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Disgruntled worker who killed foreman at Manhattan construction site lived in Queens

Workers wait outside a construction site in Manhattan after a Queens man shot a foreman there on Oct. 5.
Photo via Twitter/@NYPD20Pct

BY TIMOTHY BOLGER AND ROBERT POZARYCKI

A Far Rockaway man who gunned down a 37-year-old construction foreman at a Manhattan job site on Thursday morning before killing himself had apparently been fired two days earlier, according to police.

Samuel Perry, 44, was relieved of his duties on Oct. 3 at the construction site at 645 West 59th St. in Midtown, The New York Times reported. Perry then returned to the location just before 7:10 a.m. on Oct. 5 and approached foreman Christopher Sayers, 37, of Plainview, Long Island, on the 37th floor of the building.

“He was fired two days ago,” NYPD Deputy Chief Christopher McCormack told reporters, referring to Perry. “Talking to some of the workers so far, they said he was a bit of a hothead.”

Perry shot Sayers multiple times, then went down to a bathroom on the fifth floor and shot himself in the head, published reports indicated.

Officers from the 20th Precinct and EMS units responded to the incident. Additional NYPD units secured the area after learning of the workplace shooting. Both Sayers and Perry were pronounced dead at the scene.

The New York Times reported that the five-acre construction site is a $2.3-billion luxury development called Waterline Square with three towers containing more than 1,000 units expected to open next year.