washingtonpost.com
Gunman Kills 9 in Atlanta Offices
By Shelley Hill
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, July 29, 1999; 5:53 p.m. EDT
ATLANTA (AP) -- A gunman opened
fire in an office building Thursday, killing
at least nine people, Mayor Bill
Campbell said.
Police hunted for the gunman and said
he may have fled to the roof of a building across the street.
Mayor Bill Campbell said the gunman was a day trader who had done
business with a brokerage in the building
The man, identified as Mark O. Barton, 44, of suburban Morrow, ''was
concerned about financial losses,'' he said.
Some witnesses told WSB-TV the shootings were at All-Tech Investment
Group, a day-trading company on the third floor of the building.
The gunfire was reported about 3 p.m. in Two Security Center, which
houses a travel agency, the brokerage and other offices. It is in the
wealthy and fashionable Buckhead section in northern Atlanta.
Dozens of police officers swarmed the building, apparently in an attempt
to find the gunman.Quigley said the gunman, described as 6 feet 4 and
white with a receding hairline, may have fled to another office building.
Office workers were asked to stay inside Two Security Center, but some
were later escorted outside in small groups.
Barton walked into a brokerage office at Securities Center in the upscale
Buckhead section north of Atlanta, then walked across the street and
began shooting at another brokerage there, the mayor said.
Four of the victims were killed in one building and five in the other, he
said.
''We have no idea what caused Mr. Barton to begin shooting,'' Campbell
said. ''Those who have identified Mr. Barton indicated he came in, had a
normal conversation and then began shooting.''
Some people were still hiding in offices in the building nearly three hours
after the shooting.
Campbell said police SWAT units were going through every building in
the area floor by floor, office by office, trying to find Barton.
Police also searched the trunks of cars leaving the area.
Harvey Houtkin, 50 year old president and founder of All-Tech
Investment Group, said from his office in Montvale, N.J., said his
employees told him the suspect hadn't traded since April.
''All I can tell you, I had one of my clients in that office called me after this
happened. He (the gunman) was a former client.'' Houtkin said.
Chris Carter, who works for Allegiance Telecom on the third floor, said
that as police escorted him out, he saw a man's body lying on the floor.
''They weren't attending to him, which led me to believe he was dead,''
Carter said.
Scott Belazi, who also works on the third floor of the building, said police
told him a man walked into the building's leasing office on that floor and
shot someone.
''They got us out of there,'' he said. ''We saw a bunch of blood in the
leasing office.''
Just last month a psychiatrist in Michigan was killed by his former patient,
who also gunned down a 45-year-old woman and injured four other
people in the attack. He then fatally shot himself.
In April, a 71-year-old man raked the first floor of the Mormon Family
History Library in Salt Lake City with .22-caliber handgun fire, killing two
people and wounding four others before police shot him to death.
The library shooting came just more than three months after a 24-year-old
man allegedly walked into a downtown Salt Lake office building with a
grocery sack of bullets and opened fire. One person died and another
suffered minor gunshot wounds in the Jan. 14 shooting.
© 1999 The Associated Press
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