2 dead, 9 hurt in shooting near Empire State Building

NEW YORK (WABC) — A workplace dispute that erupted in gunfire left two people dead and 9 people injured near the Empire State building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. A fire department spokesman says it received a call about the shooting just after at 9 a.m. Friday and that emergency units were on the scene near the Empire State Building at Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street within minutes. According to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, the gunman was identified as 58-year-old Jeffrey Johnson of Manhattan. Johnson was laid off last year by Hazan Imports where he was a designer of women’s accessories. He had been employed for six years. He was fired during downsizing. He returned this morning and during a dispute with a former co-worker outside the building, Johnson pulled out a gun and shot him 3 times, killing him. After the shooting, Johnson walked northbound on the West 33rd Street curbline, with a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol in the bag he had over his arm. A construction worker who saw what happened alerted 2 police officers in the area. As they approached Johnson, he pulled out a .45 caliber gun and started shooting, Kelly said. The officers fired back and killed Johnson. During that exchange, 9 bystanders were either wounded or grazed. The 7 women and 2 men were taken to Bellevue Hospital and New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell. Some of the injured may have been inadvertently hit by police bullets during confrontation with the suspect, the mayor said. “We have on tape – the perpetrator pulled his gun out and tried to shoot at the cops. Whether he got off any bullets or not, to be determined. How many he shot earlier, to be determined. We do know the cops fired back, the tape clearly shows the guy holding a gun out and trying to kill the police officers,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. The gunshots rang out at a time of day when the sidewalks around the building are packed with pedestrians and merchants were opening their shops. You can get the latest information from fellow ABC station WABC-TV by clicking here.