ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 24, 1997 TAG: 9702240127
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: The New York Times
MEMO: NOTE: A different version ran in Metro edition.
A gunman from the Middle East killed one tourist, wounded seven others and then shot himself in the head on the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building on Sunday afternoon.
The wild shooting spree touched off panic among 90 to 100 terrified sightseers and their children, two of whom were trampled in a stampede to escape.
It was the worst bloodshed at the famed 102-story 1931 skyscraper in more than a half-century, since a twin-engine B-25 Army bomber lost in a fog plowed into the 79th floor in July 1945, killing 14 people and injuring 26 others as fire burned high over midtown Manhattan.
Late Sunday afternoon, as tourists flocked to the Art Deco landmark at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street to take in views of the city, they were joined by a gunman, about 65 years old, in a blue blazer and dark topcoat, who mingled with those looking out from the eastern side of the deck.
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said Sunday night that the gunman was carrying an Israeli passport, although there were doubts about his nationality. Another law enforcement official said that the gunman had shouted out, just before the attack, that he was an Egyptian, while other officials raised the possibility that he may have been a Palestinian.
``Everybody was yelling, really going berserk,'' said Stef Nys, 36, a businessman from Belgium. ``People were falling all over each other.'' He said he pulled children out of the way of the stumbling, rushing crowds. But at least six people, including two toddlers, were injured by the herd.
When police officers and paramedics reached the scene minutes after the shootings, they found victims slumped on the tiles and against the parapet, and others who had crawled inside the glass-enclosed souvenir and snack shop.
They also found a .380 semiautomatic handgun, and nearby the unidentified man who had apparently fired it, sprawled on the deck and bleeding profusely from a self-inflicted wound.
``There was a shot in his temple,'' said Leslie Dozsa, 42, of West Islip, N.Y., who had run around from the west deck to find the carnage. ``He was lying face down at first, and then he or someone else turned him over. You could see he was alive because he was breathing. You could see his dentures had slipped and they were coming in and out of his mouth with his breath.''
Many who gathered at the scene were unaware of what had happened. Rumors spread that someone had jumped. Soon the victims were brought out on stretchers and rushed to hospitals. More than 30 witnesses were put in vans and taken to a police station, where police sought clues on the apparently unprovoked shootings.
The dead victim, a man in his 20s who was shot in the head, was not immediately identified by authorities. But Helene Malmlos, 25, a visitor from Sweden, said she and two girlfriends had just met four men, including him. She understood his name to be Chris. She said he was a guitarist and that he and his friends were the members of an English rock band called the Bush Pilots. Another member of the group, named Matthew, was shot, she said.
As Mayor Rudolph Giuliani went to the hospitals to visit the wounded and injured, police said 14 people were victims of the shootings and the panic that followed: eight were shot and six others were injured, most of them in the stampede. One suffered an asthma attack.
At one hospital, four people who had been shot were being treated; two men with life-threatening head wounds were listed in critical condition. Two others had been shot in the chest and shoulder. Four women were being treated for ankle and wrist injuries suffered in the rush, as were two children, a 5-month-old boy whose head had been banged in the melee, and his 18-month-old sister, who was not seriously injured.
The other hospital treated three people who had been shot. A French couple, a woman in her 30s and a man in his late 30s or early 40s, were in serious condition. And a Bronx man, Hector Mendez, 34, was in stable condition.
Hospital officials said seven or eight other people were being treated for emotional trauma. ``You had some people who saw some very ugly things, and they need help,'' said Hernan Hernandez, a hospital spokesman.
Police said the Empire State Building had no metal detectors to scan its millions of visitors to the 86th floor outdoor observation deck and the 102nd floor glass-enclosed deck.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Belgian businessman Stef Nys talks to reporters atby CNBthe Empire State Building on Sunday night. KEYWORDS: FATALITY