Gunman kills two

Press, 6 July 1977, Page 1

Gunman kills two

NZPA-Reuter New York

A young Panamanianbom seaman, who said that he was upset about the racial situation in the United States, surrendered to the police after he had killed two persons, wounded two others, and held about 12 hostages on a hijacked bus for more than 10 hours. The drama ended on the runways of Kennedy Airport just before midnight, when swarms of pursuing police cars cornered a bus which the armed hijacker had seized and forced to drive to the airport, with about 24 hostages.

The police rammed the bus and called on the gunman to surrender. A police spokesman said that the hijacker threw his gun from a window and surrendered quietly. As he was led away, the hostages cried hysterically. The police have identified the man as Luis Robinson, aged 26, a United States Navy seaman attached to the U.S.S. Detroit, a supply ship

stationed off the Maine coast.

He was bom in Panama, and emigrated to New York in 1954.

The hijack began about 30 minutes after the Vermont transit coach had left Manhattan for White River Junction, Vermont.

Robinson jumped up from his seat and fired a shot from a .45 calibre pistol through the neck of a Hartford, Connecticut, librarian, Mr John McGavern, aged 50. Mr McGavern said later that Robinson had complained about racial prejudice in the United States.

Robinson ordered the driver to go to Kennedy Airport, where the bus crashed through a security gate and drove round the runways, chased by the police. He fired several shots from a bus window at pursuing police cars, but hit no-one. Air traffic was halted for about an hour until the bus came to a halt near a Trans World Airlines hangar. During the chase, Robinkilled the driver and a

woman passenger. Her body was dumped from the speeding bus. Once the bus stopped at the hangar, the police opened talks with Robinson, who apparently was extremely nervous. After about three hours he shot another passenger. The wounded man was treated for a gunshot wound in the chest at a mobile hospital set up near the scene.

Seven hours after the hijack began, the bus moved towards a DCB cargo jet which the police had prepared for take-off in response to the hijacker’s demands for SUS6M and an aircraft that would take him to Cuba.

Once near the plane, Robinson realised that the police vehicles, including an armoured personnel carrier, had the bus surrounded. After more talks, during which the airport was again closed to air traffic, he suddenly drove off again, zig-zagging through Kennedy’s runways, pursued by police vehicles.