Man shoots woman to death in hospital bed, then kills self

A man shot a patient to death in her bed at a suburban New York hospital Wednesday and then killed himself, police said.

Police were trying to determine the connection between the two, who were found in a fourth-floor room after gunfire rang out around 9:40 a.m. at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, a major medical campus about 35 miles north of Manhattan. No one else was in the room at the time, Westchester County Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Gleason said.

“There appears to be some type of family relationship between the two victims and a murder-suicide-type situation,” Westchester County Police Commissioner Thomas Gleason said. He said both people were in their 70s.

The woman was found in a bed, the man on the floor, and a .38-calibre revolver on the scene, he said. It’s unknown how many shots were fired.

Dr. Srihari Naidu, an interventional cardiologist at the hospital, told The Associated Press by phone that he was at his office in a nearby building when he got an “active shooter alert,” followed by a lockdown notification that lasted for about a half-hour.

The building where the shooting happened is “very well guarded,” he said, and many areas cannot be accessed without badges.

Police said the hospital’s armed security staff responded immediately, and police arrived within two minutes.

Jatziri Escobar, a patient who arrived at the hospital shortly after 9 a.m., told The Journal News that she was in a room on the first floor when staff ran through the building alerting patients about the active shooting.

“I was kinda scared, but one of the officers told me to relax and all would be OK,” said Escobar, 22, of Elmsford.

The hospital totals over 600 adult, pediatric and psychiatric beds in a campus in northern Westchester.