Man commits suicide 'over Bush re-election'

A man who shot himself at the World Trade Center site was apparently distraught over President George W. Bush’s re-election, a newspaper reported today.

The body of 25-year-old Andrew Veal of Athens, Georgia, was found yesterday morning inside the off-limits site, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

A shotgun was found nearby, but no suicide note was found, Coleman said.

Veal’s mother said her son was upset about the result of the presidential election and had driven to New York, Gus Danese, president of the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, told The New York Times.

Friends said Veal worked in a computer lab at the University of Georgia and was planning to marry.

“I’m absolutely sure it’s a protest,” Mary Anne Mauney, Veal’s supervisor at the lab, told newspapers.

“I don’t know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic.”

Police were investigating how Veal entered the site of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The site is protected by high fences and owned by the Port Authority.