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Diagnosis leads to murder-suicide at Johns Hopkins hospital
Comments Twitter LinkedIn Digg Buzz Email Agence France-Presse September 16, 2010 – 12:01 pm
A man devastated by his mother’s diagnosis shot her doctor Thursday at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore before allegedly killing her and taking his own life.
Police and officials would not immediately elaborate on the mystery diagnosis that sparked the tragic shooting but media reports speculated that the suspect’s mother may have been paralyzed after spinal surgery.
The gunman, identified as 50-year-old Warren Davis, had barricaded himself in his mother’s room as SWAT teams surrounded the building and snipers trained their sights on the eighth floor where he was holed up.
“Mr. Davis was receiving some news about the care and the condition of his mother . . . when he became emotionally distraught and was overwhelmed by the news of his mother’s condition,” Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told reporters.
“During the course of the conversation with the doctor, Mr. Davis removed a small semiautomatic handgun from his waistband area and fired a single gunshot that struck the doctor in the lowest chest, upper abdomen,” she said.
“The doctor collapsed just outside the doorway of the room and Mr. Davis was last seen running into the room, brandishing the handgun in the direction of his mother, who was confined to the bed.”
After a three-hour stand-off, police entered the room and found Davis dead from a gunshot wound and his mother unresponsive in the bed, apparently killed by her son.
Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told AFP the doctor was undergoing surgery but that his gunshot wounds were not thought to be life-threatening.
A nurse who was on the same floor at the time of the initial shooting told the Baltimore Sun newspaper that the suspect was angry about the treatment of his mother and was threatening to jump out of a window.
“I started running,” she said. “When you hear gunshots you run.”
Police were alerted when the hospital sounded an emergency alert at about 11:15 am at a thoracic center on its East Baltimore campus, which was evacuated as SWAT teams and negotiators arrived at the scene.
“The victim is a faculty physician who is currently being treated at Hopkins,” the hospital said in a statement.
Guglielmi initially told AFP the doctor was in a “critical condition” but later issued a statement saying: “The doctor is going to be OK. He’s in the best place in the world he could be.”
The Johns Hopkins Hospital, founded by 19th century philanthropist Johns Hopkins, is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest hospitals and has consistently been ranked as the best in the United States.
It was was the second high-profile shooting in just two weeks in the small eastern U.S. state of Maryland, located just north of the capital Washington.
On September 1, a radical environmentalist took three men hostage at the headquarters of the Discovery television channel in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring before being shot dead by police snipers.
Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/09...#ixzz0znzCqJVp
that must a hurt
Comments Twitter LinkedIn Digg Buzz Email Agence France-Presse September 16, 2010 – 12:01 pm
A man devastated by his mother’s diagnosis shot her doctor Thursday at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore before allegedly killing her and taking his own life.
Police and officials would not immediately elaborate on the mystery diagnosis that sparked the tragic shooting but media reports speculated that the suspect’s mother may have been paralyzed after spinal surgery.
The gunman, identified as 50-year-old Warren Davis, had barricaded himself in his mother’s room as SWAT teams surrounded the building and snipers trained their sights on the eighth floor where he was holed up.
“Mr. Davis was receiving some news about the care and the condition of his mother . . . when he became emotionally distraught and was overwhelmed by the news of his mother’s condition,” Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told reporters.
“During the course of the conversation with the doctor, Mr. Davis removed a small semiautomatic handgun from his waistband area and fired a single gunshot that struck the doctor in the lowest chest, upper abdomen,” she said.
“The doctor collapsed just outside the doorway of the room and Mr. Davis was last seen running into the room, brandishing the handgun in the direction of his mother, who was confined to the bed.”
After a three-hour stand-off, police entered the room and found Davis dead from a gunshot wound and his mother unresponsive in the bed, apparently killed by her son.
Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told AFP the doctor was undergoing surgery but that his gunshot wounds were not thought to be life-threatening.
A nurse who was on the same floor at the time of the initial shooting told the Baltimore Sun newspaper that the suspect was angry about the treatment of his mother and was threatening to jump out of a window.
“I started running,” she said. “When you hear gunshots you run.”
Police were alerted when the hospital sounded an emergency alert at about 11:15 am at a thoracic center on its East Baltimore campus, which was evacuated as SWAT teams and negotiators arrived at the scene.
“The victim is a faculty physician who is currently being treated at Hopkins,” the hospital said in a statement.
Guglielmi initially told AFP the doctor was in a “critical condition” but later issued a statement saying: “The doctor is going to be OK. He’s in the best place in the world he could be.”
The Johns Hopkins Hospital, founded by 19th century philanthropist Johns Hopkins, is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest hospitals and has consistently been ranked as the best in the United States.
It was was the second high-profile shooting in just two weeks in the small eastern U.S. state of Maryland, located just north of the capital Washington.
On September 1, a radical environmentalist took three men hostage at the headquarters of the Discovery television channel in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring before being shot dead by police snipers.
Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/09...#ixzz0znzCqJVp
that must a hurt