Man helped subdue board meeting shooter: 'I stood on the shooter's neck'

SAYLORSBURG, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Bernie Kozen thought he heard fireworks. Then, he saw a wall exploding as bullets slammed into it.

Terrified people at the rural Pennsylvania township board meeting Monday night ran for cover as the shooter opened fire and yelled, "They stole my land! They stole my land!"

For a brief, crucial moment, the shooting stopped. Police say the shooter left the meeting to change guns.

Kozen huddled in a corner. As the shooter approached with a handgun, he sprang into action.

"I jumped him from behind," Kozen told CNN in an exclusive interview Tuesday.

Now, police are hailing the local parks director and another man as heroes. The gunman killed three people at the board meeting in Monroe County. If Kozen and another man hadn't tackled the shooter, police say there could have been even more casualties.

"It happened so quickly, I wouldn't say I was scared," Kozen told CNN. "The opportunity was there and the guy upstairs was looking out for me, and we did what we had to do."

A chaotic scene

As he and the other man subdued the shooter, a chaotic scene surrounded them.

Some people took off their shirts to apply compresses to wounds, Kozen said. Others performed CPR or wrapped bandages for injured victims.

The other man who helped tackle the gunman, who did not wish to be identified, told CNN he saw Kozen grab the shooter, then he jumped in to help the parks director.

"Bernie held the bottom half of his body, then I stood on the shooter's neck," the man told CNN, adding that he "punched, kicked, pulled the handgun from the shooter's hand" and helped pull the shooter to the ground.

He and Kozen tied the shooter's arms up with a jacket, he said.

On Tuesday, Kozen said he was still rattled by the shooting. The gunman killed one of his close friends -- a man whose kids played Little League baseball with his.

"I am saddened for the loss of life," he said. "Senseless. It makes no sense at all."

The shooting, he said, was the kind of thing he'd only seen before on TV.

"You see all the shootings, the Aurora and Newtown, and you say it can't happen in small-town America like this, but it can," he said. "It can happen anywhere."

Suspect arraigned

Police said the suspect in the shooting, Rockne Newell, was angry with local officials.

His home had recently been condemned and purchased by the township, police said.

"We do believe he was angry about the condemnation of the property," state police Lt. Robert Bartal told reporters Tuesday.

But when he burst into the meeting room, the shooter appeared to fire at random.

"His beef seemed to be with the township and the township supervisors," Bartal said. "Unfortunately, some of the people attending the meeting happened to be in harm's way."

Newell was arraigned Tuesday morning on charges of criminal homicide, Pennsylvania State Police Sgt. Brian Vadell said. Newell was in Monroe County jail during the video arraignment, Vadell said. No plea was entered.

The two men who tackled the shooter went into action even as rounds were fired, authorities said.

Police praised them during a Tuesday press conference, saying that had they not acted, it could have been a much worse bloodbath at this small town meeting, about 70 miles north of Philadelphia.

"It's certainly courageous what they did, and they absolutely would have saved lives," Bartal said.

Authorities found 90 rounds of ammunition in the gunman's vehicle, they said Tuesday.

Three people were killed -- James V. LaGuardia, 64, David Fleetwood, 62, and Gerard J. Kozic, 53.

Kozic was married to a woman who was injured, Bartal and state police Lt. George Bivens said.

Several others were wounded. Newell was one of three people taken to a hospital after the shooting and later released into police custody, Geoffrey Roche, spokesman for the Pocono Medical Center, told CNN Tuesday.

The Pocono Record newspaper in a story on June 10, said Newell, after an 18-year battle, had been ordered last year to vacate his property, which was called an eyesore by the board of supervisors, the elected body that sets policies and laws for the community of 5,400.

The township wanted to take over the property and clean it up, the newspaper reported.

"If I lose this property, I have nowhere else to go," he told the paper.

"What they're doing to me, what they've been doing to me for so long, it's wrong."

'It was a nightmare'

The terror began Monday night even before the gunman entered the building, police said.

Ross Township's monthly supervisors meeting had just started when the shooter marched toward the municipal building in Saylorsburg with a long gun and fired through the windows.

Pocono Record reporter Chris Reber watched as plaster flew off the walls, he said in a first-hand account that appeared in the newspaper. He was covering his first board meeting.

He heard more than 10 shots.

"The thing that got my attention: plaster flying out, blowing out through the walls. Witnesses would later tell me they saw pictures exploding away from the walls," according to the newspaper account.

Another witness, Cleoria Campodonico, sobbed as she told CNN that the shooting was "the worst thing I have seen in my whole life."

"I am scared for the rest of my life for those images," she said, vowing to never go back in the building again.

She said that she, too, called 911 when the shooting happened and then phoned her husband to tell him that she loved him. She thought she would never see him again, she said. She then called her daughter to tell her the same thing.

A man protected her, she told CNN, and he was shot in the stomach twice. She does not know if he survived.

"I owe that man my life for protecting me," she said. "Oh my God, it was a nightmare."

Complaints about Newell

According to the Pocono Record, Newell got a building permit from the township to have a storage structure on his property, but then built a residence without getting a proper permit.

It said neighbors filed complaints about the property, including one of human fecal matter in buckets, the Record said.

The township ruled he was improperly disposing of sewage with no septic system, according to the newspaper. Newell said he couldn't afford septic hookup fees, it said.

The court last year ordered Newell to leave the property, which was set for a sheriff's sale this summer.

The topic of Newell's property wasn't on the meeting's agenda.