Gunman kills 1 at municipal building, is arrested

A man shot and killed a township worker inside a local-government building Tuesday, then waited until police arrived to take him into custody, authorities said Tuesday.

The gunman walked inside the Paradise Township municipal building about

8:20 a.m. and opened fire, according to police and township officials. State and local police rushed to the building in the Pocono Mountains, about 100 miles

(160 kilometers) north of Philadelphia, arresting the suspect without incident.

The victim was identified as Michael Tripus, 65, of Stroudsburg, who served as the township’s contracted sewage enforcement and building code officer.

David Green, 72, of Swiftwater, was arraigned on a homicide charge Tuesday afternoon and ordered jailed without bail. He covered himself with a yellow tarp or poncho as he was led into a magistrate’s office, telling reporters, “I’m really sorry for what I did.”

Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on Green’s behalf.

It remained unclear what motivated the shooting.

“That is something we’re still working on right now,” trooper David Peters told reporters at the scene.

The victim was a longtime township employee, according to Gary Konrath, chairman of the township’s Board of Supervisors.

Konrath said he was not in the building at the time but spoke to the township’s executive secretary, who was.

“She’s extremely shaken up,” he said.

Konrath said she told him the gunman is “not someone they are aware of. No one appears to recognize the individual.”

The township is in a rural area and has a population of about 3,200. It employs three full-time workers and one part-time worker in the office, and six on the road crew. The township building has no security camera, but there is a panic button that links to 911, according to Konrath.

Paradise Township is about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of Ross Township, where a gunman opened fire at a Board of Supervisors meeting in 2013, killing three.

“As we have learned in the wake of the Ross Township shooting five years ago, township elected officials and employees serve on the front line of public service and sometimes find themselves in harm’s way,” the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors said in a statement. “In today’s world, townships must balance the demands of community safety and public access.”