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A student carrying a single shot .50 caliber rifle was arrested on the Queens campus of St. John's this afternoon. WNBC reports that the male student had the gun in a bag, as well as a President Bush mask. Also:
Police sources said the man is a student of Guyanese descent who lived in a campus dorm. Sources said the student takes medicines for psychiatric issues and that police were investigating whether he had gone off his meds.The police are searching all of the buildings as well, but they believe the student was acting alone.
The St. John's website notes the incident. Students have received at least two emails/text alerts from Public Safety. First alert:
A male with a rifle in a bag was apprehended on St. John's campus today. Public Safety officers quickly disarmed the suspect and have turned him over to NYPD.The message didn't mention which campus the gunman was on, leading to some initial confusion because there are campuses in Manhattan and Staten Island as well, leading them to update the with the news that gunman was at the Queens campus. And here's the other alert:Additional information will be forthcoming as it becomes available.
In response to the apprehension of a male with a rifle on our Queens campus, St. John's University has cancelled classes for the remainder of today, Wednesday, September 26The NYPD is in control of the situation and is continuing its investigation of this incident. As part of their investigation, a large number of uniformed NYPD officers will be conducting a building by building search.
For the safety of all our community, those on the Queens campus should remain in place; those off campus are requested to stay away.
After the Virginia Tech shooting, many schools have promised to improve how they alert students on emergency events. Many offer email and text alerts to students, and there are also public safety websites (examples: CUNY, NYU, Columbia) which also show the various alerts.
Update: Fox 5 is reporting there may have been a second gunman. WNBC identifies the student as Omesh Hiraman, 22, and CityRoom reports that it's unclear if the weapon was loaded (the bag did not contain ammunition).
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.50 calibur?? was he hoping to hunt elephant between classes?
student hunting seems to be a new sport among crazies. they must grow them big in st johns like elephants for rifle lol.
jesus.
I am a St. John's Law Student and a second text was sent minutes after the first one, noting that the incident was on the Queens campus. The campus really deserves credit for nabbing this lunatic right away and for keeping students informed of the situation on campus.
On Monday at Columbia they sent out a text that there was a midget madman with an armed posse, but instead of running away or aprehending him - we should all bow and supplicate ourselves to him.
St. John's does deserve credit for handling this to the best of their ability. Couldn't've turned out better. Glad everyone is ok.
I'm a studen here at St. John's who is currently stuck in Carnesecca Arena. STJ did an absolutely incredible job handling this. Students were notified immediately via cell phone voice mails and texts, as well as through the websites and plasma TV's. Administrators from all departments funneled people indoors and then over to Carnesecca. This is a terrible situation, but I'm still proud to be a STJ student!
The guy had a shotgun, all of which have bore diameters over .50 caliber. A 12-ga. shotgun is 0.729 caliber.
The only question now is - which Bush?
Bravo, NYPD. They handled with caution. We are very lucky that everyone is okay.
Is the gunman black?
#8: The article linked to here quotes the police as saying the weapon was a .40 or .50 front loading rifle (another article I read also said it was a single shot rifle), not to nitpick but there's a huge difference. Really, what I'm getting at is whether this guy was going to pull some kind of sniper thing, or conversely him having a shotgun would seem to indicate a close range slaughter. Not that it matters, either way he's a maniac, and I'm really glad that he was caught before he got a chance to hurt anyone. Kudos to the officers involved. The George Bush mask is a strange twist to the story, I'll be curious to know more facts about this over the coming days. Sadly, a guy in a George Bush mask with a .50 cal rifle is much less dangerous than the real George Bush.
Any relation to the four Guyanese arrested for plotting to blow up the airport?
Good response with communications via the school & caution by PD.
BUT. It was apparently a black powder weapon, really hard to carry out a "massacre" getting off a shot every two minutes. Media @11 already did 11 minutes on it.
I'd rather deal with this guy than walk past a lot of our public high schools. Tec-9 trumps black powder any day.
Dadoc
Lunatic, maniac, madman... what kind words. Having an imbalance of chemicals in the brain is not something you should ridicule or castigate. Of course no one should be walking around with a shotgun, but perhaps the sooner we, as a society, start waking up to the horrors of mental illness, the sooner we can prevent people from going off the deep end and doing harm. If you lived inside the head of a schizophrenic for one hour, you might be a little more compassionate. There is still such a stigma attached to mental illness that we want to call them names and vilify them rather than try to understand or help. Not enough is being done for those with mental illness, and it is indeed very sad when things like this occur.
Feel sorry for people with mental illness? I am sorry that you feel that way. Anyone carrying a loaded shot gun with a mask on any campus is out to do bad things. But we should feel sorry for him. What about the damage he could have caused? The lives he could have crushed?
And his parents. Saying that he was a good boy and never in trouble. Why does an unstable person have access to a shot gun? I am sure that the parents knew about it. Please give me a break. They should not let him out and maybe try to help him get his head together.
Fell bad for him.. Me thinkist NOT!!
It was only a matter of time before the VT copycats started their vendetta trips, claiming insanity & crying "Boo hoo, I was picked on and bullied and misunderstood my whole life so now others have to die"....
Sigh.
Schizophrenia is an illness like any other, and this person clearly needs help. To call this an averted Virginia Tech is pure sensationalism. And to imply Jihadism is racist.
MarygraceNYC, I never said we should feel sorry for the mentally ill - no one wants pity. How insulting. I said to have compassion. There is a difference. Rather than name calling and making judgmental remarks, we need to learn more and find ways to help the mentally ill, so that there is less chance of things like this happening. He never should have gotten to the point of being able to purchase the shotgun.
Schizophrenia and other mental illnesses can happen to anyone, in any family, maybe even yours. It is a very complex brain disorder and sometimes difficult to know when someone has a mental illness. But if our society just slaps a "crazy" label on the mentally ill and warehouses them, we are not accomplishing much.
CityChik:
Got ya!! I misunderstood you!! Compassion I have plenty of. I hope they can help people with problems like him. But we as a society have to be held accountable. His parents failed him terribly. Maybe I just grew up different. My parents would have known if I had a gun in the house. Believe me!! They cared and had a good knowledge of what their girls were up too. Thank God!!