Published: April 06, 2007 10:13 am      

NIAGARA FALLS: Suicide rocks Seneca Niagara Casino

A middle-aged Getzville man shot himself Thursday morning on a gambling floor at Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel.

The 45-year-old man, whose identity is being withheld by the Gazette because of the nature of his death, used a 9-mm gun to shoot himself in the chest.

The incident happened at 10:32 a.m. Thursday, according to casino spokesman Phil Pantano. Multiple witnesses said the man shot himself while at a blackjack table in the newest part of the casino, near the hotel on the southeast portion of the gaming floor.

The man and a dealer were alone at a blackjack table when the man stood up, pulled out the handgun concealed in his clothing and shot himself in the chest, said Rebecca Gibbons, a public information officer with the New York State Police.

The man had entered the casino shortly before the incident occurred, Pantano said.

“We don’t know the reason behind it,” he said, adding that he didn’t believe it to be a gambling-related incident.

According to a Channel 7 reporter, the dealer was the man’s girlfriend of four years and they were planning to get married. She said they had recently had a small argument.

The man was treated by casino-employed paramedics and transported by ambulance to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, Pantano said. He died in the emergency room at 11:46 a.m., Gibbons said.

Casino workers were preparing for an 11 a.m. press conference in the main lobby of the casino hotel to announce an initiative to help local veterans when the shooting occurred a few hundred feet away. They continued with the event as workers guarded the wing where the shooting happened.

News of the incident quickly spread among patrons. A woman from Tonawanda who asked not to be identified said she was playing at a slot machine when she heard a noise she described as a “loud firecracker.”

“He was just laying there by himself,” the woman said of the shooter. “The blackjack dealer was screaming and crying.”

Security staff ushered all the players from the room soon after the shooting; it reopened by about 3:30 p.m., Gibbons said. The remainder of the casino operated normally, with what Pantano described as a moderately busy crowd. Nobody else was hurt in the incident, he said.

“It was directed at himself,” Gibbons said of the gun. “He wasn’t waving it around at anyone.”

Police continue to investigate the incident, Gibbons said.

Thursday’s incident was not the first suicide on casino property. A Florida man jumped from the top floor of the casino’s parking garage in June, a death officials said was not related to gambling. No other suicides have taken place at the casino since it opened in December 2002, Pantano said.

Contact reporters Paul Lane and Denise Jewell at 282-2311, ext. 2259.