Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 9, 1993 TAG: 9312090164
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICK HAMPSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
The passengers in the third car shouldn't have relaxed; the train's arrival in suburbia simply meant the killing could begin.
As the Long Island Rail Road train rumbled through Nassau County, Carl Petersen, a banker, was in a window seat up front, doing paperwork. Gene Mason, an insurance underwriter, and Kevin Blum, a bond trader, were near the doors, waiting for the Merillon Avenue stop.
Then Colin Ferguson, an unemployed Jamaican immigrant, stood up and started firing.
Police say Ferguson, who boarded the train at Jamaica station in Queens, was carrying a 9mm Ruger semiautomatic pistol and a bag of ammunition.
In his pockets were four pages of scrawlings that suggested an obsession with race and an irrational anger at people he had never met.
All those shot Tuesday were white or Asian - two of the groups he disparaged in those scrawlings.
Ferguson, a 35-year-old naturalized citizen from Jamaica, was held without bail Wednesday after his arraignment on four counts of murder and a weapons possession count. A fifth person died Wednesday.
The stocky black man, his hands cuffed behind him, did not speak or enter a plea at the hearing.
The notes listed the "reasons for this [shooting]: Adelphi University racism, EEOC racism, Workmen's Compensation Board. Racism of Gov. Cuomo's staff . . . Additional reasons for this: Caucasian racism and Uncle Tom Negroes." He also cited "Chinese racism."
According to police, he boarded the train to kill. But the slaughter could not occur in the city; Ferguson, according to his notes, had too much respect for black Mayor David Dinkins.
So he did not explode when the conductor asked him for a few bucks for the difference between his off-peak ticket and the rush hour fare.
But as the 5:33 left New Hyde Park station Tuesday, the gunman rose from his seat on the right of the aisle in the back of the car. Without saying a word, he began shooting passengers sitting to his left.
In front, Mason heard pops. Firecrackers, thought Blum. To Petersen, the sounds behind him sounded like claps.
He looked back and beheld the surreal: An ordinary-looking black man, medium height and build, was shooting passengers - in the neck, the throat, the arms - as calmly as a conductor taking tickets.
"He would turn one way and shoot, then turn the other and shoot, and I thought to myself, `This can't be happening,' " Mason said.
But - as one passenger yelled - "This is real life, everybody!"
Mason and Petersen and everyone else dove to the floor. Petersen began counting the shots; was it an automatic or a revolver? After 15 or 16 shots, there was a pause.
Just when he thought - hoped - it was over, the shooting resumed.
Robert Giugliano, a 38-year-old mechanic, jumped over a seat and tried to run, but was hit in the chest. Dennis McCarthy was shot to death, and his 26-year-old son, Kevin, in the next seat, was seriously wounded. Lisa Combatti, seven months pregnant, was shot in the buttocks.
Petersen looked at the passengers next to him. "A lady one person away from me was shot in the shoulder, bleeding. Two other people nearby on the floor were ashen. I knew they were dying. Another man was shot, and didn't even know it."
The shots sparked a stampede. A wave of passengers flowed through the 12-car train in each direction, crushing anyone in the way.
Sprawled on the floor, clutching his briefcase to his chest, Petersen wondered what to do when the gunman came to his row.
"I decided I would rush him," he recalled. "It had nothing to do with being heroic. I was not just going to lay there and let him shoot me in the head."
But the gunman passed to the end of the car and stepped into the area between the second and third cars. Then he returned to car No. 3 - perhaps, according to one police source, because he had left his ammo bag behind.
His gun was out of bullets again, giving three passengers - Blum, Mark McEntee, Michael O'Connor Jr. - an opening. They rushed him.
Finally, the gunman had a real fight on his hands, but now he just dropped his empty gun. To Blum, who had moved from the city a year ago to raise his children in tranquility, the gunman "had a blank look - like he knew he had done something wrong."
They wrestled him down. After three minutes and three dozen shots, the massacre on the 5:33 was over.
Gene Mason, meanwhile, had fled to the next car as the train pulled into the station.
He was amazed to hear a railroad employee tell the conductor over the intercom not to open the doors.
So he opened them himself.
A mass of bloodied, hysterical humanity poured out onto the station platform, to the horror of the usual audience of waiting friends and relatives, including Blum's wife, Susanne.
On Wednesday, Petersen didn't go to work. Instead, the banker put on a flannel shirt and some khakis and returned to the station where his nightmare ended.
"I need to reconcile all this," he explained.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB