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Armed man forces Miami Herald evacuation
Gunman demands to see editor; police say no-one is in danger
BREAKING NEWS
Updated: 11 minutes ago
MIAMI - Employees at The Miami Herald were told to evacuate Friday after an armed man entered the newspaper’s building.
Police set up a perimeter around the downtown building that houses the Herald and its Spanish-language publication El Nuevo Herald. It was not immediately known if there were injuries or hostages.
Katia Rodriguez, who works at the newspaper’s city desk, said employees were being evacuated from the sixth floor. It was not immediately known if employees from other floors were being evacuated, but about 60 people were gathered outside the building.
Police did not immediately return calls seeking comment. The man was not immediately identified.
Police Detective Delrish Moss told MSNBC that the armed man was believed to be a former employee who had a problem with an editor who wasn’t in the building at the time. He said police believed no one in the building was in danger.
“He basically walked in with two weapons, that includes a machine gun, he was dressed in camouflage, and he was looking for a particular employee and said he had a problem with only the editor,” Moss said after investigators talked to security personnel.
The Miami Herald reported on its Web site that the man walked into the sixth-floor newsroom, appeared agitated and demanded to see El Nuevo Herald Executive Editor Humberto Castello. About 12 to 15 employees inside the newsroom were present, employees said.
It was the second situation involving a gun at the newspaper in the past year and half. In July 2005, former city commissioner Arthur E. Teele Jr. fatally shot himself in the Herald lobby after asking to speak with columnist Jim DeFede. Teele had been under investigation for corruption and was just indicted by a federal grand jury on fraud charges.
DeFede was fired for recording his telephone conversations with Teele just before the shooting without the politician’s permission.
El Nuevo Herald is one of the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspapers and is published by The Miami Herald Media Co.
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Hmmmm, I wonder if they mistook a regular semi-auto rifle for the "machine gun"
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