The following story is absolutely true except for one detail. I’m sure you’ll figure out what that detail is.
County Route 6 snakes over the Shawangunk Mountains into New Paltz, and from New Paltz, Route 32 leads into the lower Hudson Valley. My daughter used to drive these roads to visit her boyfriend-- now her husband-- in Ulster County. I worried, because the mountain road curls dangerously through unlighted forest, but Laura’s always been a stubborn and independent child. In those days I hoped she had a conscientious guardian angel.
She drove north the night before her high school graduation. In the early hours of the following morning, between four and five o’clock, she decided to head home. The mountain road disappeared intermittently beneath the smoky mists that precede daybreak, but Laura navigated it safely.
Just outside of New Paltz, a blue Oldsmobile glided to a stop beside her car. She breathed a prayer of thanks that her window was up and her door, locked. A man approached her and motioned for her to unroll the window. Something familiar about his blue eyes caused her to let down her guard, and she slid the window open.
“Don’t follow Route 32 through New Paltz,” he said. “There’s a sniper loose. Follow me, instead.”
A sniper? Follow him? What kind of idiot did he think she...
He didn’t pause to fend off argument. He got back in his car, and Laura found herself following it down a secluded side street, noting his license plate number, TPC-6. They passed stone houses, legacy of the Huguenots who remained only as ghosts in the small town. Though it was late June, Laura felt a chill, but the labyrinthine route that the stranger took her on finally led back to the main road, south of New Paltz.
Later that morning we listened to the news. Sure enough, a man had gone berserk in New Paltz, shooting at policemen, mainly, but also any target that happened into his path. The focus of his activity had been along Route 32.
Laura described the stranger and his car to me, including the license plate number. Was there any way we could find out who he was, so she could thank him?
A blue Oldsmobile. Kindly blue eyes. License plate TPC-6. I didn’t think it was a coincidence, and I wasn’t surprised that Laura hadn’t recognized her grandfather, because he died when she was six years old.
_____________________________________________________
June 22, 2001
Whizzing bullets pierce New Paltz calm
By Kristina Wells and Jeremiah Horrigan
The Times Herald-Record
[email protected]
[email protected]
It happened here.
The violent fuse first sparked at Waco, Texas, exploded in this peaceful college town yesterday as a gunman held downtown New Paltz hostage for nearly two terrifying hours.
Police say Jared T. Bozydaj, a New Paltz native son, fired at least 50 semiautomatic rounds from a high-powered rifle that ripped through apartments, businesses and cars along Church and Main streets. One bullet tore through the hand of a sheriff's deputy. Stray shots came within inches of sleeping residents.
Miraculously, no one was killed.
Police say Bozydaj acted in the name of Timothy McVeigh, executed last week for the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. McVeigh said he was exacting revenge for the FBI's violent confrontation at Waco in 1993.
Bozydaj was charged with attempted murder. Police say his targets were cops.
In the gray, drizzly morning after, stunned witnesses huddled under storefronts. They stammered stories of gunfire in the night, bullets ripping through walls and the foul-mouthed threats of an elusive, rifle-wielding terrorist.
The story of horror and heroism began at 3 a.m. yesterday. Street lights clicked red and green in the wee hour quiet. Stragglers from the village's half dozen bars walked home. A block away on Church Street, Jonathan Baker was awoken by a bup-bup-bup sound. He thought someone was pounding the metal hide of a Dumpster.
New Paltz police heard it, too. The 911 central switchboard in Kingston lit up: "Gunshots in New Paltz."
The first burst – seven or eight shots – came from Church, a narrow one-way street where a few businesses mix with old homes and rentals catering to students and artists.
Jenae Barney and her boyfriend were sleeping on a futon on the second floor of 13 Church St. when a bullet tore through the floor and sent a shower of splinters over the bed. Wood chips flew through the smoke.
A bullet bounced off the radiator and ricocheted through the wall into the next room. If not for the radiator, Barney would have taken a bullet to the head.
The couple bolted across the street to 10 Church where a group of terrified residents had gathered behind a stone porch.
Jonathan Baker called the cops and lay on the floor of his second-floor apartment at 11 Church St. Below, bullets ripped the facade of the weekly New Paltz News. Baker prayed the shooter wouldn't aim higher.
But the gunman crouched, waiting for his intended targets – police officers. Cops were the government and the government was the enemy. All he wanted to do was kill a cop.
Sgt. Karl Baker tore through the village streets in a police car. The gunman shot at the Ford Expedition. The officer ran into a nearby building where he waited for a chance to shoot from his second-floor perch.
Meanwhile, the gunman slowly turned toward Carl Welden, his automatic weapon leveled on his hip. Welden crouched behind the stone porch with Barney and other frightened residents.
Welden ducked as the shooter panned past the porch.
New Paltz Officer Patrick Koch drove south on North Chestnut Street in a patrol car. Suddenly, the windshield shattered. Koch put the pedal to the metal as the sniper shot two more times. The bullets shattered the rear window.
The shooter ducked into alleys. He concealed himself behind bushes and buildings. He wore a black T-shirt and black fatigue-like pants. The pockets bulged at the seams with what appeared to be ammunition.
He moved like smoke through the damp morning air. He carried an IntraTec 7.62 semiautomatic weapon and four banana clip rounds of 30 bullets each. The weapon, a legally purchased, armor-piercing rifle, dangled on a strap hanging from his massive neck. He wore a bullet-proof vest.
A resident hailed the gunman, thinking the man was a cop.
"I ain't no f-----' cop and if you call the cops, I'll kill you."
Sgt. Baker, still perched in a nearby building, aimed his department-issued shotgun at the gunman and fired when the streets cleared of pedestrians.
Baker missed.
The suspect moved randomly, shooting over the heads of civilians. He greeted arriving officers with a spray of bullets.
And then he hit one. Ulster County sheriff's Deputy Jeffrey Queipo fell to the pavement on North Chestnut Street.
The bullet had shattered the 28-year-old deputy's hand. A state police patrol car whisked the injured deputy to St. Francis Hospital where surgeons repaired the damage.
It was 40 minutes since the first shot rang out. A thought ran through Jonathan Baker's mind as he crouched in his apartment shower stall: This wouldn't end.
New Paltz police Officer Robert Knoth thought the same thing.
The sniper reloaded.
Knoth watched as the elusive hunter showed himself on North Chestnut. The terrorist sank to one knee and took aim at sheriff's deputy Stuart McKenzie.
Knoth came out from the cover of a nearby bush with his K-9 dog Nero and his service revolver drawn, a finger on the trigger.
"McKenzie, get down," he shouted.
Knoth aimed his pistol at the gunman.
"Drop it."
The shooter dropped the rifle, fell on his stomach and put his hands out. It was over.
The cop and the gunman looked at each other in silence. More than anything, the cop thought, the man looked tired.
Hours later, residents of Church Street huddled outside a bookstore, joking nervously, waiting for the sunrise. A SWAT team marched down Main Street. And the day broke into a hammer of rain.
Staff writers Alan Snel, Deb Medenbach, Linda Fite and Paul Brooks also provided dispatches for this story.
County Route 6 snakes over the Shawangunk Mountains into New Paltz, and from New Paltz, Route 32 leads into the lower Hudson Valley. My daughter used to drive these roads to visit her boyfriend-- now her husband-- in Ulster County. I worried, because the mountain road curls dangerously through unlighted forest, but Laura’s always been a stubborn and independent child. In those days I hoped she had a conscientious guardian angel.
She drove north the night before her high school graduation. In the early hours of the following morning, between four and five o’clock, she decided to head home. The mountain road disappeared intermittently beneath the smoky mists that precede daybreak, but Laura navigated it safely.
Just outside of New Paltz, a blue Oldsmobile glided to a stop beside her car. She breathed a prayer of thanks that her window was up and her door, locked. A man approached her and motioned for her to unroll the window. Something familiar about his blue eyes caused her to let down her guard, and she slid the window open.
“Don’t follow Route 32 through New Paltz,” he said. “There’s a sniper loose. Follow me, instead.”
A sniper? Follow him? What kind of idiot did he think she...
He didn’t pause to fend off argument. He got back in his car, and Laura found herself following it down a secluded side street, noting his license plate number, TPC-6. They passed stone houses, legacy of the Huguenots who remained only as ghosts in the small town. Though it was late June, Laura felt a chill, but the labyrinthine route that the stranger took her on finally led back to the main road, south of New Paltz.
Later that morning we listened to the news. Sure enough, a man had gone berserk in New Paltz, shooting at policemen, mainly, but also any target that happened into his path. The focus of his activity had been along Route 32.
Laura described the stranger and his car to me, including the license plate number. Was there any way we could find out who he was, so she could thank him?
A blue Oldsmobile. Kindly blue eyes. License plate TPC-6. I didn’t think it was a coincidence, and I wasn’t surprised that Laura hadn’t recognized her grandfather, because he died when she was six years old.
_____________________________________________________
June 22, 2001
Whizzing bullets pierce New Paltz calm
By Kristina Wells and Jeremiah Horrigan
The Times Herald-Record
[email protected]
[email protected]
It happened here.
The violent fuse first sparked at Waco, Texas, exploded in this peaceful college town yesterday as a gunman held downtown New Paltz hostage for nearly two terrifying hours.
Police say Jared T. Bozydaj, a New Paltz native son, fired at least 50 semiautomatic rounds from a high-powered rifle that ripped through apartments, businesses and cars along Church and Main streets. One bullet tore through the hand of a sheriff's deputy. Stray shots came within inches of sleeping residents.
Miraculously, no one was killed.
Police say Bozydaj acted in the name of Timothy McVeigh, executed last week for the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. McVeigh said he was exacting revenge for the FBI's violent confrontation at Waco in 1993.
Bozydaj was charged with attempted murder. Police say his targets were cops.
In the gray, drizzly morning after, stunned witnesses huddled under storefronts. They stammered stories of gunfire in the night, bullets ripping through walls and the foul-mouthed threats of an elusive, rifle-wielding terrorist.
The story of horror and heroism began at 3 a.m. yesterday. Street lights clicked red and green in the wee hour quiet. Stragglers from the village's half dozen bars walked home. A block away on Church Street, Jonathan Baker was awoken by a bup-bup-bup sound. He thought someone was pounding the metal hide of a Dumpster.
New Paltz police heard it, too. The 911 central switchboard in Kingston lit up: "Gunshots in New Paltz."
The first burst – seven or eight shots – came from Church, a narrow one-way street where a few businesses mix with old homes and rentals catering to students and artists.
Jenae Barney and her boyfriend were sleeping on a futon on the second floor of 13 Church St. when a bullet tore through the floor and sent a shower of splinters over the bed. Wood chips flew through the smoke.
A bullet bounced off the radiator and ricocheted through the wall into the next room. If not for the radiator, Barney would have taken a bullet to the head.
The couple bolted across the street to 10 Church where a group of terrified residents had gathered behind a stone porch.
Jonathan Baker called the cops and lay on the floor of his second-floor apartment at 11 Church St. Below, bullets ripped the facade of the weekly New Paltz News. Baker prayed the shooter wouldn't aim higher.
But the gunman crouched, waiting for his intended targets – police officers. Cops were the government and the government was the enemy. All he wanted to do was kill a cop.
Sgt. Karl Baker tore through the village streets in a police car. The gunman shot at the Ford Expedition. The officer ran into a nearby building where he waited for a chance to shoot from his second-floor perch.
Meanwhile, the gunman slowly turned toward Carl Welden, his automatic weapon leveled on his hip. Welden crouched behind the stone porch with Barney and other frightened residents.
Welden ducked as the shooter panned past the porch.
New Paltz Officer Patrick Koch drove south on North Chestnut Street in a patrol car. Suddenly, the windshield shattered. Koch put the pedal to the metal as the sniper shot two more times. The bullets shattered the rear window.
The shooter ducked into alleys. He concealed himself behind bushes and buildings. He wore a black T-shirt and black fatigue-like pants. The pockets bulged at the seams with what appeared to be ammunition.
He moved like smoke through the damp morning air. He carried an IntraTec 7.62 semiautomatic weapon and four banana clip rounds of 30 bullets each. The weapon, a legally purchased, armor-piercing rifle, dangled on a strap hanging from his massive neck. He wore a bullet-proof vest.
A resident hailed the gunman, thinking the man was a cop.
"I ain't no f-----' cop and if you call the cops, I'll kill you."
Sgt. Baker, still perched in a nearby building, aimed his department-issued shotgun at the gunman and fired when the streets cleared of pedestrians.
Baker missed.
The suspect moved randomly, shooting over the heads of civilians. He greeted arriving officers with a spray of bullets.
And then he hit one. Ulster County sheriff's Deputy Jeffrey Queipo fell to the pavement on North Chestnut Street.
The bullet had shattered the 28-year-old deputy's hand. A state police patrol car whisked the injured deputy to St. Francis Hospital where surgeons repaired the damage.
It was 40 minutes since the first shot rang out. A thought ran through Jonathan Baker's mind as he crouched in his apartment shower stall: This wouldn't end.
New Paltz police Officer Robert Knoth thought the same thing.
The sniper reloaded.
Knoth watched as the elusive hunter showed himself on North Chestnut. The terrorist sank to one knee and took aim at sheriff's deputy Stuart McKenzie.
Knoth came out from the cover of a nearby bush with his K-9 dog Nero and his service revolver drawn, a finger on the trigger.
"McKenzie, get down," he shouted.
Knoth aimed his pistol at the gunman.
"Drop it."
The shooter dropped the rifle, fell on his stomach and put his hands out. It was over.
The cop and the gunman looked at each other in silence. More than anything, the cop thought, the man looked tired.
Hours later, residents of Church Street huddled outside a bookstore, joking nervously, waiting for the sunrise. A SWAT team marched down Main Street. And the day broke into a hammer of rain.
Staff writers Alan Snel, Deb Medenbach, Linda Fite and Paul Brooks also provided dispatches for this story.