Police arrest college student with rifle

NEW YORK (AP) — A college student with a rifle and wearing a George Bush Halloween mask was apprehended Wednesday after walking through the campus of St. John’s University, police said.

No injuries were reported. It was unclear “why on this particular day he brought a gun on campus,” police spokesman Paul Browne said.

Police identified the student as Omesh Hiraman, 22, a freshman at St. John’s, a Catholic university of about 20,000 students. Charges were pending.

No one answered the telephone at Hiraman’s home near the school.

Other students, one of them a police cadet, reported seeing the armed man about 2:20 p.m. walking near a building at the Queens campus around the time he was supposed to be in a business class there, police said. The man was carrying a plastic bag with the barrel of a .50-caliber rifle sticking out and was wearing a hooded sweat shirt and the rubber mask, its mouth cut out.

An unarmed campus security officer aided by the cadet subdued the man after a brief struggle, police said. He was turned over to the New York Police Department, which later searched his home in Queens.

The rifle was loaded with one bullet, police said.

Praise for cadet

In a statement, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly praised the cadet, 21-year-old Christopher Benson. Benson said he saw a man with a gun “walking really fast” and “jumped right in” to assist when campus security officers approached.