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Two Dead In NASA Hostage Stand-Off
A gun-wielding NASA contract engineer took two co-workers hostage at the agency's highly secured Johnson Space Centre here and killed one of them before turning the weapon on himself, less than a week after the bloodiest school shooting in US that left 33 people dead.
Identified as 60-year-old William A Phillips, the gunman, a Jacobs Engineering employee working with NASA for 12-13 years, fatally shot David Beverly in the chest at about 1340 hrs yesterday (0010 IST today). After almost three hours, he shot himslef in the head.
Police found a second hostage Francelia Crenshaw, also a contract worker, bound to a chair with duct tape. She was unharmed and taken to hospital immediately, authorities said. However, she was released later and is in good health.
Authorities said Phillips barricaded himself in a second floor office at the Building 44, the communications and tracking development laboratory, after he was able to take a gun past NASA security. Later, he took Beverly and Crenshaw hostage.
Police Capt Dwayne Ready said officers were called to the scene after a man was seen with a gun.
Ready said police were making contact with the suspect when they heard the gunshot. "Believing that the suspect may have shot himself the decision was made to make entry."
It was not clear why Phillips, described as a model employee by Johnson Space Centre's Director Mike Coats, did the killing.
On a chalkboard in the room where his body was found, Phillips left a list of names and phone numbers and a scribbled note, which was not immediately understandable, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said.
There was apparently a dispute between Phillips and Beverly, but the gunman did not threaten Crenshaw, who was uninjured, Hurtt said.
Phillips was unmarried and had no children, and his closest relative is a cousin, Hurtt said.
Police also searched Phillips' sparsely furnished house in Clear Lake for over an hour, but found nothing to indicate he had planned the confrontation, officer Gabe Ortiz said.
In a statement, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said: "All of us at NASA are profoundly saddened by today's tragedy at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims and all those touched by today's events."
NASA employees and contract workers, who were evacuated from the building, were kept informed of the situation by e-mail, including the first one which began, "we have a report of a weapon in Building 44."
Christine Reichert, space station flight controller at Johnson Space Centre, said employees were told to stay in their buildings.
She said the people in the building close to Building 44 "were all good. That's all I know." Doors to Mission Control were locked as is standard procedure.
NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said the incident appeared to be confined to Building 44.
Clear Creek ISD's Space Centre Intermediate School, with about 900 students, had been on a lockdown status, but children were released around 1530 hrs local time. No injuries were reported.
NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said the building was "one of the smaller" office buildings on the campus, where Mission Control is based. He declined to speculate on how a person would get a gun inside NASA security or what his motives would be.
NASA is a highly secured facility that requires approved access. Anyone who comes on to Johnson Space Centre property has to have an employee badge or a visitor badge. Visitors must show a drivers' license or some other form of identification to be cleared to be on the property.
NASA Director of External Relations Eileen Hawley said NASA would study the situation when it was defused to see if any security-related policies needed to be changed.
"We have a standard set of security rules that do include random vehicle searches," Hawley said. "Certainly, I would believe that our security and our senior leadership is going to take a very close look at this incident, and see if there was anything that we should have done or could have done differently."
NASA chief Michael Griffin headed to the centre after the shooting, the space agency said.
The space agency officials said that its operations were not interrupted by the incident. NASA employees watched the drama on television as they were locked down.
President George W Bush was informed about the incident as he flew back to Washington from an event in Michigan, the White House said.
The stand-off came less than a week after a South Korean-origin gunman killed 32 students and teaching staff, including two Indians, at Virginia Tech university before killing himself.
Johnson Space Centre (JSC) was established in 1961 as the Manned Spacecraft Centre and, in 1973, renamed in honour of the late President and Texas native Lyndon B Johnson.
JSC has served as the nerve centre for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab space shuttles, International Space Station and other programmes.
About 3,000 employees work at the centre; most are engineers and scientists. More than 12,000 contractors from about 50 companies work onsite or in nearby office buildings and other facilities.
There are about 110 astronauts based at JSC for training.
Phillips' employer Jacobs Engineering Group, based in Pasadena in California, has a wide-ranging business that includes aerospace and defence contracts, as well providing services to the energy, pharmaceutical, building and automotive industries, among others.
For NASA, it has been involved in designing a system to analyse the impact of debris that may hit the space shuttle's wings.
NASA was rocked earlier this year when a woman astronaut was accused of driving hundreds for kilometres to kidnap a rival for the affection of a space shuttle pilot.
Identified as 60-year-old William A Phillips, the gunman, a Jacobs Engineering employee working with NASA for 12-13 years, fatally shot David Beverly in the chest at about 1340 hrs yesterday (0010 IST today). After almost three hours, he shot himslef in the head.
Police found a second hostage Francelia Crenshaw, also a contract worker, bound to a chair with duct tape. She was unharmed and taken to hospital immediately, authorities said. However, she was released later and is in good health.
Authorities said Phillips barricaded himself in a second floor office at the Building 44, the communications and tracking development laboratory, after he was able to take a gun past NASA security. Later, he took Beverly and Crenshaw hostage.
Police Capt Dwayne Ready said officers were called to the scene after a man was seen with a gun.
Ready said police were making contact with the suspect when they heard the gunshot. "Believing that the suspect may have shot himself the decision was made to make entry."
It was not clear why Phillips, described as a model employee by Johnson Space Centre's Director Mike Coats, did the killing.
On a chalkboard in the room where his body was found, Phillips left a list of names and phone numbers and a scribbled note, which was not immediately understandable, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said.
There was apparently a dispute between Phillips and Beverly, but the gunman did not threaten Crenshaw, who was uninjured, Hurtt said.
Phillips was unmarried and had no children, and his closest relative is a cousin, Hurtt said.
Police also searched Phillips' sparsely furnished house in Clear Lake for over an hour, but found nothing to indicate he had planned the confrontation, officer Gabe Ortiz said.
In a statement, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said: "All of us at NASA are profoundly saddened by today's tragedy at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims and all those touched by today's events."
NASA employees and contract workers, who were evacuated from the building, were kept informed of the situation by e-mail, including the first one which began, "we have a report of a weapon in Building 44."
Christine Reichert, space station flight controller at Johnson Space Centre, said employees were told to stay in their buildings.
She said the people in the building close to Building 44 "were all good. That's all I know." Doors to Mission Control were locked as is standard procedure.
NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said the incident appeared to be confined to Building 44.
Clear Creek ISD's Space Centre Intermediate School, with about 900 students, had been on a lockdown status, but children were released around 1530 hrs local time. No injuries were reported.
NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said the building was "one of the smaller" office buildings on the campus, where Mission Control is based. He declined to speculate on how a person would get a gun inside NASA security or what his motives would be.
NASA is a highly secured facility that requires approved access. Anyone who comes on to Johnson Space Centre property has to have an employee badge or a visitor badge. Visitors must show a drivers' license or some other form of identification to be cleared to be on the property.
NASA Director of External Relations Eileen Hawley said NASA would study the situation when it was defused to see if any security-related policies needed to be changed.
"We have a standard set of security rules that do include random vehicle searches," Hawley said. "Certainly, I would believe that our security and our senior leadership is going to take a very close look at this incident, and see if there was anything that we should have done or could have done differently."
NASA chief Michael Griffin headed to the centre after the shooting, the space agency said.
The space agency officials said that its operations were not interrupted by the incident. NASA employees watched the drama on television as they were locked down.
President George W Bush was informed about the incident as he flew back to Washington from an event in Michigan, the White House said.
The stand-off came less than a week after a South Korean-origin gunman killed 32 students and teaching staff, including two Indians, at Virginia Tech university before killing himself.
Johnson Space Centre (JSC) was established in 1961 as the Manned Spacecraft Centre and, in 1973, renamed in honour of the late President and Texas native Lyndon B Johnson.
JSC has served as the nerve centre for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab space shuttles, International Space Station and other programmes.
About 3,000 employees work at the centre; most are engineers and scientists. More than 12,000 contractors from about 50 companies work onsite or in nearby office buildings and other facilities.
There are about 110 astronauts based at JSC for training.
Phillips' employer Jacobs Engineering Group, based in Pasadena in California, has a wide-ranging business that includes aerospace and defence contracts, as well providing services to the energy, pharmaceutical, building and automotive industries, among others.
For NASA, it has been involved in designing a system to analyse the impact of debris that may hit the space shuttle's wings.
NASA was rocked earlier this year when a woman astronaut was accused of driving hundreds for kilometres to kidnap a rival for the affection of a space shuttle pilot.
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