I just happened to catch a press conference today at noontime with the Mayor of Binghamton and the Police Chief. Angela Leach, director of the American Civic Association also read a statement. See our previous posts on the tragedy here and here.
The Police Chief said the shooter’s name was Jiverly A. Wong (he spelled the last name) and said he believed the man was Vietnamese. The name isn’t Vietnamese, so I’ll be interested to see what more we learn.
Wong was wearing body armor which the Chief said indicated he was anticipating return fire from law enforcement. He had permits for his hand guns and those had been acquired in 1996 or 1997. Wong had been taking English classes at the Civic Association until early March, but had at that time quit. The Chief also said that Wong was upset because he couldn’t learn English. Now, besides the name, that doesn’t make sense because we had previously learned he had been in the US for possibly more than two decades.
Of course, if he was mentally handicapped that might explain his inability to learn English and a whole lot more.
By the way, the Chief also mentioned that he was aware of a claim of responsibility by a terrorist group and said the FBI was looking into it, but that it was highly unlikely.
Update later in the afternoon of April 4th: Wong was ethnically Chinese but is from Vietnam, had recently lost his job, and a friend has quoted him as saying, “I don’t like America, America sucks!” Photo here also.
Update April 5th: I wonder why World Relief went out of business in Binghamton. More from AP:
Wong’s father was well-known in the Binghamton area through his work years ago at the now-defunct World Relief Organization, helping recent immigrants find a doctor and obtain food stamps.