CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The other U.S. Attorney in West Virginia says he could not help but take pause when he heard a gunman had opened fire outside of the Wheeling Federal Courthouse last week.
It’s the main office of Bill Ihlenfeld, the U.S. Attorney for West Virginia’s Northern District.
“That was a scary, scary thing that happened there,” said Booth Goodwin, the U.S. Attorney for West Virginia’s Southern District. “Anytime something like this happens, we always are more vigilant.”
Law enforcement officers identified the shooter as Thomas Piccard, 55, of Bridgeport, Ohio. Piccard, a former Wheeling police officer who resigned for undisclosed reasons in 2000, was shot and killed last Wednesday.
The FBI confiscated Piccard’s personnel records with the Wheeling Police Department as part of the ongoing investigation into what might have motivated his shooting spree. The investigation continued through the weekend.
Ihlenfeld has said Piccard was targeting the building and not the people inside of it. Piccard was the only person killed. Several security guards, though, were injured by flying glass. “It was the building itself and the government itself,” that Ihlenfeld said Piccard aiming at when he fired more than two dozen shots.