Senators Schumer and Gillibrand held a press conference in Binghamton yesterday to pledge the support of any federal law enforcement resources that could aid local police in their investigation of Friday's shooting massacre. Gillibrand said, "This is a tragedy we're all living together and we're all reflecting on it in our own way." After the pair toured the classroom where the massacre took place, Schumer remarked, "It was so frightening to see that small little room with no place to run, no place to hide." Today the Binghamton chief of police said that gunman Jiverly Wong, who was "an accomplished marksman," fired the 98 shots Friday including the final one at himself, "in just over a minute." And while being interviewed on Today show yesterday, Wong's sister said that she didn't believe the foreboding letter sent to a TV news station was by her brother, claiming his handwriting was more like "chicken scratch" and his vocabulary too limited to have written such a letter. more ›

Yesterday, upstate news station News 10 in Syracuse that it received a package from Binghamton massacre gunman Jiverly Wong containing a rambling letter (it begins with "I am Jiverly Wong shooting the people"), his driver's license, and photos of himself posing with guns. The Daily News describes Wong's writing as a "litany of paranoid complaints" including claims that police were monitoring him, "touched him while he slept" and stole his wallet. Wong killed himself after fatally shooting 13 and wounding many others. NYU assistant professor of psychiatry Dr. Vatsal Thakkar tells the Post, "The letter sounds bizarre and has tones of persecution. And in his internal world, this violence might have been some sort of retaliation. Put these actions and the theme of the letter all together, and it could point to major mental illness, quite possibly paranoid schizophrenia." Why Wong decided to kill fellow immigrants who were learning English and staff at the American Civic Association is unclear, but the police are checking the Internet as well as victims' biographies to see if there are any further clues. more ›

As relatives started to bid farewell and bury victims of the Friday massacre at a Binghamton, NY civic center, the authorities have been on the defensive about how police responded to the shooting. more ›

The thirteen people killed at the American Civic Association during Friday's violent rampage were identified by the Binghamton, NY police. Most were immigrants—four from China, two from Haiti, and one each from the Philippines, Iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam and Brazil—while two were Americans, a receptionist and teacher. Reports about the shooter, Jiverly Wong, so far suggest a troubled and frustrated man who had a cocaine addiction, apparently planned a bank robbery to support his habit and a failed marriage in California. Wong, who immigrated from Vietnam in the 1990s, was also unhappy with his recent low-paying job at a Shop-Vac plant; a former colleague told the Post that Wong often said he visited shooting ranges on the weekend, "He liked shooting guns. I was worried he would come into work one day, get angry and shoot us all," (apparently he frequently bought and exchanged guns at a local store). Another ex-colleague said workers made fun of Wong, "Sometimes they picked on him a little bit. They would say, 'It's wrong, it's Wong, it's wrong, it's Wong.'" And Wong had attended English classes at the ACA, but dropped out; police say he was wearing body armor when he stormed into the school. more ›