A Korean-American protesting against the North Korean government emptied a seven-shot pistol in front of UN headquarters Thursday, hitting several offices but injuring no one, authorities said.
The gunman was identified as Steve Kim, 57, a naturalized US citizen. He's married with two sons, works for the US postal service and lives in Des Plaines, Ill. FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said Kim was probably born in Korea.
The shooting occurred at 1:10 p.m. as the Security Council was meeting on Iraq and Secretary-General Kofi Annan was holding talks with the Cypriot leaders in his office on the 38th floor.
The shots, fired from a Smith & Wesson pistol, hit a women's restroom on the 18th and an American Express office on the 20th floor of the UN Secretariat building.
UN Security Chief Michael McCann said several shots narrowly missed UN employees inside the building.
US Secret Service agents protecting visiting Cyprus President Glafcos Clerides apprehended Kim in the compound just outside the building. The agents were assisted moments later by members of a State Department protective detail also on site as well as UN security.
Margolin, of the FBI, said Kim was expected to be arraigned Friday in federal court in Manhattan for violation of the protection of foreign officials act although specific charges have yet to be determined.
Kim, wearing a blue shirt and brown pants, jumped over a poorly guarded fence surrounding UN headquarters. He walked up to the building, shot seven times in the air and then dropped the pistol on the ground, witnesses and security officials said.
He then tossed out a stack of leaflets before he put his hands up against a wall and awaited capture.
The leaflets, recovered by reporters, were handwritten in English with many misspellings and were addressed to "all people who love freedom and justice."
"In a shinning and civilized 21st century, most people in the world enjoying peace and freedom. North Korea, however, is groaning under the weight of starvation and dictatorial suppression. They don't have even the most basic of human rights since all things body and spirit plants and plows belong to one named greatest general Kim Jong Il," it said.
It was signed: "A citizen of UN, Steve Kim, Oct. 2, 2002."
Relatives and neighbors said it didn't sound like the man they know.
"I see him in the lobby going to pick up the mail. We've never had a problem. He's pretty private," said Ron Moore, who lives in Kim's building.
One of Kim's sons, Michael, said he had no idea his father had strong feelings about North Korea.
"It's just shocking news. I've never heard of anything like that," Michael Kim told WLS-TV in Chicago.
Tim Ratliffe, a postal service spokesman, said Kim has worked at a mail processing center in Palatine since 1988 and began his annual vacation Friday.
"All I can say is he's an employee who always came to work and did his job. We're kind of surprised by this," Ratliffe told The Associated Press.
Kim was questioned by US law enforcement authorities before being transferred to FBI custody and taken out of UN headquarters 90 minutes after the shooting.
"He shot in the air I heard about five to six shots," said UN spokeswoman Hua Jiang, who witnessed the incident from the window of her fourth-floor office.
New York City police temporarily sealed off First Avenue in front the United Nations building and cleared the street of bystanders while the United Nations sealed off the sprawling UN complex which houses the Security Council, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's offices and the General Assembly.
McCann, the UN security chief, said security was supposed to have been beefed up after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but his office has been slow in hiring new recruits.
The UN headquarters overlooking Manhattan's East River was a terrorist target following the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. And in a videotaped address aired in November, Osama bin Laden accused the world body of siding with the United States and called Annan a "criminal."
(China Daily October 4, 2002)
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