NEW YORK - Fourteen people were killed, probably including the gunman, and four were critically injured during a massacre at a civic center in Binghamton, New York, police said Friday.
Police chief Joseph Zikuski said there were "14 confirmed dead in the building" and that he had "very good reason to believe that the shooter is among the dead at the scene."
"We removed safely 37 people. Four people we removed are wounded. All four are listed in critical condition," Zikuski said.
However, he cautioned "by no means are we 100 per cent sure" about the killer's body being among those at the building.
Zikuski said that the emergency call was made by the first woman shot by the gunman, a receptionist who was shot in the stomach but pretended she was dead until she was able to make an escape.
"A lone gunman entered the building and immediately shot her and another receptionist. Unfortunately that receptionist is now deceased. Then he went into another room and shot several more people."
Two handguns were recovered at the scene, he said.
Earlier in the day, New York Governor David Paterson, speaking in a live television broadcast, said the shooter "killed 12 or 13 people. This is a horrible situation."
The tragedy began mid-morning when the gunman entered the American Civic Association building in Binghamton, 217 kilometers northwest of New York city.
After opening fire the gunman holed himself up with hostages in the center, where help is given to new immigrants and would-be U.S. citizens.
Heavily armed police, backed by commandos and FBI agents, swarmed into the area and surrounded the building.
By mid-afternoon, local News 10 Now television said the town police chief had confirmed: "The building is secure and everyone alive is out."
Two people were taken out of the building during the standoff with their hands secured behind their backs, local television and newspapers reported, but it was not clear whether these were suspects or had been detained as a precaution.
Initial reports suggested the shooter was a young man of Asian appearance and that the attack started during a gathering of immigrants at the civic association. This could not be confirmed.
CNN reported the gunman was a 42-year-old male from upstate New York.
During the standoff, TV footage showed police officers carrying out several stretchers, including one on which the victim was clearly still moving. Crowds of anxious people gathered in the area, watching.
The Binghamton General Hospital said in a statement three people had been brought in for treatment, and its trauma center was on alert with extra staff drafted in to help.
The local Press and Sun-Bulletin newspaper reported that 41 hostages were in the building — 15 in a closet and 26 in the boiler room.
According to Bob Joseph, news director of local WNBF Radio in the town of Binghamton, the gunman was believed to have parked a car so that it blocked the back door of the civic center, preventing escape.
Friday's carnage in New York state is the latest to rock small-town America, where many fiercely defend the legal right to bear powerful firearms.
On Sunday a heavily-armed man burst into a North Carolina nursing home killing eight people before being shot and wounded by a policeman.
Earlier this month, a 28-year-old unemployed man killed 10 people, including his mother and a toddler, in a shooting rampage through two counties in Alabama, the worst in the southern state's history.
In December, a man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at a Christmas party being given by his ex-wife in Covina, California, killing nine people before shooting himself.
In October, an ex-convict opened fire with an assault rifle at a man and two children who had come to trick-or-treat at his home in Sumter, South Carolina on Halloween. A 12-year-old boy died of his wounds in that incident.
And in September, a mentally ill man shot eight people, killing six, in Alger, Washington a month after being released from prison.
Friday's incident comes days before the second anniversary of a massacre at Virginia Tech — the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history in which 32 students and professors were shot dead by a student gunman — and weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Columbine, Colorado school shooting.
The recent spate may be linked to the recession gripping the country, experts say.
"A mass killer is someone who has almost always suffered a catastrophic loss — that's the link between a recession and mass killings," criminologist Jack Levin told AFP, citing the loss of a job, the loss of a lot of money or the loss of a relationship.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/dea...083/story.html 
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