Empire State gunman did not plan to return to his apartment
Police found books on fighting skills and ammunition at the apartment of Jeffrey Johnson, the man killed in a police shootout at the Empire State Building Friday. Johnson had left his keys with his landlord Friday, and did not plan to return.
An official inspects evidence near the Empire State Building following a shooting, Friday, in New York. Police say a recently laid-off worker shot a former colleague to death near the iconic skyscraper and then randomly opened fired on people nearby before firing on police
Julio Cortez/AP
New York
The man who shot and killed a former co-worker and was himself killed by police near New York City's Empire State Building had left his apartment keys with his landlord on Friday and did not plan to return home, a police source said on Sunday.
Jeffrey Johnson, 58, an out-of-work accessories designer, killed Steve Ercolino, with whom he had been feuding, on Friday morning in midtown Manhattan. Nine bystanders were wounded as the result of police gunfire, three of them hit by bullets and six injured by fragments caused when police hollow-point bullets ricocheted off concrete planters.
Johnson left his apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side that morning as he always did, around 8 a.m., wearing a suit, neighbors said.
"He left the keys in an envelope for the landlord with no intention of ever coming back," said a police source familiar with the investigation who declined to be identified because the source was unauthorized to speak publicly about the details.
