SAYLORSBURG, Pa. — Police are searching the property of a man who authorities say blasted his way into a municipal meeting in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains and fatally shot three people amid a dispute with the township.
State police say about 15 to 18 residents and town officials were at the Ross Township meeting Monday night when the gunfire erupted.
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Authorities say the gunman, 59-year-old Rockne Newell, was tackled to the ground by two people and was shot with his own gun. He was taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg.
A spokesman for Pocono Medical Center tells the Pocono Record newspaper that Newell and two other people injured in the shooting were released from the hospital late Monday.
Authorities have scheduled a news conference for late Tuesday morning to give updates in the case.
State police are still investigating at the municipal building and are searching Newell’s home.
Authorities said Newell was feuding with officials over conditions at his ramshackle, trash-filled property. He said he lived on Social Security and could not afford to clean it.
Newell indiscriminately fired shots Monday night as he barged into the meeting, authorities said. He left long enough to get another weapon from his car and continued firing upon returning until he was tackled by at least one person and shot with his own gun, police and witnesses said.
“I heard more than 10 shots,” Pocono Record reporter Chris Reber said in a first-person account. “It was automatic, like a string of firecrackers.”
The shooting, which injured at least two other people, happened during Ross Township’s monthly meeting, Monroe County emergency management director Guy Miller said. The municipal building is a short drive from Newell’s property.
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