1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting

On December 7, 1993, as a Long Island Rail Road train pulled into the Merillon Avenue station in Garden City, New York, Colin Ferguson (born January 14, 1958) pulled out his gun and started firing at passengers. He killed six and wounded nineteen before being stopped by three of the passengers: Kevin Blum, Mark McEntee, and Mike O'Connor. Ferguson's trial was notable for a number of unusual developments, including his firing of his defense counsel and insisting on representing himself and questioning his own victims on the stand. On February 17, 1995, Ferguson was convicted of the 6 murders. He was also convicted of attempted murder for wounding nineteen passengers. As of 2016, he is serving his sentence of 315 years and 8 months to life at the Upstate Correctional Facility in Franklin County, New York. Shooting: On December 7, 1993, Ferguson purchased a ticket for the 5:33 p.m. eastbound train at the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn. This train stopped at the Jamaica station in Queens. Ferguson boarded the third car of the eastbound Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) commuter train from Penn Station to Hicksville, along with more than 80 other passengers. Ferguson, who sat on the southwestern end of the car, was carrying his handgun and a canvas bag filled with 160 rounds of ammunition. As the train approached the Merillon Avenue station, Ferguson drew the gun, dropped several cartridges on the ground, stood up, and opened fire at random. During the next three minutes, Ferguson killed six people and injured another 19. Some passengers mistook the gunshots for caps or fireworks until a woman shouted, "He's got a gun! He's shooting people!"[2] Ferguson walked east on the train, pulling the trigger steadily about every half second. Several passengers tried to hide beneath their seats, while others fled to the eastern end of the train and tried to go into the next car. Ferguson walked down the aisle of the train and shot people to his right and left as he passed each seat, briefly facing each victim before firing. The New York Times later wrote the motions were "as methodical as if he were taking tickets". Ferguson said, "I'm going to get you", over and over as he walked down the aisle. Other passengers farther away in the train did not realize a shooting had occurred until after the train stopped. As a crowd of panicked passengers fled from the third car into neighboring cars, one man appeared annoyed by their unruliness and said, "Be calm", before they forced a train door open and fled into the station. Two people were injured in the stampede of passengers. After the train's conductor was informed of the shooting, he decided against opening the train doors right away because two of the cars were not yet at the platform. An announcement ordering conductors not to open the doors was made; however, engineer Thomas Silhan climbed out the window of his cab and opened each door from the outside so panicked passengers could escape. Ferguson had emptied two 15-round magazines during the shooting. While he was reloading his third magazine, somebody yelled, "Grab him!" Three passengers – Michael O'Connor, Kevin Blum, and Mark McEntee – tackled Ferguson and pinned him to one of the train's seats. Several other passengers ran forward to grab his arms and legs and help hold him pinned across a three-seat row with his head towards the window and legs towards the aisle. While he was pinned, Ferguson said, "O, God, what did I do? What did I do? I deserve whatever I get." He also repeatedly pleaded with those holding him, "Don't shoot me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Five to six people continued to hold him pinned for some time while they awaited relief. While those who had not tackled him, but were holding him down, inquired as to the location of the gun, they were assured that it had been kicked away and that there had only been one gunman. Most, if not all passengers still in the car were concerned that no further violence take place and that the shooter be held rather than attacked. He was held down for several minutes. Soon, Andrew Roderick, an off-duty Long Island Rail Road police officer who was picking up his wife from the train, boarded the train car and handcuffed Ferguson. Victims- Six passengers died from their injuries: -Amy Federici, a 27-year-old corporate interior designer from Mineola, New York. -James Gorycki, a 51-year-old account executive also from Mineola. -Maria Theresa Tumangan Magtoto, a 30-year-old lawyer from Westbury, New York. -Dennis McCarthy, a 52-year-old office manager from Mineola. His son Kevin was severely injured. His wife Carolyn McCarthy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996. -Richard Nettleton, a 24-year-old college student from Roslyn Heights, New York. -Mi Kyung Kim, a 27-year-old from New Hyde Park, New York. Perpetrator: Colin Ferguson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 14, 1958, to Von Herman and May Ferguson. Von Herman, a wealthy pharmacist and the managing director of the large pharmaceutical company Hercules Agencies, was described by Time magazine as "one of the most prominent businessmen in Jamaica". Ferguson's family, including four brothers, lived in a two-story home with a nanny and a housekeeper in the Kingston suburb of Havendale. Ferguson attended the Calabar High School there from 1969 to 1974, where the principal at the time described him as a "well-rounded student" who played cricket and soccer. He graduated in the top third of his class. In 1978, when Ferguson was 20 years old, Von Herman was killed in a car crash; his funeral was attended by government and military luminaries. Ferguson's mother died from cancer soon afterward. The deaths destroyed the family's fortunes. Family friends said this deeply disturbed Ferguson; he moved to the United States in 1982 on a visitor's visa. His friends supposed that he had trouble dealing with racism in America and that he felt frustrated because he couldn't find work outside of menial jobs. Ferguson met Audrey Warren, a native of Southampton County, Virginia, and married her on May 13, 1986, qualifying him for permanent U.S. residence. Ferguson and Warren moved to a house in Long Island, where they often fought, sometimes to the point that police intervention was required. On May 18, 1988, Warren obtained an uncontested divorce from Ferguson, claiming the marriage ended because they shared "differing social views". Acquaintances said Warren left Ferguson because he was "too aggressive or antagonistic" for her, and that the divorce was a "crushing blow" to Ferguson. He got a job doing clerical work for the Ademco Security Group in Syosset, New York, a hamlet of the North Shore of Long Island. On August 18, 1989, while standing on a stool to reach invoices from a filing cabinet, Ferguson slipped and fell, injuring his head, neck and back. The injury led to his termination. He filed a complaint with the New York State Workers' Compensation Board, which reviewed the matter over the next several years. Ferguson enrolled at Nassau Community College in East Garden City, where he made the dean's list three times. Also that year, he was forced to leave a class after a disciplinary hearing board found he had acted overly aggressively toward the teacher. In late 1990, Ferguson transferred to Adelphi University in Garden City, where he majored in business administration. Ferguson spoke out against coexistence with whites and routinely made calls for retributive revolution. Ferguson regularly accused others around him of racism. During one occasion, Ferguson complained that a white woman in the library shouted racial epithets at him after he asked her about a class assignment. An investigation concluded the incident never occurred. Later, Ferguson attended a symposium by a faculty member discussing her experiences in South Africa. Ferguson interrupted the professor by shouting, "We should be talking about the revolution in South Africa and how to get rid of the white people" and "Kill everybody white!" When students and teachers tried to quiet him, Ferguson started threatening them, repeatedly saying, "The black revolution will get you." He was suspended from the school in June 1991 as a result of the threats, and although he was free to reapply after the suspension, he chose not to do so. In 1991, Ferguson rented a room in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. He was unemployed. Ferguson lived around many other West Indian immigrants. Neighbors said he dressed very neatly, but kept to himself and rarely smiled or spoke to anybody, except occasionally to say hello. His landlord Patrick Denis said Ferguson once told him, "I'm such a great person. There must be only one thing holding me back. It must be white people." In 1992, Ferguson's ex-wife Audrey Warren filed a complaint with police alleging Ferguson pried open the trunk of her car. Prior to the incident, Warren had not seen him since the divorce. In February 1992, Ferguson was arrested and charged with harassing a woman on a subway. The woman tried to sit in a vacant seat alongside Ferguson and asked him to move over, prompting Ferguson to scream at her and press his leg and elbow against her until police officers pinned him to the ground. Ferguson tried to escape the police and shouted "Brothers, come help me!" Ferguson sent letters to the New York City Police Commissioner and other officials complaining about his arrest, describing it as "viscous and racist", and claiming he was brutalized by the officers who arrested him. The New York City Transit Authority investigated and dismissed the claims. In September 1992, Ferguson was awarded $26,250 for his workers' compensation claim against Ademco Security Group. In April 1993, Ferguson insisted he was still in pain and demanded the case be reopened so he could get more money for medical treatment. In the following weeks, he visited a Manhattan law firm for a consultation. Lauren Abramson, an attorney with the firm, said she immediately felt uncomfortable and threatened by Ferguson. She asked a law clerk to sit in on the meeting because "I did not want to be alone with him", something Abramson said she had never done before. Although Ferguson was neatly dressed during the consultation, he acted strangely and identified himself by a false name before providing his real name. Months later, Ferguson made threatening calls to members of the firm, claiming they were discriminating against him. In one of the calls, he made reference to a massacre that occurred in California. The calls prompted the lawyers to start locking their inner office doors out of fear. Ferguson tried to have his workers' compensation claim reopened by the New York State Workers' Compensation Board, which reexamined the case due to his persistence, but it was ultimately rejected. The board placed Ferguson on a list of potentially dangerous people security guards were to watch out for. In April 1993, Ferguson moved to California in search of new career opportunities. He unsuccessfully applied for several jobs, including a car wash, where the manager laughed at him. Ferguson purchased a Ruger P89 9×19mm pistol at a Turner's Outdoorsman in Long Beach for $400, after waiting the 15-day period required under California's gun laws. Ferguson presented himself as a California resident by providing a driver's license he received two months earlier, which had an address of the Long Beach motel where he stayed. After Ferguson was robbed by two men, he started carrying the gun with him in a paper bag. Ferguson moved back to New York City in May 1993, because, he told a friend, he did not like competing with immigrants and Hispanics for jobs.[ Denis, his Flatbush landlord, said Ferguson appeared even more unstable upon his return, speaking in the third person about "some apocryphal-type doom scenario" that included black people rising up and striking down "their pompous rulers and oppressors". Ferguson started taking five showers a day and could be heard by neighbors repeatedly chanting at night, "all the black people killing all the white people". Denis became increasingly concerned about Ferguson's obsession with racism and apparent growing mental instability, and asked Ferguson to move out by the end of the month. "Race was an obsession with him. There was a sense that one had that this was someone who could snap."- Hugh Wilson; Adelphi University professor