Viet Refugee Believed Related to Some of His Victims : Boston Gunman Kills Five Women, Self

BOSTON —  A man opened fire with an automatic weapon in a Boston neighborhood Sunday, killing five women and critically injuring a man and a 3-year-old girl before taking his own life, authorities said.

The gunman shot four people outside a home in the city’s Dorchester section before running into the dwelling, witnesses and police said. He shot three people inside the house before committing suicide after a two-hour standoff with police, Deputy Police Supt. Robert O’Toole said.

A Vietnamese interpreter called to the scene by police said the gunman was a Vietnamese refugee involved in a dispute with family members over money, but police said they had no information about a possible motive.

Identity Not Disclosed

The gunman’s identity was not immediately available, but he was believed to have been related to some of the victims.

“Bullets were flying around our heads,” said paramedic Juli Nichols, who responded to the emergency call.

The driver of a tow truck parked on the street jumped out of the vehicle, picked up the 3-year-old girl who was shot and ran through gunfire to hand the girl to rescuers, Nichols said.

When police arrived, they found paramedics treating a man, a woman and the child on a street around the corner from the house into which the gunman fled, O’Toole said.

An Asian woman was found shot on a porch across the street, O’Toole said.

Apparently Shot Himself

Inside, police found a woman shot in a stairwell, another woman shot in a hallway and a third woman shot in a bedroom of the apartment in which the gunman apparently shot himself in the head, O’Toole said.

The 19-year-old man was in critical condition at Boston City Hospital, police spokeswoman Jane Sheehan said.

The 3-year-old girl was in critical condition at New England Medical Center, a spokeswoman said.

DiWanna Salmons, 14, who lives across the street from the three-story, six-unit apartment building used by the gunman, said she was returning home and thought she heard firecrackers exploding when she saw the gunman, wearing a trench coat with a rifle barrel protruding from one of the sleeves.

‘He Shot at Me’

“He came running at me,” the crying teen-ager said as she was comforted by relatives. “He chased me into my yard, but he slipped on a piece of board. He shot at me, but nothing came out of the gun.”

Two other neighbors, one of them a nurse, said they rushed to aid the woman who was shot outside the house.

The woman “had a lot of blood coming from her mouth and nose,” the nurse said. “I couldn’t tell if it was a head or chest wound.”

The other woman, identified as Nancy Feeney, said the gunman fired several shots at the woman’s head after she had been felled by the first shot.

After the gunman rushed into the house, Feeney and the nurse said they heard windows breaking and people yelling: “Get back, Get back!” The man then fired additional shots into the street, they said.