NYC federal building shooter was whistleblower, congressman says

A man who gunned down a security guard at a federal building in Manhattan before killing himself considered himself a whistleblower and had been given "a raw deal" by the government agency that fired him, a New Jersey congressman who took up the man's case said Saturday.

Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell said he did not know what made Kevin Downing, a military veteran who had once been employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, open fire at the New York federal building on Friday.

"What made him snap?" Pascrell said in a telephone interview. "I don't know."

Downing had been fired from a job at the bureau’s New York City office in 1999 and appealed the firing, claiming he had been targeted because he was a whistleblower, according to federal documents.

Downing had complained about the bureau closing its New York regional office and opening an “expensive and unnecessary” new annex in New Jersey that he felt was a waste of taxpayer dollars, according to a petition posted over one year ago on online petition site Change.org.

An administrative judge dismissed the appeal, saying Downing did not reveal gross mismanagement or waste of funds, according to records from the federal Merit Systems Protection Board. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics referred questions to the police on Saturday.

Pascrell said Downing contacted his office in 2013.

"We felt that this person had been given a raw deal to put it mildly and that there was no excuse for it and he had been treated very badly," Pascrell said.

Pascrell said he spoke with Downing on the phone, and several members of his staff met with him over the last two years, most recently a few weeks ago.

Downing had endured a string of misfortunes as his live-in fiancee died of breast cancer, his house was in foreclosure and he suffered health problems after a car accident, Pascrell said.

On Friday just after 5 pm EST, Downing, 68, opened fire inside a building that houses an immigration court, a passport processing center and a regional office for the Department of Labor, which oversees the bureau for which Downing once worked.

As he approached a metal detector, Downing shot FJC Security Services guard Idrissa Camara in the head, police said. The guard would have been done for the day at 4 p.m. but had agreed to stay for an extra shift, his company said.

After shooting 53-year-old Camara, Downing walked toward an elevator where he encountered another employee, and then shot himself in the head, said James O'Neill, a chief with the New York Police Department.

Chaos broke out during rush hour in downtown New York City as dozens of law enforcement vehicles converged on the scene in lower Manhatttan after the shooting, as many people who worked in the area were making their way home.

Police officers ran through the streets surrounding the federal building. Soon afterward, more officers brandishing automatic weapons arrived and yelled at crowds of onlookers to leave the area because there was an “active shooter.”

The crowd panicked, with many people running into nearby buildings for shelter before law enforcement officers determined that Downing was the only shooter.

On Saturday, the FBI and the New York City Police Department said they had no new information on the shooting. Federal agents swarmed Downing's home in Fort Lee, New Jersey, hours after the shooting, searching for anything that could help them understand his motive.

The FBI is assisting in the investigation because Camara, the guard who was killed, was working as a contractor for a federal agency.

"We're in the very early stages of the investigation and are working to establish his motive for coming here, if he had an intended target beyond the security officer, and what the motive was behind the crime," O'Neill said.

Camara was armed but never had a chance to defend himself, the security company said. The guard was a father of four and a native of the Ivory Coast, the New York Daily News reported.

"Camara ... was an extraordinary senior guard who was well-trained, cared deeply about his job and knew that building better than anyone else," said Michael McKeon, a company spokesman.

Hector Figueroa, the president of Camara's union, 32 BJ SEIU, said he was horrified by the news.

"Security officers around the city and country serve on the front line each and every day to keep us safe and secure," Figueroa said. "We are heartbroken that one of our own has fallen."

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press. With additional reporting by Renee Lewis.