West End Open Space Commission Executive Director Bernie Kozen called a 'true hero' after bear-hugging Rockne Newell. 'He shot the shooter with his own gun,' a reporter who was in the municipal building says.
A man feuding with officials in his Monroe County municipality over living conditions at his ramshackle, trash-filled property killed three people at a municipal meeting — including at least one town official — in a rampage that blew holes through the walls and sent people crawling for cover, police said.
The gunman, Rockne Newell, was tackled to the ground and shot with his gun after firing gunshots through the wall and bursting into the meeting Monday night, witnesses said. They said he then went to his car and got another weapon to keep firing.
“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.”
Pennsylvania State Police said they believed two people may have subdued the gunman, who was shot in one of his legs. Witnesses and officials called them heroes.
The shooting, which wounded or injured at least three other people, happened shortly before 7:30 p.m. during Ross Township’s monthly meeting, Monroe County emergency management director Guy Miller said. State police said about 15 to 18 residents and town officials were at the building, a short drive from Newell’s property, when the gunfire erupted.
Two people died at the scene, and a third person died after being flown to St. Luke's Hospital in Fountain Hill. Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim said this morning he was compiling his notes and would provide a news release.
Monroe County Coroner Bob Allen said about 8 this morning that he is still in the process of notifying family members of the two people who died in his county.
Autopsies are planned for Wednesday at Lehigh Valley Hospital for all three of the victims, Allen said.
State police at Lehighton, who are handling information in the case, said there was nothing new to release. The public information officer just after 8 o'clock didn't know if Newell had been arraigned, which will likely happen by video, WFMZ reported. Newell was in Monroe County jail. In his mug shot he appears to be wearing a bullet-proof vest.
A news conference is planned for 11:30 this morning in Hamilton Township, a supervisor said at the county emergency dispatch center. The supervisor said he couldn't provide any more information. Allen said identities of the dead would be released at the news conference.
Police confirmed that at least one of the dead was a township official but declined to give additional details.
A fourth person, a woman, was undergoing surgery late Monday. Her injuries were not disclosed. Police said the fourth person was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township.
The Pocono Record reports three people, including the shooter, were treated at Pocono Medical Center, but were not admitted.
"I don't even know how it happened," Newell told WFMZ as he was being led out of a state police barracks. "I don't know why it happened. Don't now. It just happened. Moving my stuff out of my place, nowhere to go and nowhere to store my property."
"I tried to go to court for 23 years," he told the television station, as the reporter asked him if that justified the shooting. "... They tormented me for 23 years."
Began to shoot as he walked up to building
Investigators said Newell began shooting as he approached the building and continued as he walked into and through it. He then went back out to his vehicle in the parking lot, retrieved a handgun and went back into the building, firing more shots, police said.
Reber said he was at the township building when a man armed with a long gun with a scope shot through a wall into the meeting.
“The thing that got my attention: plaster flying out, blowing out through the walls. Witnesses would later tell me they saw pictures exploding away from the walls,” Reber said in the first-person account told to his editors Marta Gouger and Chris Mele.
He said he crawled out to a hallway, exited the building and took cover behind a vehicle.
“The gunman was this guy wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt,” he said. “I saw him go back out to his car, a silver Impala, and get another gun.
“It wasn’t real to me until I went back inside and saw people bleeding.”
'A true hero'
A local official at the meeting grabbed the shooter and subdued him, Reber said.
“(West End Open Space Commission executive director) Bernie Kozen bear-hugged the gunman and took him down,” Reber said. “He shot the shooter with his own gun.”
Rep. Matt Cartwright, who represents the state’s 17th District, said he was “stunned and appalled at the atrocities that claimed the lives of innocent citizens in Ross Township.” He said he had heard about what Kozen did to prevent more bloodshed.'
“Mr. Kozen is a true hero tonight,” Cartwright said in an emailed statement.
Kozen’s wife, reached by telephone at their home Monday night, said he wasn’t there and she was unsure when he’d be back.
Long-running dispute
Newell had been in a long-running dispute with township officials over the dilapidated condition of his property, state police Capt. Edward Hoke said. The township supervisors voted in February 2012 to take legal action against Newell for violating zoning and sewer regulations, according to meeting minutes posted online.
Last October, Newell set up a fundraising page online and was trying to raise $10,000 to pay for legal fees in his battle with the township.
“Ross township took me to court & the court ruled I have to vacate my home of 20 years,” he wrote on the page called saveRockyshome. “I live on SSI which comes to $600 a month I have no money to clean it up.”
Newell said his two rescue dogs “will be put to sleep because no one else will take them.”
The property includes an old camper in the front yard filled with wooden pallets, pieces of what appear to be old railroad ties and trash. A garage leans and appears close to collapse, and a propane tank sits inside an old dog house.
State police were searching the property in the 200 block of Newell Road and the road was closed.
'No right to kick me off my property'
In June, the Pocono Record wrote a story about what it said was an 18-year fight between the township and Newell over his property.
Monroe County Court in August 2012 sided with the township and ordered Newell to vacate and never again occupy or use the property unless he had the permits to do so. The report said Newell had been living out of a car, a 1984 Pontiac Fiero, and in abandoned buildings since being ordered to vacate.
Newell told the paper he was unemployed for years after an injury from a crash and had nowhere else to go.
“They have no right to kick me off my property,” he told the newspaper. “They call my property an eyesore. When I bought it, it was one of only three properties on the entire road that didn’t have what they call junk.”
Ross Township has about 5,500 residents. According to its website, the board of supervisors meets at 7 p.m. on the first Monday of each month.