NEW YORK ― A former employee at a New York City hospital shot multiple people Friday afternoon, killing a woman and wounding six other people before killing himself, police said.
The incident began about 3 p.m. on the 16th and 17th floors of Bronx Lebanon Hospital, according to multiple publications.
At least three of the shooting victims, including the woman who was killed, are doctors at the hospital. People at the scene treated one of the injured doctors by tying an emergency fire hose into a makeshift tourniquet, according to The New York Times.
Five people were seriously injured and one victim was shot in the leg, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said in a news conference outside the building.
Multiple outlets reported that the shooter was Dr. Henry Bello, 45, a former employee at the hospital. He was reportedly seen Friday wearing a white lab coat and armed with a rifle. The weapon, an AM-15, was hidden under his lab coat as he entered the building.
The Associated Press and CBS2, citing law enforcement sources, reported that Bello resigned from the hospital in 2015 amid sexual harassment allegations against him. It’s unclear what those claims involved.
The AP also obtained police reports that detailed Bello’s previous arrests: in 2004 after being accused of grabbing a woman and in 2009 after two women accused him of trying to look up their skirts with a mirror. (The 2004 arrest resulted in a felony abuse charge that was dismissed after Bello pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unlawful imprisonment, The New York Times reported.)
Bello is listed as a family physician on the hospital’s website.
Speaking outside the hospital Friday afternoon, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called the shooting a “horrific situation.”
“One doctor is dead and there are several doctors who are fighting for their lives right now,” de Blasio said.
Witnesses described the chaos inside the building.
Leonard Oyola, 52, was waiting to see his mother, who was in the intensive care unit at the time of the shooting.
“I saw a doctor come out of the elevator, shaking and full of blood,” he told HuffPost. “He was standing next to a doctor who got shot. He told me he was trying to hold his guts inside. He was shaking, he was in shock.”
Oyola said he let the doctor use his phone, and was promptly evacuated. He said he still didn’t know the status of his 73-year-old mother.
The suspect tried to set himself on fire while inside the building, setting off the sprinkler system, O’Neill said.
Miguel Mercado, 61, still had an IV tube in his arm as he spoke to HuffPost outside the hospital. He had evacuated the building just before undergoing an MRI.
He said the whole thing lasted 15 minutes. He woke up in his hospital bed, “looked out the window and saw all these cops and people running by. I thought, ‘God, something happened.’”
Mercado said that as he was leaving the building, he saw water coming out of the elevators.
“Everyone, no matter how bad you were, had to walk down the stairs,” he said.
When asked if he’d be let back in, Mercado threw up his hands. “I might just go home,” he said. “But my shoes and my backpack are still up there.”
Jesselyn Cook contributed reporting.
This post has been updated with reports about previous allegations and arrests involving Bello.