Second US shooting in two days leaves three more dead

Apr 4, 2009, 23:59 GMT

Washington - Police in Binghamton, New York on Saturday were piecing together details of a massacre at an immigrant centre that left 14 people dead a day earlier, while a separate bloody incident in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania left three police officers dead.

Authorities in the upstate New York city of 45,000 officially identified the gunman Saturday as Jiverly A Wong, and said he had once taken classes at the American Civic Association Building, where he killed 13 people before taking his own life.

In a separate deadly incident on Saturday, three police officers were killed while responding to a domestic disturbance call at a home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, officials said.

In Pittsburgh, two officers were shot when they approached the door of a home in the western Pennsylvania city on Saturday morning. A third officer, who arrived to back up the officers, was also shot and killed.

Police chief Nathan Harper said in a televised press conference that a man barricaded in the home then continued to shoot at police officers in an elite SWAT team responding to the shooting.

A total of 100 rounds were exchanged between the police and the gunman, before the suspect, Richard Poplowski, was taken into custody. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was armed with an AK- 47 assault rifle, a long rifle and a pistol, Harper said.

Two other police officers and Poplowski were injured in the incident and residents of neighbouring homes were evacuated.

The New York slaughter on Friday took place at a centre that provides services to refugees and immigrants and classes to prepare them for US citizenship, in Binghamton, about 225 kilometres northwest of New York City. Four more people were also critically wounded.

The names of the victims, many of whom were recent immigrants taking English and citizenship classes, had not yet been released. The Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin newspaper reported a teacher at the centre was also among the dead.

Binghamton Mayor Matthew Ryan said the gunman had recently lost his job and had apparently told his family that he wasn't happy with his life.

Officials said the crime was not an act of terrorism, dismissing a claim made earlier Saturday by the leader of the Pakistani Taliban movement who said that 'his men' had carried out the New York attack in retribution for US missile strikes on militants in Pakistan.

Binghamton police chief Joseph Zikuski said that there was 'absolutely no evidence' that any terrorist activity was behind the shooting. The FBI on Saturday also denied any terrorist link.

The shootings were the latest in a string of multiple shootings in the US in recent weeks. Last month, a gunman killed 10 people, including several of his family members as well as apparent strangers, in several small Alabama towns before committing suicide. Two weeks ago, four police were killed in Oakland, California, in what was the deadliest day for law enforcement officers since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.