Suspect in campus shooting described as loner
JOE MILICIA
Suspect in campus shooting described as loner
Charges in Cleveland case may be filed today
By JOE MILICIA Associated Press
Monday, May 12, 2003
Cleveland — The man accused of killing one person in a shooting rampage at a university business school was described by neighbors as a loner, and he appeared to have been obsessed with a school employee he had accused of ruining his Web site.
Police said Biswanath Halder was armed with a pair of large- caliber handguns when he entered Case Western Reserve University’s business school Friday and began a seven-hour standoff with police. Two other people were wounded and Halder was shot in one shoulder before he was captured.
The 38-year-old man Halder accused of ruining his Web site was in the building but wasn’t harmed.
Police Sgt. Donna Bell said Sunday that charges wouldn’t be filed against Halder until police finished gathering evidence in the building, which could happen as early as today.Halder had not hired an attorney or had any visitors, Bell said.
Halder, 62, lived near campus in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood, made up of students and families who have lived there for generations.
“I talked to him, but he’d walk right by and not say anything,” said resident Peter Gatto, 81.
Other neighbors described him as unfriendly, and said he walked down the middle of the street, rather than on the sidewalks, apparently to avoid talking to them.
“To me, it seemed like he was afraid of people,” said Jay DiRenzo.
“I always saw him alone,” said neighbor Tom Thomas, 42. “He was not very approachable. You’d try to say hello to him and he’d ignore you.”
A resume Halder posted on the Internet includes service in the Indian army, as well as experience in computer programming, designing electrical measuring equipment in Germany, real estate and financial planning.
Halder recently lost an appeal of a lawsuit he filed against a university computer lab employee in which Halder accused the employee of deleting information from his Web site, billed as a network devoted to resources for natives of India living outside their homeland.
Court records show Halder sued the employee, Shawn Miller, in June 2001. Miller denied doing anything to Halder’s computer files.
University President Edward Hundert said the lawsuit was dismissed and Halder lost an appeal about a month ago.
In a July 2002 letter to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John Sutula, who handled the lawsuit, Halder wrote: “The end result of all of these outright evil actions will be that society will end up paying a severe price.”
Norman Wallace, a 30-year-old graduate student, was killed in the shooting. The two people injured in the shooting — a 32-year-old man shot in the buttocks and a 46-year-old woman shot in her collar bone – – were released from the hospital Saturday, authorities said.
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