New York: At least five dead in a shooting in the heart of Manhattan

A gunman rampaged through a skyscraper in downtown New York City on Monday evening, July 28, killing at least four people before killing himself, according to several US media outlets. "Four people, including a New York City police officer, were killed," a law enforcement official told CNN, adding that the shooter apparently died after turning his weapon on himself, ABC News also reported. The "lone gunman" has been "neutralized," Jessica Tisch, the police chief of the largest city in the United States, said on X.

Late Monday afternoon, a large number of law enforcement officers, some wearing bulletproof vests and carrying heavy weapons, as well as ambulances, gathered under office buildings in the upscale Midtown Manhattan neighborhood, an AFP journalist observed. Helicopters hovered over the area, a stone's throw from Central Park. According to US media reports, the assailant entered 345 Park Avenue , a large office building and headquarters of the NFL and financial giant Blackstone, around 6 p.m. Several media outlets, including CNN and the New York Post , showed a photograph of a mustachioed man walking alone in the street with a long rifle in his right hand, wearing sunglasses and a dark jacket.

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"I was in the building, he was going from one floor to another," a witness who declined to give her name told AFP nearby. According to the New York Times, the shooter died on the 33rd floor. The New York police "are actively searching 345 Park Avenue. If you are in that building, please stay where you are," Mayor Eric Adams wrote on X. Shad Sakib was working in a nearby building when he was ordered to stay indoors. "Everyone was wondering what was going on, until someone said it was online, that someone came in with a machine gun," he told AFP. "He went into the building right next door. There was a picture of him walking right where I go to get lunch," the witness added.

With more firearms in circulation than people, the United States has the highest gun-related death rate of any developed country. Shootings are a recurring scourge that successive governments have so far failed to stem, with many Americans remaining deeply attached to their weapons. In 2024, more than 16,000 people, not including suicides, were killed by firearms, according to the NGO Gun Violence Archive. Last December, Brian Thompson, the head of the country's largest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, was murdered in the street in this same Midtown Manhattan neighborhood. Luigi Mangione, a young computer engineer, was arrested and charged in the case. In April, he pleaded not guilty to manslaughter in a Manhattan federal court.