Posted on 05/09/2003 8:07:57 PM PDT by L84AD8
The gunman has been captured in Cleveland. Great news!
The gunman, who the university's president identified Saturday as a former school employee, suffered two gunshot wounds but was able to walk and get on a medical gurney, Police Chief Edward Lohn said.
He was wearing a bulletproof vest, a wig and "a kind of World War II Army helmet" and he had two guns as he walked the halls of Case Western Reserve University's Peter B. Lewis Building on Friday afternoon, Lohn and witnesses said.
Some people ran from the building as the man opened fire. Others hid in offices, classrooms and closets inside. Gregory Stoup, 38, an economic research director, barricaded his office's smoked-glass door with furniture to protect himself and four others inside.
"We saw the shadowy figure walk by the door," Stoup said. "He was shooting down at the ground, yelling inaudible cries, sort of a high-pitched scream. We could hear the shell casings clinking on the ground."
University President Edward Hundert said Saturday that the man arrested is a former Case Western student and former employee who had filed a lawsuit against the university. His lawsuit was dismissed, and he lost an appeal about a month ago, Hundert said on NBC's "Today" show. He did not identify the man and did not elaborate on the lawsuit.
One person was killed in the attack Friday and at least three others were wounded, though none of the three had life threatening injuries, Mayor Jane Campbell told "Today." A pregnant staff member was taken to University Hospital for observation and was to be released Saturday, said hospital spokeswoman Janice Guhl.
"It's obviously an incredibly sad day for this campus," Hundert said. "People come to a place like this to learn and to grow and to make discoveries and not for this kind of tragedy and violence."
The distinctive structure of the Frank Gehry-designed Case Western business school building, with hallways that dip and swerve, complicated the job for police.
"As the SWAT team entered the building, they were constantly under fire," Lohn said. "They couldn't return fire because of the design of the building. They didn't have a clear shot."
Lohn described the SWAT team's chase of the suspect as "almost a cat and mouse game."
Earlier, students and faculty members scrambled to get out of the building after seeing the gunman firing indiscriminately. Those who remained inside stayed in contact with people outside through e-mail and telephone calls.
One man lay on the ledge of a third-floor balcony and signaled police to help him get down. A woman sprinted from the building when she had the chance.
"We're all shaking and quite scared. One of the girls in our office is seven months pregnant. We're trying to keep her as calm as possible," Tracy Warner, 30, said from a third-floor office where she was hiding with several other people.
Sachin Goel, 26, a master's student from India, said he was talking with two friends on the first floor outside the cafeteria when the gunman approached and shot one of his friends. "My friend said he would give me a ride home and then I heard him shouting. I heard gunshots," he said.
His friend screamed as he was shot. Goel and his other friend dove under a table and the gunman fired at them.
"But he couldn't get us. And then he again shot at us and we turned the table and put it in front of us," Goel said.
Carolyn Solis, who works in the admissions office for the university master's degree program, said she went into the building's atrium after hearing what she thought were firecrackers and seeing students running.
"The gunman was there pointing at me and two other students," she said. He fired and missed, she said.
Solis and five other people barricaded themselves in her office by putting a five-drawer file cabinet in front of the glass doors.
Albert DiFranco, 26, an assistant alumni director, said he was returning to his first-floor office from the bathroom when he saw drops of blood and broken glass on the floor outside his door.
People shouted down from a second-floor mezzanine for him to get out.
"I ran out," he said. "People were saying, 'Go, go, go!' I got down to the ground."
On Saturday, Cuyahoga County deputy coroner Joseph Felo identified the man killed in the shooting as Norman Wallace, 30, of Youngstown. Denise Smith, a spokeswoman at Huron Hospital, said another male was treated for a gunshot wound in the buttocks and was listed in good condition. She said a female was also treated and was in stable condition, but did not say whether she had been shot.
Officers had appealed to the gunman during the standoff Friday to call a designated police phone number. It was not clear if he had. By early evening, two dozen SWAT officers, holding shields and wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, moved inside.
LeKisha Spencer, 28, who works in a first-floor cafeteria, said the man had a gun, book bag, camouflage shirt, military green hat and white pants.
"He was just walking, aiming his guns and firing," she said.
Case Western is at University Circle, a park-like setting of cultural, medical and educational institutions on the eastern edge of downtown. There are 1,600 students in the business school and a total of 9,500 at Case.
The Lewis building is about five stories high. Instead of walls on the south side, it has a curving roof, made of 20,000 stainless-steel shingles, that appears to cascade to the ground.
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