After a 19-hour standoff, a SWAT team and an FBI unit moved into an abandoned bar upstate and killed the man who went on a seemingly unmotivated shooting spree in the towns of Mohawk and Herkimer yesterday. Kurt Myers, 64, had been holed up in the back room of the cluttered Herkimer bar since killing four people and wounding two others. Officials say he died in a shootout with police around 8 a.m. "There’s no apparent motive to the best of our knowledge at this time to provoke these attacks,” Governor Cuomo said yesterday.
Myers's rampage started yesterday morning when—after setting fire to his house—he walked into a barbershop in Mohawk and killed two men, while wounding two others. The sister of one of the wounded men, shop owner John Seymour, tells the AP, "The guys were in the barbershop and this guy comes in and he says, 'Hi John, do you remember me?' and my brother said, 'Yes, Kurt, how are you?' and then he just started shooting." Seymour is in critical but stable condition recovering from gunshot wounds to the left hand and right hip. Another customer is also in critical condition. Harry Montgomery, 68, and Michael Ransear, 57, a retired corrections officer, were killed.
Myers then drove to Herkimer, where he killed two people at a car repair shop. Michael Renshaw worked at a correctional facility near Utica, while victim Thomas Stefka worked at the shop and was known for playing guitar during services at Mohawk Reform Church. It's unclear if Myers had any relationship to the men.
Neighbors describe Myers as a loner who rarely spoke and would slam the door in their faces. A bartender in Herkimer tells the AP that Myers was a regular at his bar, but that he would typically drink a bottle or two of Coors Light and leave without speaking to anyone. The bar owner called him "an odd little man."
