Seven killed in Florida apartment rampage
MIAMI (Reuters) – A tenant went on a shooting rampage at a Florida apartment building, killing six people before a SWAT team killed him and rescued two neighbors he was holding hostage on Saturday, police said.
The hostages were unharmed, police in the Miami suburb of Hialeah said.
The standoff began on Friday evening during an argument between the gunman and the husband and wife who ran the apartment complex. Their bodies were among the six found after the SWAT team moved in on Saturday morning, police said.
The gunman, identified by police as Pedro Vargas, 42, lived in a fourth-floor apartment with his mother and may have been facing eviction, police and neighbors said.
The landlords, 78-year-old Italo Pisciotti and 68-yearold Camira Pisciotti, went to the unit to discuss a problem with the gunman, who opened fire and killed them both, police said.
The gunmen went to another apartment in the building and shot dead a man and woman and their teenage daughter, and fired from a balcony at a man walking into a building across the street, killing him as well.
He also fired at emergency crews and police, missing them but preventing them from giving immediate aid to the victims, police said.
The shooter then barricaded himself inside a fifthfloor apartment where he took two neighbors hostage, investigators said. Negotiators made contact with him during the night and the SWAT team swarmed in after the talks broke down at about 2 a.m.
At some point during the melee, the gunman set his apartment on fire, leaving the ceiling and hallway charred and setting off sprinklers that soaked part of the building. His mother collapsed and was taken to a hospital, police said.
The apartment complex in the blue-collar, mostly Hispanic community housed about 90 families.