Train Gunman Driven by Hate, Police Declare

In three terrible minutes, a 35-year-old handyman who was suspended from college for disciplinary reasons turned a commuter rail car into a killing ground because of his intense hatred of whites, Asians, some blacks and governmental institutions, police said Wednesday.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Donald Kane said that Colin A. Ferguson, an unemployed black resident of Brooklyn, selected a Long Island Rail Road train traveling through the suburbs as his target because he wanted to spare outgoing New York City Mayor David N. Dinkins, whom he claimed to admire.

Five commuters were fatally wounded and 18 others were shot before Ferguson--who purchased his handgun at a store in Signal Hill, Calif., on May 9--was tackled by three passengers Tuesday as he was reloading his 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. One rider remained in extremely critical condition on life-support systems.

Ferguson, his hands cuffed behind his back and wearing blue prison garb, did not speak or enter a plea during his arraignment Wednesday on four counts of murder and a count of weapons possession. The death of the fifth commuter came after the court appearance, and it was anticipated that the complaint would be amended.

Transit police in New York City said that Ferguson was arrested on Feb. 17, 1992, for harassing a female lawyer on a subway train after she sat down next to him.

“He immediately yelled profanities and veiled threats,” Transit Police Chief John Kavanaugh said. “She ignored him and he got in her face and elbowed her in the side.”

Three transit police officers had to wrestle Ferguson to the ground and subdue him, the chief said.

“When the three officers arrived, he went berserk,” Kavanaugh said.

Other sources said that the case eventually was adjourned, contemplating dismissal if Ferguson had no other arrests.

Kane said at a news conference that the gunman carried a series of notes in his pockets, indicating racial hatred for whites, “Uncle Tom Negroes, Chinese racists, rich black attorneys and so-called civil rights leaders.”

The notes also expressed rage against his neighbors in Brooklyn, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and his staff and the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board.

“It seems he had hostility regarding a major portion of the population and a variety of institutions,” Kane said. The police commissioner described the four pages of notes taken from Ferguson’s pockets as “a whole host of ramblings.”

“The paperwork reveals a strong hostility being harbored by (Ferguson) in terms of racism,” Kane added.

A Cuomo spokesman said that Ferguson, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica, called a New York state ombudsman’s phone line and spoke with state officials “on numerous occasions.”

“He was generally complaining about the finding in his workers’ compensation case,” the spokesman said. “No one he talked to ever expressed concern or described him as saying anything threatening.”

Ferguson also called members of the governor’s staff about his dispute involving a back injury he received while working in the file room of the Alarm Device Manufacturing Co. of Syosset, Long Island.

An official of the Workers’ Compensation Board said that Ferguson first was awarded $75 a week for partial disability, then changed his mind and elected to take a lump sum payment of $21,450, plus past benefits. He then reversed himself again, asking that the lump sum payment be overturned and the case reopened because he claimed that his symptoms had worsened. When the board requested an examination by an independent physician, Ferguson became enraged, the official said.

At an Oct. 25 hearing, Ferguson declared that he did not want to see the medical specialist.

Bonnie Hede, director of news relations at Adelphi College--located near the train station where the shootings occurred in Garden City, Long Island--said that Ferguson had attended Adelphi for a year and had majored in business administration before being suspended in June, 1991, for disciplinary reasons.

She said that while the exact nature of Ferguson’s problem could not be discussed, students typically are suspended for such infractions as “behavioral problems or someone defacing something on campus. . . . It usually doesn’t involve police.”

The notes found in Ferguson’s pockets revealed that the gunman spared New York and opened fire as the train approached Garden City “because of my respect for Mayor David Dinkins,” police said.

Investigators said that Ferguson carried 100 rounds of ammunition in a small canvas bag and apparently planned to kill as many passengers as he could. Only whites and Asians were struck, police said. They were not sure whether any blacks were in the railroad car when Ferguson opened fire.

In Washington, President Clinton labeled the shootings a “terrible human tragedy” and said he hopes that the deaths and injuries will give impetus for action against gun violence.

“While no one believes there is anything we can do to solve every problem of someone who snaps mentally and does something terrible like this--we have to acknowledge that honestly--there are a lot of things that we’re going to have to do in this country to get violence under control,” the President said.

As one example, he cited a bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to ban the type of 15-round ammunition clips used in the weapon that Ferguson carried.

The shooting, which occurred at the height of the Tuesday evening rush hour, caused pandemonium on the train as passengers ran for their lives, tried to hide under seats, locked themselves in washrooms and pounded against locked exit doors that did not immediately open.

The Long Island Rail Road set up special counseling lines Wednesday for shaken passengers. Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta described the scene in the railroad car.

“We clearly recognize that what happened last night was a massacre,” Gulotta said. “The person who committed this crime is an animal to have turned that Long Island Rail Road car into a death chamber.”

In Brooklyn, Ferguson lived in a single room in a three-story stone-attached house in an area populated by many former residents of Jamaica. The shades were pulled down Wednesday.

The residents said Ferguson basically was quiet and self-contained. He puttered with the motorcycle he kept in his landlady’s concrete front yard.

Immigration officials said that Ferguson entered the United States with a tourist visa in September, 1982, and received his green card four years later after marrying an American citizen. His current marital status was not immediately known.

Investigators said that the shootings took three minutes on the train. The first people he shot were directly to his left. Ferguson was seated when he began firing. He then moved forward to the front of the car, shooting.

“The shooting took maybe less than three minutes--three minutes, no more,” Kane said.

For those on the terror train, it was a lifetime.

A Deadly Commute

1) Commuter train departs Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan at 5:33 p.m.

2) Gunman opens fire around 6:10 p.m. as the train is pulling into the Merillon Avenue Station in Long Island.