EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence.
During evening rush hour in New York City on Monday, a man calmly walked into a Park Avenue office building lobby and killed a police officer, then opened fire on other innocent strangers.
Within a minute, the gunman had disappeared into a labyrinth of elevator banks and hallways, armed and loose somewhere in the 44-story building.
The day’s violence would become the deadliest mass shooting in New York City since 2000. The gunman shot and killed four people and wounded another, before killing himself, police said.
From the moment the first panicked 911 calls were received, the New York Police Department unleashed a torrent of cops, specially trained units, heavy weapons, sophisticated technology and a swift information exchange among its 32,000 police officers and law enforcement partners across the country.
