Gunman shoots 13 dead at US immigrant counselling centre in Binghamton before killing himself

• Rear exit blocked by car to stop people escaping
• Suspect used front door and opened fire with rifle
Police near the American Civic Association building in Binghamton, New York
Police in Binghamton take up positions behind a vehicle during a shooting at the American Civic Association building. Photograph: AP

The small upstate New York town of Binghamton became the latest community to suffer the horror of gun rampage in America when a gunman yesterday killed 13 people at an immigrant counselling centre where many of his victims were studying to become US citizens.

The carnage at the American Civic Association, a language and help centre for immigrants from all over the world settled in New York state, had all the hallmarks of being premeditated. The gunman, still unidentified last night, drove his car to the back of the building and parked it tight against the rear door - preventing those inside from escaping.

He then entered the front door armed with two handguns, shot both receptionists, one fatally and the other in the stomach.

The wounded receptionist managed to sound the alarm by mobile phone at 10.31 am. Police were on the scene within two minutes and Swat teams four minutes later, but by then it was too late to prevent the death toll rising to horrifying levels.

The gunman appeared to have walked from the reception area a short distance to a classroom where immigrants were studying for their citizenship exams. Twelve of the people in that room were to join the list of the gunman's victims, and a total of four others were last night in hospital in critical condition.

It took police three hours to clear the building, a low-rise concrete structure in a quiet side street in the centre of town. Twenty-six people were cowering in the basement, many crammed in a boiler room, and were so scared they refused to come out.

Zhanar Tokhtabayeva, a 30-year-old from Kazakhstan, said that she was in an English class when she heard a shot and her teacher screamed for everyone to go to the storage room.

"I heard the shots, every shot. I heard no screams, just silence, shooting," she told the Associated Press. "I heard shooting, very long time ... and I was thinking, when will this stop? I was thinking that my life was finished."

The shooting is the latest in a seemingly never ending stream of incidents of mass murder in the US, which many observers ascribe to the country's gun laws which are among the laxest in the developed world.

Last week, a gunman killed eight people in a North Carolina nursing home. Last month, an Alabama man killed 10 people, including several members of his family, before turning the gun on himself. The largest mass shooting in American history occurred in April 2007, when a mentally ill student at Virginia Tech University killed 32 people and wounded many others before killing himself. This month marks the 10th anniversary of the killing of 13 at Columbine high school in Colorado by two disgruntled students.

Many states have few strictures on gun ownership beyond barring convicted felons and the severely mentally ill from possessing firearms.

Police were cautious not to identify the gunman until they had confirmed his identity. But they found his body among the dead, and were confident that he was indeed the gunman because of a satchel of ammunition around his neck and the two handguns beside him.

Agents had also managed to trace the person who borrowed the car used to ram shut the back door of the centre.

There were unconfirmed reports last night that the gunman was recently sacked from an IBM computer assembly factory six miles away. The police also revealed that he had links to the scene of the rampage. "He's no stranger to the civic association," Joe Zikuski, the police chief, said.

Binghamton, a university town of 45,000, has a long lineage of immigrant populations, attracted to its industries since the 1920s.

The civic association helped many to learn English upon arrival in America. "How could he do this to them? The people who work here are our friends," said Peter Lu standing down the street from the centre. He came to the US from China 20 years ago and his wife learned English there.

"Without this place many of us would not have been able to live in America."

Last night relatives of the dead were being briefed and comforted at a Catholic meeting house a mile away from the scene. The nationality of those assembled suggested that the victims came from all over the world: China, Laos, South Korea and Slovakia.

Marsha Maroney, who works for the Catholic charities group which provided the facilities, said that the atmosphere among the relatives was heavy. "It's worry, and shock, and now fatigue. It's terribly hard to watch."

The news of yet another gun tragedy may bring the issue of controls back into the political debate, though since Virginia tech it has receded into the background once again under the ever-present pressure of the gun lobby.

The Obama administration has indicated that it supports the renewal of an expired federal ban on assault weapons.

In Baden-Baden in Germany, Barack Obama said last night that he was shocked and saddened to hear of the shooting, and he called it an "act of senseless violence."

• This clarification was added on Tuesday 7 April 2009. IBM would like to make it clear that the gunman in question was never in their employ.

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