Two people are dead after a gunman opened fire Friday in the screening area of a federal building in Lower Manhattan.
According to a story Friday by USA Today, the male shooter fired at and wounded a security guard. The security guard, identified as 53-year-old Idrissa Camara, went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, the shooter left the scene of the shooting. He walked down a hallway and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
Details about the shooter emerged after the incident. Officials identified him as Kevin Downing, a 68-year-old former employee of the Department of Labor Statistics and a military veteran.
Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters Friday night that the shooting was a “tragedy.”
It’s obviously a tragedy when anyone is killed like this in the line of duty.
Representatives from Camara’s union, 32BJ Service Employees International Union, were equally distressed by the shooting.
The union published their statement on Facebook, saying, according to reports, that they were “shocked and horrified” at the death of their member.
We are shocked and horrified at this terrible news and send our deepest condolences to Protective Security Officer Idrissa Camara’s family.
New Jersey Congressman Rep. Bill Pascrell told Yahoo News that he could not explain why the gunman opened fire before killing himself, but that there was a good chance the man’s personal circumstances played a role in him snapping.
Pascrell was quoted as saying that Downing’s fiancee “died of breast cancer,” he was dealing with a foreclosure and had been in a recent car accident resulting in “health problems”.
Downing had endured a string of misfortunes as his live-in fiancee died of breast cancer, his house was in foreclosure and he suffered health problems after a car accident.
Pascrell gave further details in an interview with ABC News this weekend, saying he’d spoken with Downing several times. Those conversations revealed that the Department of Labor Statistics fired Downing in a manner which Pascrell said was “a raw deal.”
