terror attack. According to police reports, more than 41 hostages were in the building — 15 in a closet and 26 in the boiler room. Sharp shooters from the Binghamton SWAT team were poised outside the building at 131 Front Street. The Endicott police bomb squad was also at the scene.

Fox News reported the siege ended about 2:00 ET with at least 13 - 15 dead and over 20 wounded.

Latest reports say two people have been taken from the American Civic Association with their hands cuffed behind their back are witnesses, not suspects. Fox is reporting the police are requesting a Vietnamese translator for the witnesses. The police will conduct a news conference at 4:30ET. Now Fox confirmed: The lone gunman shot himself. The gunman, Jiverly Voong, held dozens of people hostage for several hours before shooting himself to death, police said.
AP Reports:
The gunman had recently been let go from IBM in Johnson City, said Rep. Maurice Hinchey, whose district includes Binghamton. The gunman opened fire on a citizenship class, he said. "People were there in the process of being tested for their citizenship," Hinchey said in a telephone interview. "It was in the middle of a test. He just went in and opened fire."
Update - Yahoo news:
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, friends and officials said Saturday. The gunman, believed to be 42-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Voong, had been complaining that he couldn't find work and that his unemployment checks were only $200 a week, a friend told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Hue Huynh, a Binghamton grocery store proprietor whose husband worked with Voong years ago, said the man had driven a truck in California before recently returning to Binghamton, then losing a job there.
"He's upset he don't have a job here. He come back and want to work," she said. Her husband tried to cheer him by telling him he was still young and there was plenty of time to find work, but he complained about his "bad luck," she said.
Reference:
Shooting at American Civic Association and Fox Cable News

26 comments:

Dee said...

Yikes!
News reports are saying the man was laid off and then goes on a shooting rampage at an Immigration Center.

Dee said...

More:

Officials said Voong entered the civic association armed with two pistols -- a 9 mm and a .45 caliber handgun. He carried a bag filled with high capacity magazines, a survival knife and a flashlight, according to police.

Voong backed his car up to the rear door of the building to block any escape before he went to the front of the building and started to execute people, police said.

Voong, 41, also known as Linh Phat Voong, was from Johnson City, N.Y. He allegedly burst into the civic center wearing a bright green nylon jacket and dark-rimmed glasses and promptly shot two receptionists.

One woman died, but the second woman pretended to be dead, and later crawled under a desk as Voong headed for another room and called police, Zikuski said.

When the carnage was over, Voong's body was found on first the floor with a hunting knife jammed into the waistband of his pants.


http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/Binghamton-Rampage-Leaves-14-Dead-Motive-Unknown/Ck1y21ktFU6vlgIoAnYS4g.cspx

Anonymous said...

Well at least you can't blame the white guy this time, Dee. The guy sounds he is an immigrant himself. I'll be waiting for you to go on your usual rampage but you probably won't since the killer wasn't a white guy.

Dee said...

I am awaiting the news reports to detail the motivation of the gunman.

pcorn54 said...

Who gives a crap about the motivation!

You want motivation? Try these for motivation.

1. Lou Dobbs,
2. Sean Hannity
3. Glenn Beck
4. William Gheen
5. Shawna Forde
6. Jeff Swilck
7. Jim Gilchrist
8. And all the rest of the assklowns who use the media to promote their hatred, xenophobic BS against all things Hispanic.

. said...

http://features.csmonitor.com/economyrebuild/2009/03/26/for-laid-off-ibm-workers-a-job-in-india/
March 26th 2009
IBM announced a major round of US layoffs on Thursday, even as the company has been hiring workers in developing nations like India.

But over the past year, the company began offering US workers who are facing a job cut a novel carrot: If you apply for a new IBM position in a foreign country and are hired again at local wages, we will cover some of the transition costs like visa fees.

Few IBMers have taken the offer, and the firm has taken public relations lumps over it. But a handful of pioneering Americans at other firms have started to shop their skills on the Indian market, finding fulfillment and job security at a time of deep recession back home.

The IBM offer hints at a future where it’s not just skilled Indians who might have to travel halfway around the globe for a job. It’s likely that more American job seekers will have to think globally, say analysts, and the experiences of Americans who have taken jobs with companies here say it’s not something to fear.

“I was making six figures when I left the States. I’m making six figures here – in rupees,” laughs Jeanne Heydecker, a marketing executive now living outside of Delhi and working at her third Indian company. The salary for this single mother actually translates to roughly $50,000 a year. But it would be a mistake to suppose her quality of life has gone down.

Most everything she could want is available in Delhi. The healthcare, she says, has been top-notch and bottom-dollar. And like most Westerners and wealthy Indians here, she is able to hire people to cook, clean, and drive for her.

“You can come home from work and focus on your family, not on maintaining the car and the housework,” she says.
She left Chicago in 2007 after realizing that she was bored at work and didn’t see companies nearby that were hiring “new people to do new things.” Through the social-networking site Linkedin.com and Skype, Ms. Heydecker talked with the head of a Calcutta technology company who eventually hired her sight unseen.....

. said...

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20090403/NEWS/904039936?Title=Gunman-kills-at-least-12-at-immigration-center-in-N-Y-

"The gunman — believed to be a Vietnamese immigrant himself — had recently been let go from IBM, said Rep. Maurice Hinchey, whose congressional district includes Binghamton. But IBM could not immediately confirm that."

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

""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.
The police just called me and said he got shot," she said. Asked if she was aware that he might have been involved in the shooting, she said: "How? He didn't have a gun. I think somebody involved, not him. I think he got shot by somebody else."

. said...

Also, I found this interesting:

U.S. mass shootings in recent years
The Associated Press

— March 29, 2009: Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, N.C. before a police officer shot him and ended the rampage.

— March 29, 2009: Devan Kalathat, 42, shot and killed his two children and three other relatives, then killed himself in an upscale neighborhood of Santa Clara, Calif. Kalathat's wife was critically injured.

— March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people — including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff's deputy — across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself.

— Feb. 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, fatally shooting five students and wounding 18 others before committing suicide.

— Dec. 5, 2007: Robert A. Hawkins, 19, opened fire with a rifle at a Von Maur store in an Omaha, Neb., mall, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

— April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

— Oct. 2, 2006: Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, shot to death five girls at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania, then killed himself.

— March 21, 2005: Student Jeffrey Weise, 16, killed nine people, including his grandfather and his grandfather's companion at home. Also included were five fellow students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minn. He then killed himself. Seven students were wounded.

— March 12, 2005: Terry Ratzmann, 44, gunned down members of his congregation as they worshipped at the Brookfield Sheraton in Brookfield, Wisconsin, slaying seven and wounding four before killing himself.

— March 5, 2001: Charles "Andy" Williams, 15, killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee, Calif.

— Nov. 2, 1999: Copier repairman Byran Uyesugi, 40, fatally shoots seven people at Xerox Corp. in Honolulu. He is convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

— July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine people in shootings at two Atlanta brokerage offices, then killed himself.

— April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school's library.

— May 21, 1998: Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when Kip Kinkel, 17, opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents.

— March 24, 1998: Andrew Golden, 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 13, killed four girls and a teacher at a Jonesboro, Ark., middle school. Ten others were wounded in the shooting.

— Oct. 16, 1991: A deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby's Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life. 20 others were wounded in the attack.

— June 18, 1990: James Edward Pough shoots people at random in a General Motors Acceptance Corp. office in Jacksonville, Fla., killing 10 and wounding four, before killing himself.

— Aug. 20, 1986: Pat Sherrill, 44, a postal worker who was about to be fired, shoots 14 people at a post office in Edmond, Okla. He then kills himself.

— July 18, 1984: James Oliver Huberty, an out-of-work security guard, kills 21 people in a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif. A police sharpshooter kills Huberty.

— July 12, 1976: Edward Charles Allaway, a custodian in the library of California State University, Fullerton, fatally shot seven fellow employees and wounded two others.

— May 4, 1970: Four Kent State University students were killed by Ohio National Guard troops during a campus protest of the invasion of Cambodia. Nine people were wounded.

— Aug. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman opened fire from the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, killing 16 people and wounding 31.

Anonymous said...

"Yikes"? You must be older than dirt using a outdated word like that. I haven't heard that word since 1972.

Defensores de Democracia said...

I do not know if the Vietnamese is the Shooter, but he seems like the Son of War ( of the Vietnam War ), probably the son of a Refugee Family from Vietnam.

My Analisys is highly speculative and uninformed but I will continue reading to make a more responsible analysis of what happened. So I can be acccused at this time with perfect reason of being irresponsible, speculative and foolish.

Wars, soldiers and refugees of war, this leaves a sequel of many psychological problems, even many decades after the Big Events. How many traumas and violence can a war generate, even many years after. We have seen many "Lone Wolves" that fought in a War and later commited horrible murders, not only in the USA but elsewhere.

Let us return to this "immigrant" Jiverly Voong, and the quotes are necessary because a guy that has lived almost all his life in the USA is not a classical immigrant, like say an agricultural laborer that can not speak English.

Jiverly Voong has lived in America for 28 years and is only 42. So he was brought as a 14 year old boy.

This has a certain resemblance to the Virginia Tech Murders, a Korean "Immigrant" student killed 33 students and later commited suicide. The quotes are necessary because this Korean guy immigrated when he was a very tender child.

For Jiverly Voong the "Immigration School" represents his life or his destiny, not elected by him, of being an "eternal immigrant". So he is destroying his own self-image and his forced destiniy.

Please observe that these events are new. One hundred years ago there were almost no "Lone Wolves" in mass murders. Only Lynchings or other "Hate Crimes", almost all of a Racial Nature, but there were no shootings in schools. Even 50 years ago these events of "Lone Wolves", killing students or immigrants, were very scarce if any.

Raciality.com

Vicente Duque

Dee said...

Fox Cable News just reported that the shooter was not only distraught from having lost his job, he was also upset by the way he was treated as an immigrant. He was ridiculed and harassed for being a Vietnamese. He was here legally and a Naturalized Citizen.

Anonymous said...

Arizonian,

Kinda sorta makes the case for tighter controls on who has access to guns doesn't it!

But of course, that's not about to happen!

Dee said...

Now Fox News is reporting about this 2nd maniac, this time in Pittsburgh, who shot 3 police officers. They are talking about the assault weapons he had. They said he had called a friend earlier saying he was going to die today. Horrible.

pcorn54 said...

Dee,

I thought we got over Viet bashing back in the 80's!

Guess not though. Seeing the success of most Viets, the haters just moved on to the Mexicans.

I wonder how long it will be until copy cat crimes such as this pop up against day laborers

pcorn54 said...

Yes Dee, and you know; Now that the US is cooperating with Mexico on weapons being smuggled south, the NRA and Chris Cox has a full court press going to sabotage the efforts.

Claiming the government is lying to us about the origin of weapons seized in Mexico and along the border.

Time to reinstate the assault weapons ban and do it now! There is no logical reason to possess arms such as these for any reason by civilians

Dee said...

More news:
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, friends and officials said Saturday.

The gunman, believed to be 42-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Voong, had been complaining that he couldn't find work and that his unemployment checks were only $200 a week, a friend told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Hue Huynh, a Binghamton grocery store proprietor whose husband worked with Voong years ago, said the man had driven a truck in California before recently returning to Binghamton, then losing a job there.

"He's upset he don't have a job here. He come back and want to work," she said. Her husband tried to cheer him by telling him he was still young and there was plenty of time to find work, but he complained about his "bad luck," she said.

Defensores de Democracia said...

Glenn Beck started to talk about Jiverly Voong and ended telling us how painful and sad was his own life as a child and boy and his alcoholism when he was 30 :

Video : Glenn Beck tells a very sad story about his life, stressed childhood, poverty, divorce of parents, suicide of mother, his own alcoholism when he was 30 and drug friends

Why is Glenn Beck so histrionic and dramatic, so anti intellectual and anti reason, why does he hate Latinos and Minorities so much ??

Why is he a Racist ??

Well, it coincides with the theory that I have been preaching for a lot time. Abused Childhood and Stressed Childhood is the best preparation for Racism.

Also Inferiority Complexes and Inadequacies.

Glenn Beck did a good thing with his life : He told us his story.

The Corollary is that we should not hate Glenn Beck as he hates others.

We better love Glenn than hate him.

Raciality.com

Vicente Duque

Dee said...

Police Chief just said some terrorist group is trying to take credit for this. He said it isn't true.

Very Strange. I'll see what the web says.

Dee said...

From Police Chief:

Perp:Unmarried. Had Mother, brother and sister.

Said he worked at a shop vac and terminated from there. Didn't have any knowledge that he worked at IBM.

Dee said...

Police chief said FBI said this report is bogus this is what FoxNews reported:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512537,00.html

Taliban Chief Claims Responsibility for N.Y. Shooting Massacre

A Pakistani Taliban militant leader has claimed responsibility for the attack on a U.S. immigration center in New York state in which 13 people were killed, Reuters reported.

"I accept responsibility. They were my men. I gave them orders in reaction to U.S. drone attacks," Baituallah Mehsud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location on Saturday.


(FBI says this is False)

Anonymous said...

Why would an immigrant citizen, who was having problems with work and language, target for DEATH people who were like HIM; immigrants trying to become citizens and make it in society? It makes no sense.

I am not above Anon. Call me Anon

#2

Dee said...

PCorn and Anon,

Why would a Vietnamese immigrant murder new immigrants, many of them Vietnamese. I don't understand, unless he was full of self hatred. Perhaps he read all the Immigrant bashing from various pundits and decided the newer immigrants were a threat to his future job searches. Whether self loathing or Immigrant hatred, none of it makes sense and both theories indicate some sort of insanity. Maybe that is why he ended up killing himself.

. said...

"Kinda sorta makes the case for tighter controls on who has access to guns doesn't it!"

Oh, you mean like this:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/26/supremecourt/main690971.shtml

Foreign Felons Can Own Guns In US
Supreme Court Rules Firearm Limits Apply Only To Domestic Felons
(CBS/AP) The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that people convicted of a crime overseas may own a gun in the United States.

In a 5-3 decision, the court ruled in favor of Gary Sherwood Small of Pennsylvania. The court reasoned that U.S. law, which prohibits felons who have been convicted in "any court" from owning guns, applies only to domestic crimes.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the majority, said interpreting the law broadly to apply to foreign convictions would be unfair to defendants because procedural protections are often less in international courts. If Congress intended foreign convictions to apply, they can rewrite the law to specifically say so, he said.

"We have no reason to believe that Congress considered the added enforcement advantages flowing from inclusion of foreign crimes, weighing them against, say, the potential unfairness of preventing those with inapt foreign convictions from possessing guns," Breyer wrote.....


Instead of a ban on what is essentially a paperweight, can we return to, say, enforcing the law?

Dee said...

I came across this article about Voong that could provide details about his motivation:

http://news10now.com/content/top_stories/136991/news-10-now-exclusive--the-ramblings-of-a-killer/Default.aspx

. A letter was sent to News 10 Now by Jiverly Wong, the gunman in the shootings at Binghamton's American Civic Association. The letter was postmarked Friday, the day of the mass killing, and News 10 Now received it on Monday.

. it is a story of a mentally unstable man, obsessed with unnamed undercover police whom he says have taunted him, tortured him and spread rumors about him wherever he went for years. First, forcing him to leave California, then once he returned to the Binghamton area, attempting to force him out of the country.

. He tells stories of police entering his room and sitting down and watching him sleep, touching him while he slept, even stealing money from his wallet.

He claims the police would drive in front of him and then stop their car suddenly trying to cause an accident. He said it happened 32times, but he said, I never hit the car.

At the end was a summation, with Wong saying he cannot, in his words, accept my poor life. He says he is taking on the job of a judge, that he will cut my poor life...later adding, at least two people with me go to return to the dust of the earth.

His only apology was not for what would happen. He said simply, I am sorry I know a little English.

The letter ends with his demand that a "cop," the focus of his delusions, must be held responsible.

Then, the letter ends chillingly with, you have a nice day.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't explain why he would target an immigration center, does it? That is the big mystery to me. I want to know the answer to that one in particular.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe the theory in here that he considered immigrants threats to him getting a job either. If anything he would consider them his allies going through some of the same adjustments that he had to as an immigrant 28 years ago. I have a hunch that perhaps these immigrants were the ones that made fun of him since he was a citizen and still couldn't speak English well after 28 years in this country. Of course our PC media probably wouldn't report that.

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