The gunman killed an innocent onlooker and shot eight others before police arrived and shot him dead just after 9 am today.
Sources told New York Post that the innocent victim was a female who died from her wounds and that other people around had been shot in their buttocks and legs.
NBC reports that the shooter has been identified as 53 year old Jeffrey Johnson.
Alyah Imam, an eyewitness, told TV station Fox 5 News she had stood next to a girl that fell to the ground after being shot. She said the murderer was “shooting indiscriminately at people”.
Chris Collins told the New York Daily News how he walked by and saw his friend, a Bronx mother of two, in the masses. He said: “I saw her bleeding.
“She was saying: ‘I don’t want to die.’ She said she was walking, and all of a sudden there was a ‘pop-pop-pop’ sound.”
New York construction worker Chris Ogden, working above the drama scene, told the Daily News that the smart-dressed man, carrying a briefcase just “walked down the block, like nothing was happening, real casual.”
Shouting “it’s the guy in the grey suit,” Mr Ogden saw the killer getting chased down and shot dead by the police.
What the fight between co-workers at the crowded intersection between Fifth Avenue and 34th Street was about is not yet known.
Tom L, another witness who posted pictures of the shot gunman just after the incident, said the New Yorkers tried to carry on in the morning rush.
He tweeted: “They’re still selling the tours to the observation deck #empirestatebuilding.”
BBC writes that New York City Officials are about to hold a news conference.
Picture via Getty
