‘America sucks’ said gunman who killed 13

THE gunman who shot 13 people dead at an immigration centre in upstate New York was a loner who loved guns but believed that “America sucks” and fantasised about assassinating the president.

He took out his rage on those who were still striving for the American dream, oblivious to his own disappointment, before killing himself.

Jiverly Voong, 41, had lost his job at the Shop Vac assembly plant in Binghamton, a largely white working-class town 175 miles north of New York, when the plant shut last November. He often mentioned that his wife and children had left him, a neighbour recalled.

“He once said to me, ‘I did everything good for everybody, but nobody ever did anything good for me’,” said Mahmoon Shafi, 53.

Binghamton had missed out on the boom years and had nothing left to give when recession struck. Yet it still held out the hope of a better life to immigrants who came to the one-storey American Civic Association, surrounded by boarded-up shops, to learn English and study for their citizenship tests.

On Friday morning Voong drove to the association in his father’s car, barricaded it against the back door so nobody could flee, and began to shoot people at 10.31am. Armed with a 9mm pistol and a .45 calibre hand-gun, with ammunition in a satchel slung around his neck, he burst through the front of the building and shot dead the receptionist.

Her colleague, Shirley DeLucca, pretended to be dead but managed to crawl underneath the desk and dial 911 as Voong entered the first room and opened fire on a classroom of immigrants taking their citizenship test. As the wounded and dying fell to the ground, survivors in other classes hid in the boiler room and cowered in cupboards.

It took just two minutes for Voong to carry out the worst US gun massacre since Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year-old student, killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.

The police arrived almost immediately but three hours passed before they secured the building and found Voong’s body with a hunting knife stuffed in the waistband of his trousers.

There were about 50 people at the civic centre that day from almost every continent: Russians, Kurds, Chinese, Arabs, Laotians and others. “The people were trying to better themselves, trying to become citizens,” said Joseph Zikuski, the police chief.

Voong had become depressed and disillusioned with America. Kevin Greene, a former coworker at the vacuum plant, recalled asking him if he liked the New York Yankees ****ball team. “No,” Voong replied. “I don’t like that team. I don’t like America. America sucks.” Another former employee said that Voong “kept to himself but made some off-the-wall comments like he wanted to kill the president”.

Voong’s family was originally from Vietnam. His sister, who did not give her name, said he was an American citizen who had lived in the country for 28 years. She said her brother could not have been the killer. “How? He didn’t have a gun,” she said. “I think he got shot by somebody else.”

Greene recalled that Voong had been obsessed with guns: “He went to target practice on Saturday. He said he had two guns, one in his glove compartment. He was always talking about his guns.” The two Beretta pistols used for the killings were licensed by the New York state.

Voong used to go to the civic association for English classes but had been skipping them recently, according to Priscilla Pease, 64, who survived the attack. One of the victims, Roberta King, 72, was a substitute teacher who had come in that day to teach his class. “She was a wonderful person . . . a mother of 10 children who just loved teaching international students,” Pease said.

Voong’s father was a model citizen who worked at IBM and had served in the south Vietnamese army. He helped members of the community with forms and translation, said Thanh Huynh, 45, a high school teacher. He said Voong’s father had volunteered at the American Civic Association in the past.

Christopher Voss, an FBI profiler, said Voong would have targeted the civic association because he knew it. “We have something we call the double-whammy,” he said. “It might be a job loss coupled with some other personal loss. My guess is that additional losses will be uncovered.”

The names of the victims were not immediately released. Omri Yigal, 53, said his wife Doris, also 53, was among the missing. She was from the Philippines and had been taking English classes in the hope of finding a job.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/