Bronx hospital shooter was fired city employee with prior arrest record – NYC officials
A former doctor, who shot and killed one person and injured six more at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, had a separate New York City administration job, from which he was fired a week before the shooting rampage. He also had a 2004 conviction.
Henry Bello was fired from his job as a caseworker for New York’s HIV/AIDS Service Administration on June 21 after he had failed to report to work for over a month, said New York City spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg.
Bello had a previously unreported arrest record. In 2004, he was sentenced to community service after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. The details of Bello’s case were not immediately available.
The arrest did not show up on the background check that the city ran before hiring him in September of 2016 because the charge he pleaded guilty to was not a disqualifying one, said Rothenberg.
On June 30, Henry Bello walked into Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, where he had previously worked, with a rifle hidden under a white lab coat. He shot and killed one female doctor and injured six other people before turning the weapon on himself.
A female victim was found on the 17th floor. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) June 30, 2017
The woman was shot at random, said the hospital’s physician-in-chief, Sridhar Chilimuri.
Bello worked at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital for six months, from August 2014 to February 2015. Hospital spokesman Errol Schneer told reporters on Friday that Bello resigned before he was to be fired.
Hospital officials were unhappy with his performance, said Dr. Chilimuri. Last Friday, the hospital described him as a “disgruntled employee.”
Bello’s motives remain unclear.
Some details about his background have surfaced since the shooting on June 30.
Bello had been in homeless shelters at least twice since 2003, and had most recently left a shelter in March after receiving government housing assistance, according to a city official cited by CNN.
He practiced medicine in New York State under a so-called limited permit issued to him in July of 2014, according to the New York State Department of Education.
Bello graduated from Ross University School of Medicine on the Caribbean island of Dominica, his permit allowed him to practice medicine at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital despite his foreign medical degree.
