Tag: Wheeling

Ex-police officer identified as shooter at federal building in Wheeling

A former Wheeling police officer reportedly fired up to 30 shots into the federal courthouse Wednesday afternoon before he was shot and killed by security…

A former Wheeling police officer reportedly fired up to 30 shots into the federal courthouse Wednesday afternoon before he was shot and killed by security officers at the building.

Update: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 10:22 p.m.

Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger identified the gunman in Wednesday afternoon’s shooting as 55-year-old Thomas J. Piccard of Bridgeport, Ohio. He is a retired Wheeling police officer.
At a news conference late Wednesday, Schwertfeger said Piccard was armed with an assault weapon and a handgun.
 
He also said three on-duty security officers were injured by flying debris during the onslaught.

Update: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 9:02 p.m.

The Associated Press reports Wheeling Mayor Andy McKenzie said police who briefed him after Wednesday’s courthouse assault told him the man was a 20-year-plus veteran of the force. He said the man retired 13 years ago.
 
McKenzie said the retired officer’s name was not being released immediately, although various media outlets around the state have identified the shooter as Thomas Picard.

Investigators were seeking a search warrant for Piccard’s home in hopes of determining a motive and if he acted alone, said Chief Deputy Mike Claxton of the Marshals Service in northern West Virginia.

Update: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Glynis Board  dispatched the following information:

A spokesman fron the U.S. Marshals Service reports that the gunman was an ex-Wheeling police officer who was terminated in 2001. The FBI is leading an ongoing investigation in collaboration with state and city police. The spokesman says the gunman shot at least 20 shots at the fed courthouse–and some entered the building. A U.S. Marshal court security officer and a Wheeling police officer returned fire, injuring the gunman who was pronounced dead from those injuries at a local hospital. The spokesman adds that courthouse will resume normal operations tomorrow.

Update: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.

The Wheeling Intelligencer reports that, at a 5:30 news conference, Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger said there is no known motive for the shooting as of yet. Wheeling’s paper also confirms through multiple sources that the shooter has been identified as Thomas Piccard.

Update: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 6:20 p.m.

A witness told WV MetroNews the gunman used a rifle, reloading at least once, as he fired at the federal building around 2:45 p.m.

Authorities said the gunman, identified as Thomas Piccard, died at a local hospital. U.S. attorney Bill Ihlenfeld said Piccard was a former Wheeling police officer.

Ihlenfeld was in his office when the shooting occurred.

The Wheeling Intelligencer reports that the shooter may have had other targets in mind.

The Federal Building may not have been the man's only target, as an eyewitness to the shooting said he also may have been targeting the nearby Wheeling YWCA.

Wheeling resident Carla Webb Daniels said she witnessed the shooter fire from the Chase Bank parking lot across Chapline Street from the Federal Building. Daniels said she was in her attorney's office when she heard loud gun shots. When she looked out she saw a white male standing between a silver or gold SUV and a white vehicle in the parking lot pull out a gun and start shooting at the federal building. She then saw the shooter put down the assault rifle and reload before shooting at the YWCA building.

"I was so nervous, I couldn't believe it," Daniels said. "People were scared and were banging on the doors asking to be let in."

This story was originally published on October 9, 2013 at 5:48 p.m.

Legendary Locals celebrated in Wheeling

Brent Carney, professor of History at Eastern Gateway Community College, conceived of the idea of putting a book of local Wheeling legends together.“I…

Brent Carney, professor of History at Eastern Gateway Community College, conceived of the idea of putting a book of local Wheeling legends together.

“I approached Seán Duffy from the Ohio County Public Library about highlighting some of the people in and around Wheeling that have contributed not only to Wheeling’s culture but also to American culture at large. You know a lot of people know about Betty Zain, they know about Walter Ruther, but there’re so many other characters that locally, and even, I would say, you would have to be in the right part of town to know about them.

“Like Paul McGuiness who was on the USS Indianapolis—the famed ship talked about by Quint in the movie Jaws that went down and hundreds of people were eaten by sharks. When you go and sit in his kitchen and talk with him, he has this unbelievable story and then I go around town and very few people know about him.

So it’s just a way to highlight Wheeling citizens and Seán Duffy really ran with it.”

Seán Duffy is the programming and publicity coordinator at the Ohio County Public Library:

“Well, actually Brent Carney said we should do this book because we’ve worked with Arcadia in the past and he said we can donate the royalties to the Ohio County Library and so that’s kind of what sold me. So I thought, there are a lot of people from Wheeling who have accomplished great things, and it would be a worthwhile project.”

The two men collaborated with about forty writers in Wheeling to come up with the biographical stories that accompany the many photos and illustrations of the legendary locals. Duffy explains they began with a list of about 300 names but had to widdle that number down by about half.

“Ultimately it was a very difficult process to narrow it down. So we remain concerned that we haven’t included everyone who deserves to be in the book. It just wasn’t possible. So what we tried to do was find a representative sample beyond those people who are obvious choices like Betty Zain and Samuel McCollough, and Walter Ruther, Chu Berry the jazz musician…”

Many of the characters that landed in the book are also in the Wheeling Hall of Fame, but Duffy says by collaborating with so many local historians and writers, both he and Carney had the opportunity to discover lesser known legends.

“There were people in the sciences that I wasn’t aware of, people in the Aviation Hall of Fame from Wheeling, great architects who designed many of the buildings in Wheeling, the list goes on and on. Of course we knew about the sports heroes, Brent and I. We knew about the heroes of history that we’ve already mentioned… But there are a lot of people who’ve done things who don’t get the glamour and recognition that they deserve.”

Duffy says he was happy to be able to include one of his personal favorites: Augustus Pollack—a cigar maker from Wheeling.

“He’s also one of the only business owners who has a statue built in his honor by the people who worked for him, by labor, because he was—we’re talking late 19th century, guilded age—he was very progressive, he had an open-door policy. He treated his workers right, which was virtually unheard of in the late 19th century. And so he influenced a lot of other business leaders and made Wheeling sort of a better place for the working class. So I was happy to include all that in the book as well.”

Duffy says it’s a little early to plan a sequel, but with so many legends still unnamed, the thought isn’t far from his mind.

“I’m open to that idea, depending on the feedback that we get on this book, it might be something that we’ll pursue.”

Exit mobile version