MIAMI, July 28: A gunman set fire to his Miami-area apartment unit, then killed six people in and around the building in a shooting rampage before he was slain by police who stormed his position early yesterday and rescued two neighbors he had taken hostage.
The freed hostages emerged unharmed from the pre-dawn raid, which ended a standoff that began late Friday and lasted several hours, police in the Miami suburb of Hialeah said.
“We don’t have a clear motive,” Hialeah police spokesman Carl Zogby said. “This was an irrational act, and many times there is no rational explanation.”
Police said Pedro Vargas, 42, had no known criminal history and he was described by other residents of the apartment building as a quiet man who kept largely to himself.
Neighbors said the gunman, described by the Miami Herald
As a part-time graphic artist, may have been facing eviction, but police were still investigating.
The melee unfolded on Friday evening, police said, when the suspect set fire to the fourth-floor apartment he shared with his mother. According to the Herald, police said Vargas started off by torching about 10,000 yesterday in cash he had withdrawn earlier from his savings account.
Two building managers, 78-year-old Italo Pisciotti and his wife, Camira, 68, saw smoke pouring from the unit and ran to the apartment, Zogby said.
“He came out of the door and shot both of them several times, killing them right at the scene,” he said.
Vargas then went back inside his burning apartment, walked out on the balcony and fired 10 to 20 shots into the street, Zogby said.
A man who lived across the street was killed as he was walking from a parking lot toward his home. Vargas also shot at arriving emergency personnel and police, hampering their efforts to aid the victims, police said.
The gunman then went to a third-floor apartment, kicked down the door and shot dead a couple and their 17-year-old daughter, Zogby said.
(AGENCIES)
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