Emergency calls tape reveals shooting horror

Recordings of emergency calls as a gunman rampaged through a fast-food restaurant captured the screams, moans and chaos after he murdered a paramedic and fired at terror-stricken customers.

A surveillance video shows killer Alburn Blake entering the Wendy’s restaurant in West Palm Beach, Florida, during the lunchtime rush on Monday and going straight to the toilet, authorities say.

He emerged minutes later to shoot dead Lt Rafael Vazquez, who had gone back into the restaurant to exchange a kid’s meal toy his child had received.

Blake, 60, then fired about 20 shots – more than there were people in the restaurant – wounding four others.

The 911 tapes recorded the sounds made as customers frantically called for help. Patrons screamed and dived for cover as the gunman fired.

“Then you can see him return to the centre of the restaurant where he shoots himself in the head and takes his own life,” said Captain Jack Strenges of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

“He stood silent the whole time.”

Authorities released the audio tapes but not released the video footage, instead describing it during a news conference.

They say they are no closer to determining why Blake, a handyman from Jamaica who lived in West Palm Beach, launched the attack.

Court records and interviews show that Blake was once accused of kicking a live-in girlfriend who called him “demented”; that he somehow married a woman he had never met without her consent; and that he sometimes used a social security number that had belonged to a Wisconsin man who died 30 years ago.

“We’re still putting all the pieces of the puzzle together,” Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.

The 911 tapes reveal a chaotic and confusing scene.

“I just got shot!” says Carl Michalek, 43, of Killeen, Texas. “The guy shot up the whole Wendy’s.

“I can’t move my arm. He blew my arm off,” Mr Michalek tells a dispatcher between heavy breaths and moans. “My arm is half blown off. I’m losing lots of blood ... Please help me. I’m going to lose consciousness. ... I’m losing lots of blood.”

The injured remained stable in hospital today.

Blake often went to the Wendy’s with his family, Sheriff Bradshaw said, but police have found no other connection.

“They liked to go to the place and watch the planes come over,” he said. The restaurant is near Palm Beach International Airport.

Authorities estimate there were 19 people in the restaurant – 12 customers and seven employees.

Mary Gianninco, who accused Blake in 2006 of kicking her in the knee and back in front of their baby, told The Palm Beach Post that Blake was a “demented” yet “extremely intelligent” man who sometimes resorted to violence at home.

“I’ve been shaking like a leaf for the past three years,” Ms Gianninco told the newspaper.

“This is a demented man; this is a sick, abusive man that should have been locked up in a cage a long time ago.”

Blake married his wife, Deborah, in 1989, according to records, but there is no record they divorced. He also married a woman, Tangela Kemp, in 1987, and was not officially divorced until 1993, the records show.

Ms Kemp said yesterday that she never knew Blake, but returned from basic training for the military in 1988 to find herself married to him. She believes he had someone impersonate her.

A 1996 story in the Post showed that Blake accidentally ran over an 18-month-old girl with his van, seriously injuring her. He had a young daughter at the time, who would now be a teenager.

The daughter refused to comment when reached by phone yesterday at Deborah Blake’s apartment.