Gunman kills himself, mother at Baltimore hospital
BALTIMORE, MD
The doctor, who was wounded in the abdomen, was expected to
survive.
The gunman, 50-year-old Paul Warren Pardus, had been listening
to the surgeon around midday when he "became emotionally
distraught and reacted ... and was overwhelmed by the news of his
mother's condition," Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld
III said.
Pardus pulled a semiautomatic gun from his waistband and shot
the doctor once, the commissioner said. The doctor, identified by
colleagues as orthopedic surgeon David B. Cohen, collapsed outside
the eighth-floor room where Pardus' mother, Jean Davis, was being
treated.
Pardus then holed up in the room in a more than two-hour
standoff that led authorities to lock down a small section of the
Nelson Building while allowing the rest of the sprawling red-brick
medical complex -- a cluster of hospital, research and education
buildings -- to remain open.
When officers made their way to the room, they found Pardus and
his mother shot to death, he on the floor, she in her bed.
Bealefeld said he did not know what the woman was being treated
for at Hopkins, a world-class institution widely known for its
cancer research and treatment. It is part of Johns Hopkins
University, which has one of the foremost medical schools in the
world.
Michelle Burrell, who works in a coffee shop in the hospital
lobby, said she was told by employees who were on the floor where
the doctor was shot that the gunman was angry with the doctor's
treatment of his mother.
"It's crazy," she said.
Pardus was from Arlington, Va., and had a handgun permit in that
state, police said. The gunman was initially identified as Warren
Davis, but police later said that was an alias.
The wounded doctor, an assistant professor at the medical
school, underwent surgery.
"The doctor will be OK," police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi
said. "He's in the best place in the world -- at Johns Hopkins
Hospital."
With more than 30,000 employees, the Johns Hopkins medical
system is Baltimore's biggest private employer. The hospital has
more than 1,000 beds and more than 1,700 full-time doctors.
The Nelson Building is the main hospital tower. The eighth floor
is home to orthopedic, spine, trauma and thoracic services.
Hopkins said it informed its employees about the gunman in an
e-mail at 11:30 a.m., about a half-hour after the doctor was shot.
They were told to remain in their offices or rooms with the doors
locked and to stay away from the windows. At 1:30 p.m., another
e-mail went out advising employees that police "are in control of
the situation."
As the standoff dragged on, people with appointments in other
parts of the hospital were encouraged to keep them.
Hannah Murtaugh, 25, a first-year student at the nursing school,
said her physiology class in an adjacent building was put on
lockdown. She said a classmate received a text-message warning from
the school about a gunman in the Nelson Building. Her professor
interrupted the lecture to let students know.
"They just kept telling us to stay away from the windows," she
said. "I was scared -- wondering if any of my friends or other
students who had clinicals that day were on that floor, hoping the
situation would be contained, trying to see what was going on while
staying away from the windows."
She said security personnel helped keep everyone calm and made
sure doors were locked.