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04/27/2010 12:00 AMLishan Wang, 44, the man arrested for Monday's murder of Dr. Vajinder Pal Toor will be arraigned shortly in New Haven Superior Court at 121 Elm Street, according to Lt. Geoffrey Morgan of the Branford Police Department. —Nicole Ball with reporting by The Associated Press.
Wang being charged for the murder of Toor, 34, and also with attempted murder of Toor's wife Parneeta, who is five months pregnant and has a three-year-old child.
Toor neighbor and family friend Hersh Arora said Parneeta Toor had just waved goodbye to her husband and closed the door when she heard gunshots and ran outside her residence at 255 Blueberry Lane in the Meadows Condominium complex, the Associated Press reports.
The gunman started firing at Parneeta Toor, so she hid behind a car, Arora said. A neighbor tried to perform CPR on Vajinder Pal Toor, Arora said.
Morgan spoke with Parneeta Toor yesterday and said that, "this was certainly very tragic and traumatizing event for her. I think that she's certainly coping with the event the best she can."
At this point, Morgan says the Branford police have enough probable cause to place Wang at the scene and have uncovered several guns from his maroon van, which was stopped about a mile from Blueberry Lane in front of Harco Laboratories at 168 Cedar Street just after the incident occurred. Morgan says they are waiting for state administered ballistics testing to confirm that guns apprehended were the one or ones used at the scene.
Morgan credits the 911 calls from neighbors detailing the description of Wang and his vehicle greatly with increasing law enforcement's chances of catching Wang from 29 percent to about 80 percent.
While Morgan believes that motive at this stage is not a key focus for his department, which he says can place the suspect at the scene, it's still a huge concern for a community that is asking, "Why?"
The Associated Press reports that Wang, a doctor, had a history of confrontations with the victim and other colleagues that led to his dismissal from Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in New York.
In a lawsuit against Kingsbrook, Dr. Wang states that colleagues had characterize him as mentally impaired and suffering from anger issues. He was disputing the claim.
During 2008 when Wang and Toor were working together at Kingsbrook, they were involved in a confrontation after Wang left his post at the intensive care unit and was not reachable for a few hours, according to a hospital employee who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing murder investigation. The employee said Toor reprimanded Wang and that Wang threatened Toor in front of other employees.
Wang filed a federal discrimination lawsuit last year against the hospital. He talks about a heated exchange with "Dr. Vajinder" in May, 2008 after Vajinder accused him of ignoring pages and calls from hospital staff.
"An hour after this heated discussion, Dr. Vajinder then accused Dr. Wang of threatening his safety by using hostile body language, although he did not summon security to assist him," Wang's lawsuit states.
Wang was suspended with pay on May 22, 2008, and notified by letter that the hospital had decided to propose firing him. He was told by the union that the hospital would only allow him to remain employed if he sought disability leave for mental impairment. He was fired in July.
Wang's lawsuit claims injuries resulting from discrimination based on race, national origin and disability, and accuses the hospital of retaliation against him for investigating, disclosing and opposing the discrimination.
Wang disputes evaluations by human resources staff at Kingsbrook that he had behavioral problems and anger issues, saying he received favorable evaluations.
Toor was a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Medicine who was working with the infectious disease section of Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Yale Police Chief James Perrotti sent an e-mail to the university community—which was shaken in recent months by the killing of a graduate student, Annie Le, in her lab building—saying Branford police told him the crime was not a random act and was unrelated to Yale.