Police searching for NY surgeon in fatal shooting at a Buffalo hospital
An Erie County Sheriff's helicopter searches at the scene of a shooting at Erie Count Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., June 13, 2012. / AP Photo/David Duprey
(CBS/AP) BUFFALO, N.Y. - Police began searching Wednesday for a trauma surgeon as a "person of interest" in a fatal shooting at a Buffalo hospital, and warned the public that the former Army Special Forces weapons expert may be armed and dangerous.
The early morning shooting of a 33-year-old woman locked down the Erie County Medical Center complex for more than four hours. The woman was shot four times while in the stairwell of a hospital building. Police have not released her name.
According to Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, the victim and the shooter may have had a relationship, CBS affiliate WIVB reports.
Police later blocked a road leading to Dr. Timothy Jorden's home in an isolated area of private Lake View residences near the Lake Erie shore. SWAT team members in camouflage arrived in unmarked SUVs. A helicopter flew over the house before leaving.
Jorden, 49, also a former Army Special Forces medic, became licensed to practice medicine in New York in 2002 and held privileges to treat patients at the medical center and other major hospitals in the area. He apparently has no criminal background and no legal actions have been filed against his license.
According to a 1996 profile in The Buffalo News, Jorden is a native of Buffalo.
Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda said the morning shooting wasn't a random act. After the shooting inside a building adjacent to the hospital's main building, police searched inside for the shooter for more than four hours. A SWAT team was called in.
The search ended by the afternoon, but police were still collecting evidence at the hospital.
The shooting prompted a lockdown of the medical center's 65-acre campus that was lifted at around noon for all buildings except the one being searched by police. Incoming patients were diverted to another hospital during the lockdown.
Police haven't released any information on the victim, other than her age. They said she was shot shortly after 8 a.m. inside the building that houses outpatient services and offices.
A police helicopter circled over the medical center's campus, which includes a 550-bed hospital. Officials said as many as 400 patients and about half of the hospital's 2,000 employees were on the grounds at the time of the shooting.
"It's a very sad day for ECMC and our community," said Jody Lomeo, the medical center's chief executive officer. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim."
Nikita Patel, a 25-year-old University at Buffalo medical student from Los Angeles, said she arrived at the hospital about 9 a.m. for a class and was kept from entering. She texted fellow students inside the hospital to find out what was happening.
"They said they're locked in and can't get out of the hospital and I can't go in," Patel said.
Jorden has a medical degree from the University at Buffalo and trained at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash. He received his certification from the American Board of Surgery in 2004.
The News reported that Jorden joined the National Guard in high school, went into the Army after graduation and served with the Army's Special Forces, first as a weapons expert, then as a medic. In those roles, he served in the Caribbean, Japan and Korea.
Jorden is certified in advanced-trauma life support and has received numerous awards recognizing his relationships with patients, his teaching skills and his involvement in the community, the newspaper said.
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As human beings immersed in sin like a strawberry dipped in chocolate, we are instrinsically evil and so, this world will never be a better place.
On a seperate note and related to what many refer to guns. As human beings, we all have emotions. Those emotions are based on what is important to each of us on an individual basis. We all have buttons that can be pushed because of those emotions. We all want to believe we can control our emotions and those of us who believe we can think so because the one that pushes them to their limit has never been pushed. Education may improve our ability to reason, but education does not diminish our emotions. If it did, there would be no heart break because we could simply reason our hurt away. That doesn't happen.
We are all capable of going over the edge. The availability of a gun at that moment in time, makes for a deadly cocktail. Too often, people who believed themselves incapable of a crime involving a gun find out too late.
He probably had a concealed carry permit anyway...right ? More'n likely passed one-a them background checks and everything-you libertards make me sick with all your common sense an' all...
There's another definition for "cretin", and that's a stupid person...a word ( stupid ), I'd apply to anyone who doesn't understand the basic reality that gun violence in this country has moved from the absurd, directly into the "insane" category.
Evidently Win never met a gun he didn't like, or an act of gun violence he had a problem with, cretin...indeed.
Why don't you make another contribution to the NRA Winchester...Wayne LaPierre only made a little over a million bucks last year stroking the egos of you paranoid, hate-mongering suckers, and I'm sure he could use the extra cash....shame on you all.
Now, go play with your guns, and always remember...the only good cretin, is an NRA cretin.
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It's not you hunny, it's me; I just wanna see other guys.
BEECH!
Bang.
..........................
Love. Gotta love it.
If we could all aspire to live by these words and the Golden Rule, what a better place this world would be.