On Friday morning, a shooter opened fire at the Empire State Building just after 9 a.m., leaving as many as 10 people injured and one person dead. The New York Police Department reports that the suspected gunman, Jeffrey Johnson, is dead, and it is unclear what his motives may have been.
According to NBC News, the shooter may have been a disgruntled employee who was fired from his job this week.
A law-enforcement official said the shooting did not appear to be terror-related, and may have been the actions of a disgruntled employee of a business in the Empire State Building, which houses 1,000 businesses.
More than 21,000 employees working the building each day, making the Empire State Building the second-largest single office complex in the U.S., after the Pentagon. In 1997, a 69-year-old man opened fire on the observation deck of the iconic landmark, killing one person and wounding six before shooting himself in the head, according to NBCNewYork.com. The gunman, Ali Abu Kamal, was taken to the hospital, where he died more than five hours after self-inflicting the fatal wound.
Update from NBC News:
The suspected gunman, Jeffrey Johnson, 53, who was laid off a year ago, approached a former co-worker on the street and shot him three times, killing him, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
A construction worker who witnessed the incident followed Johnson as he walked away, Kelly said. The construction worker alerted police, who confronted Johnson. He turned his .45-caliber pistol on the officers, and was killed as they opened fire, Kelly said.
Some of those injured in the incident may have been hit by police bullets, he said, adding that the nine injured are expected to survive.
This is the second high-profile shooting in New York City this summer. The first was a knife-wielding man in Times Square who was shot by police earlier this month.
Read more at NBC news.