US gunman opens fire on office

ArticleData Array ( [Article] => Array ( [article_id] => 1126916 [headline] => US gunman opens fire on office [abstract] => A man has been arrested after one person was killed and and five injured during a mass shooting at an Orlando office building. [keywords] => US Shooting [content] =>

A sacked worker shouted "they left me to rot" yesterday after he attacked his former office in a shooting spree in Orlando, Florida that left one person dead and five wounded.

In the second mass shooting in the United States in two days, the alleged shooter, 40-year-old Jason Rodriguez, was later arrested and dragged away in handcuffs from his mother's house.

His arrest hours after unleashing a hail of bullets on former colleagues came as Americans reeled from a rampage 24 hours earlier at a Texas military base that left 13 people dead and 30 wounded.

Shooter tracked down

Panicked Florida workers barricaded themselves into their offices at the Gateway Centre in central Orlando as SWAT teams combed through the 16-storey building, trying to find the shooter.

About three hours later he was tracked down at his mother's house. It was not immediately clear if she or someone else had telephoned the authorities.

"We received information that he may be in the area of his mother's residence. We sent some officers and our SWAT team out there," Orlando police chief Val Demings told a press conference.

"They confirmed they had intelligence on him. They were able to see him through the window and asked him to come out. He did. He was arrested without incident."

Revenge a possible motive

Given his outburst to journalists about being left to rot, Rodriguez is assumed to have been exacting revenge for his dismissal by architectural engineering firm Reynolds, Smith and Hills more than two years ago.

"He did work for us, for one year. He was let go in July 2007, he has been gone for over two years," Ken Jacobson, the chief financial officer of the firm, told AFP.

"We have not heard or seen of him since, that is what's hard to work out about all this."

The fire department told AFP initially that two people had been killed and eight wounded but police later confirmed the lower toll. "We do have one confirmed death," said Demings.

Police first received a call that shots were being fired at the office building shortly after 11.30am on Friday (0330 AEDT Saturday).

A helicopter hovered over the scene as workers fled the scene and dozens of police cars locked down the area surrounding the centre, dramatic television images showed.

Workers set up barricade

Mark Vella, 39, emerged from the 12th floor of the building where he and a half dozen colleagues barricaded themselves in their office using filing cabinets after seeing reports of what was going on downstairs on the news.

Vella, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, said the group said prayers and planned how they would act if the gunman made his way to their office, until they heard Rodriguez had been apprehended.

"I said my prayers," he told reporters. "I'm glad it is over."

The Gateway Centre is located in the upscale and picturesque College Park district of the city, an area that became a scene of chaos as police diverted traffic and closed the nearby Interstate Four, the main traffic artery.

"The gunman has been apprehended so the community is safe," Mayor Buddy Dyer told reporters after the drama ended.

"Obviously, we have had a tragic incident here in the city of Orlando, and first, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and the members of their family."

The Orlando shooting occurred as President Barack Obama ordered flags to be lowered to half-mast over Thursday's shooting at a military base in Texas in which 13 people were killed and 30 others wounded.

Alleged shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old specialist in combat stress who had been ordered to deploy to Afghanistan against his will, was under guard and on a ventilator after the rampage at Fort Hood, officials said.

[start_date] => 07 November 2009 | 12:09:42 PM [comments_allowed] => 1 [source] => AAP [commentCount] => 0 [video] => [image] => Array ( [caption] => A police convoy surrounded the office building as SWAT teams searched for the shooter (Getty). [useRegularImage] => 1 [media_library_id] => 131411 [site_id] => 1 [media_library_group_id] => 0 [media_usage_id] => 0 [filename] => site_1_rand_1242526213_police_orlando_shooting_b_getty_091107.jpg [title] => police_orlando_shooting_B_Getty_091107_1242526213 [description] => file:site_1_rand_1242526213_police_orlando_shooting_b_getty_091107.jpg [type] => [height] => 338 [width] => 450 [source] => [video_hi] => [video_lo] => [section] => [display_order] => 0 [create_date] => 2009-11-07 12:05:02 [active] => 1 [media_usage] => Article Large [usageWidth] => 300 [usageHeight] => 225 ) [imagePath] => http://media.sbs.com.au/news/upload_media/ [audio] => [reporter] => [relatedLinks] => Array ( [1] => Array ( [id] => 1127001 [label] => US shooting bodies flown to war mortuary [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) [0] => Array ( [id] => 1126522 [label] => Troubled portrait emerges of 'shooter' [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) ) [relatedArticles] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [article_id] => 1126522 [headline] => Troubled portrait emerges of 'shooter' [abstract] => The name of the US Army major accused of killing 12 people and injuring 31 at a US Army base in Texas appears on radical internet postings. [content] =>

The name of the US Army major accused of killing 12 people and injuring 31 at a US Army base in Texas appears on radical internet postings.

A fellow officer says the major fought his deployment to Iraq and argued with soldiers who supported US wars.

He required counselling as a medical student because of problems with patients.

There are many unknowns about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a US military base. Most of all, his motive. But details of his life and mindset, emerging from official sources and personal acquaintances, are troubling.

For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood, Texas, in July, the 39-year-old Army major worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre pursuing his career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry.

He received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2001.

While an intern at Walter Reed, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counselling and extra supervision, said Dr Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.

Grieger said privacy laws prevented him from going into details but noted that the problems had to do with Hasan's interactions with patients. He recalled Hasan as a "mostly very quiet" person who never spoke ill of the military or his country.

"He swore an oath of loyalty to the military," Grieger said. "I didn't hear anything contrary to those oaths."

But, more recently, federal agents grew suspicious.

At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.

They had not determined for certain whether Hasan is the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials.

One of the officials said late on Thursday that federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorise the seizure of Hasan's computer.

Retired Army Colonel Terry Lee, who said he worked with Hasan, told Fox News that Hasan had hoped President Barack Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Lee said Hasan got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars, and had tried hard to prevent his pending deployment.

Hasan attended prayers regularly when he lived outside Washington, often in his Army uniform, said Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said Hasan was a lifelong Muslim.

"I got the impression that he was a committed soldier," Khan said. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan's desire for a wife.

On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a program at the mosque, Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Virginia, but his nationality as Palestinian, Khan said.

"I don't know why he listed Palestinian," Khan said, "He was not born in Palestine."

Nothing stood out about Hasan as radical or extremist, Khan said.

"We hardly ever got to discussing politics," Khan said. "Mostly we were discussing religious matters, nothing too controversial, nothing like an extremist."

Hasan earned his rank of major in April 2008, according to a July 2008 Army Times article.

He served eight years as an enlisted soldier. He also served in the Reserve Officer Training Corps as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech University. He received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry there in 1997.

[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 6 November 2009 [articletime] => 6 November 2009 [display_order] => 0 ) [1] => Array ( [article_id] => 1127001 [headline] => US shooting bodies flown to war mortuary [abstract] => The bodies of those killed in a shooting spree at a US Army base will be taken to the same mortuary that handles fallen soldiers from wars, the Pentagon says. [content] =>

The bodies of those killed in a shooting spree at a US Army base will be taken to the same mortuary that handles fallen soldiers from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon says.

A C-17 cargo aircraft with the remains of the 13 victims of Thursday's rampage at Fort Hood in Texas is expected to arrive later on Friday at Dover air base, the scene of solemn ceremonies for the country's war dead.

Autopsies will be performed at the Air Force mortuary operations centre at the Delaware base, which receives soldiers killed overseas.

Twelve of the victims are US Army soldiers and one is a civilian employee of the army.

Starting in March, the Defence Department lifted a ban on media coverage of the flag-draped coffins being carried off aircraft at Dover air base and left it up to military families to decide if cameras and journalists could record the event.

The families of the Fort Hood victims have decided against any media coverage of the transfer, the Pentagon said in a statement.

[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 7 November 2009 [articletime] => 7 November 2009 [display_order] => 0 ) ) [comments] => Array ( ) ) [winston] => test )