2009 Binghamton shooting

At about 10:30 a.m. EDT, Jiverly Wong barricaded the rear door of the Binghamton American Civic Association building with a vehicle registered in his father's name. He was described as wearing a bullet-proof vest, a bright green nylon jacket, and dark-rimmed glasses. Wong entered through the front door, firing a number of bullets at people in his path. Two of the Civic Association's receptionists were among the first victims shot. While one of the receptionists was reported to have been shot through the head and killed, the second, shot in the stomach, The wounded receptionist, 61-year-old Shirley DeLucia, remained on the line for 39 minutes, despite her gunshot wound, and relayed information until she was rescued. She later recounted that the gunman had opened fire without saying anything. He then took dozens of other students hostage. less than two minutes after he first opened fire. In all, Wong fired 99 rounds: 88 from a 9mm Beretta and 11 from a .45-caliber Beretta. Police response Police remained at the perimeter of the property, having locked down nearby Binghamton High School and a number of streets in the area. At one point, not knowing if the gunman was alive or dead, police summoned Broome Community College Assistant Professor Tuong Hung Nguyen, who is fluent in Vietnamese, to help communicate with Wong in the event of contact. SWAT members entered the Civic Center building and began clearing it at 11:13 a.m., 43 minutes after the first call to the police at 10:30 a.m., and 40 minutes after patrol officers first arrived on the scene at 10:33 a.m. At the time of their entry, they had not yet confirmed that Wong had committed suicide, and they proceeded with caution. At approximately noon, ten people left the building, with another ten following approximately forty minutes later. Wong was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, in the first-floor classroom with his victims. Items found on Wong's body included a hunting knife in the waistband of his pants; and two semi-automatic pistols (a .45-caliber Beretta Px4 Storm and a 9mm Beretta 92FS Vertec Inox matching the serial numbers on his New York State pistol license). ==Victims==

Wong killed 13 people and critically wounded four. An account of each of the victims was published in The New York Times on April 6, 2009. Eight were residents of Binghamton, three were from Endicott, one was from Endwell, and one was from Greene. Killed • Parveen Ali, age 26, an immigrant from northern Pakistan • Almir Olímpio Alves, age 43, a Brazilian Ph.D. in mathematics and visiting scholar at Binghamton University, attending English classes at the Civic Association • Marc Henry Bernard, age 44, an immigrant from Haiti, married to Maria • Maria Sonia Bernard, age 46, an immigrant from Haiti, married to Marc • Roberta Badaines King, age 72, an English as a second language substitute teacher • Jiang Ling, age 22, an immigrant from China • Dolores "Doris" Carbonilas Yigal, age 53, an immigrant from the Philippines • Shirley DeLucia, age 61, the Civic Association receptionist who feigned death and contacted police • Long Huynh, age 42, a Vietnamese immigrant whose wife, Lan Ho, was killed. Huynh had tried to shield her with his body, but a bullet that shattered Huynh's elbow ricocheted, striking and killing his wife. Huynh was wounded three more times: he lost a finger to a shot, was hit by a bullet in his chest, and another bullet entered his chin and exited through his cheek. ==Perpetrator==

Jiverly Antares Wong (born Linh Phat Voong, ; December 8, 1967 – April 3, 2009), a resident of Johnson City, New York, was identified as the perpetrator. Wong was born in South Vietnam as the second of four children into a Buddhist ethnic Chinese family, which the online US-based news blog Bolsavik identified as Chinese Nùng, based on the spelling of their surname. His father was a captain in the South Vietnamese Army. Wong and his parents, Henry Voong and Mui Thong, emigrated from Saigon in June 1990, Initially living in Binghamton with his parents and siblings, within a year, he moved out of the family home to a separate apartment in Binghamton, finding employment at Felchar Manufacturer. A few months later, he moved to the Los Angeles area in 1991. Between the 1990s and 2000s, Wong regularly traveled back and forth between Los Angeles and New York, and a second time in 1992, this time leading to a conviction on a misdemeanor charge of fraud for forgery. Wong became a naturalized American citizen in November 1995, retaining an identity card with this spelling. In February and June 1997, Wong left the U.S. the same year for Tokyo, only to re-enter on December 25, 1999. In May 2005, Wong and his wife separated, with her filing for divorce in July 2005, which was granted in July 2006, citing irreconcilable differences. Wong worked at a local Shop-Vac vacuum cleaner plant until it closed in November 2008. By that point, Wong had again started visiting shooting ranges in Binghamton. and once said, in response to a question if he liked the New York Yankees, "No, I don't like that team. I don't like America. America sucks.". The three stamps used for the postage were a Liberty Bell and two Purple Hearts. According to the housekeeper of Wong's apartment complex in California, between 2006 and 2007, a group of suited men visited the apartment building a few times to ask about Wong, and while they were described as resembling government agents, the FBI stated that it had no knowledged of prior investigations involving Wong. The letter also complained about the New York State Department of Labor, claiming that they had failed to provide him with unemployment benefits for a month. At the end of the letter, Wong stated that he "must [get] at least two people with me go to return to the dust of earth", blaming police for his actions, writing "Cop bring about this shooting. Cop must responsible". == Aftermath ==

The shooting was the deadliest mass shooting in Binghamton's history, although not the deadliest mass casualty incident overall in the city, which was the 1913 Binghamton Factory fire with 31 deaths. The Binghamton shooting was the eighth high-profile mass shooting in the United States since March 10, 2009, all having occurred within less than a month, leading to a renewed debate about gun control measures that members of the Democratic Party had previously proposed. Former Rochester County prosecutor Jeffrey Chamberlain commented that Wong "fell through the cracks" while Binghamton Police Chief Zikuski stated that there was "no merit" to reviewing Wong's gun permits after the alleged robbery tip-off in 1999. A different employee clarified that there was a contract worker with a similar name at the IBM plant, but that this person was still employed and working there during the shooting. President Barack Obama referred to the shooting as "senseless violence" and offered sympathy to the victims. New York Governor David Paterson ordered state flags to be flown at half staff on April 8, 2009. Wong's parents, Henry Voong and Mui Thong of Johnson City, New York, issued a statement apologizing for their son's actions, expressing their shared grief and asking for forgiveness from the victims' families. Following the publication of Wong's personal details, reporters attempted to find Wong's ex-wife, Xiu Ping Jiang, for comment. A Chinese woman with the same name, who had married a Vietnamese man in Des Moines, Iowa, was identified in an immigration jail in Glades County, Florida, but a background check determined her to be a different person. However, information about this Xiu Ping Jiang's immigration process generated sympathy about unfair treatment following coverage by The New York Times in September 2009. The journalist behind the article, Nina Bernstein, criticized that her case was ignored by the press after the supposed connection to the Binghamton shooting was found to be wrong, writing "Had she been the Xiu Ping Jiang linked to a mass killer, her story would have made instant news around the world. Instead, she is a kind of Internet-era doppelganger, lost in one of the dark places of immigration law, where the only life at stake may be her own". The events of Xiu Ping Jiang's immigration case became the basis of Lisa Ko's 2017 novel The Leavers. In 2010, ahead of the one-year anniversary, a memorial was officially announced to commemorate the victims. In spring 2013, the ACA Memorial Park was constructed, funded by $200,000 paid by public donations and the victims' families. The center of the park features thirteen memorial plaques and an equal number of dove statues. In 2019, Binghamton University planned to build a mosaic at the entrance of the ACA center as part of a PwC honors program, which was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but construction took place in April 2021. Yearly memorial services for the shooting's victims are held in the park. ==See also==