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Gunman kills 13 in New York shooting



    ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - A gunman killed 12 or 13 people in an immigration services centre in Binghamton, New York, on Friday, Governor David Paterson said.

    The gunman then killed himself, ABC News reported.

    ABC News, citing federal and state authorities, said 26 people were also wounded in the incident at Binghamton, about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of New York City.

    "An individual went into an American civic services centre .... and has killed 12 or 13 people," Paterson said. There was no immediate word on a motive for the shooting.

    The area was surrounded by police with rifles, some carrying shields. Some local media reports said the suspected shooter was Asian and that authorities requested a Vietnamese translator to speak with him.

    As many as 41 people were inside the building when a man entered and started shooting, local television WBNG said, citing police scanners. It said some fled to a basement and more than a dozen were hiding in a closet, adding that emergency dispatchers had been in contact with people inside.

    Four people were removed from the American Civic Association building on stretchers and taken to hospitals, the Press & Sun-Bulletin newspaper reported on its website.

    Others came out on foot.

    "About 15 or so employees of the Civic Association came out crying with their hands behind their heads and they were escorted by the police and they took them to ambulances and took them away," a witness told WNBF radio.

    The American Civic Association building is used to teach English and provide other services to recent immigrants to the United States who are preparing for U.S. citizenship.

    (Reporting by Daniel Trotta, Claudia Parsons, Joan Gralla and Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by David Storey and Vicki Allen)