MASS SHOOTING: Long Island Rail Road Shooting 1993

Long Island Rail Road commuter train from New York City is meant to be a safe method of transport but one trip would lead to the death of six people.

On the 7th of December 1993, people boarded the third train car of the eastbound 5:33 train to Hicksville at the Pennsylvania Station. One of the eighty passengers was Colin Ferguson (who will be referred to as CF from here on out with respect to the No Notoriety campaign). He boarded the train and immediately took a seat at the western end of the car, he had a Ruger P89 semi-automatic pistol in his lap with a canvas bag with around 160 rounds of ammunition.

As the train approached the Merillon Avenue Station, CF pulled the gun from his lap and dropped a few cartridges on the ground. For the next three minutes, he walked down the aisle of the car, shooting passengers in their seats, going left to right at each row.

At first, the gunfire was mistaken as firework caps until a woman yelled “He’s got a gun! He’s shooting people!”. Panic ensued, people hid underneath the train seats and those closest to the door rushed to try and escape into another car.

Once the group got the door opened they ran into the second car. The other passengers had no idea what was happening, totally unaware of the attack in the other car. Someone even told the group running through to “be calm” as they went to pry the outer door open. As they ran for escape two people were injured with stampede-like injuries.

In the entire attack, CF emptied two 15-round magazines before he was stopped by three passengers. Michael O’Connor, Kevin Blum and Mark McEntee all grabbed ahold of CF as he was reloading the third magazine, pinning him to the train seats and finally putting a stop to the attack. More people grabbed CF, pinning him down. While he was pinned, CF kept repeating “Oh God, what did I do? What did I do? I deserve whatever I get,”. Waiting on the station platform, off-duty police officer Andrew Roderick was the one to handcuff CF after entering the train.

Nineteen people were injured and six were murdered, the lives lost were:
Amy Federici aged 27

James Gorycki aged 51

Mi Kyung Kim aged 27

Maria Theresa Tumangan Magtoto aged 30

Dennis McCarthy aged 52

Richard Nettleton aged 24

After the attack, CF was sitting in the back of a police car, emotionless. The victims that witnessed him said the scene was as shocking and disturbing as the violence. One of them snapped after seeing them shouting out “How can he be sitting there so calm after everything that happened?”.

After arrest, CF was searched and police found notebook scraps in his pockets, the papers all had scribbled notes with the heading “reasons for this”. Some of the many notes included comments about CF’s hatred towards the New York State Workers Compensation Board, New York Governor Mario Cuomo, Asians, and civil rights leaders, Rev. Herbert Daughtry, C. Veron Mason and Calvin Butts. Along with this hatred, CF said that one of his reasons was “the false allegations against me by the filthy Caucasian racist female on the #1 line.” that is in reference to when he was arrested in February 1992.

The notes also indicated that CF had been planning the attack for at least a week and he wanted to wait before starting the killings until he was out of New York City limits out of respect for NYC Mayor David Dinkins and NYC Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

During his police interview, CF showed no remorse towards what he had done. Officals stated that “he was lucid and clear and aware of what was going on” during the attack.

He was arraigned on December 8th 1993, he gave no plea and was committed to prison without bail. As he was being escorted out of court a reporter questioned if CF hated white people and he replied “it’s a lie.”.

CF’s appointed attorney Anthony J. Falanga called for him to receive a psychiatric evaluation. The findings would make arguing an insanity plea difficult but it did provide evidence that CF could be suffering from paranoia based on his history. He was put on suicide watch in Nassau County Jail.

On the 19th of January 1994 a grand jury handed up a 93-count indictment against CF, it carried the possibility of up to 175 years. The counts were: Two counts of murder per victim, nineteen counts of attempted murder, thirty-four counts of assault, criminal possession of a weapon, intent to use the weapon, violation of civil rights of the twenty-five victims, and “intent to harass, annoy, threaten and alarm” the victims “because of their race, color or national origin.”.

Nearly a year later on February 17th 1995 CF was convicted of the murders and attempted murders of all victims, being sentenced to 315 years and 8 months. Judge Donald E. Belfi said during sentencing. “Colin Ferguson will never return to society and will spend the rest of his natural life in prison.”.