Man shoots security guard at job at former job, then kills himself
REPORT - Kevin Downing, a retired U.S. Army Reserves captain, was upset at being fired by the U.S. Department of Labor for supposedly blowing the whistle on “disclosing inexcusable public waste,” so he targeted a nearby Labor building and shot both himself and a security guard during his rampage.
Kevin Downing, a retired U.S. Army Reserves captain, was upset at being fired by the U.S. Department of Labor for supposedly blowing the whistle on “disclosing inexcusable public waste,” so he targeted a nearby Labor building and shot both himself and a security guard during his rampage.
The guard, Idrissa Camara, had decided to put in a few hours of overtime, but that decision cost him his life.
According to a law enforcement source, Camara had turned to greet Downing as he was coming into the building when Downing shot him.
“It looks like he would shoot whoever was standing there,” the source said. “Somebody had just gone through the checkpoint and was gathering his stuff. The guard turns to greet (Downing) and he shoots. There doesn’t appear to be any interaction between the two.”
“He proceeded through the security area and headed towards the elevator, where he encountered another employee,” NYPD Chief of Department James O’Neill said. “At this point, the suspect shot himself in the head.”
Downing had suffered through “a tough few years,” according to a family source, and his home was in foreclosure. Although police are still determining a clear motive for the shooting, police believe the building was simply the closest Department of Labor building to his home and that Downing harbored ill will toward the DOL because of his being fired from that department in 1999 after becoming a whistleblower.
“Since Kevin spoke truth to power the Labor Department has made sure that his actions would have devastating personal consequences and hammered the final nail in his professional coffin. His whistleblowing was made public on the internet and to this day employers routinely cancel job interviews and offers. Worse yet, during Kevin’s financial hardship his fiancee died of breast cancer as a Medicaid patient and his home is on the brink of foreclosure,” said a Change.org petition.
