Physician in fatal rampage passed background checks

More than two years after quitting his job as a house physician at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center in New York City, Henry Bello, MD, returned with a rifle hidden under his white lab coat. The disgruntled former employee used the weapon to kill one doctor and injure six other people before ending his own life.

Bello, 45, had worked for the hospital just six months until his forced resignation in 2015 amid an allegation of sexual harassment, The New York Times reported. Even so, hospital administrators said they saw no indication that Bello would come back to the facility and open fire. “There was no warning whatsoever that he would return or that he would ever take this kind of action,” Bronx-Lebanon spokesman Errol Schneer said the morning after the attack, ABC News reported.

Some former colleagues received angry emails from Bello following his resignation, CBS News reported. One physician colleague who received a threatening email described Bello as "very aggressive, talking loudly, threatening people."

Despite a troubled past that included four arrests, Bello managed to pass at least three background checks, including two for employment and one to legally purchase the weapon he used in the rampage. In 2003, Bello was arrested for burglary and fare beating. In 2004, he was arrested and charged with sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment after a woman accused him of grabbing her by her genitals on a Manhattan street, lifting her in the air, and trying to drag her away while saying something to the effect of “You’re coming with me,” the Times reported. The felony sexual abuse charge was dismissed when Bello pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to community service. In 2009, Bello was arrested on a charge of unlawful surveillance after two women accused him of looking up their skirts with a mirror, NBC News reported. The case was later sealed.

The hospital was not aware of Bello’s criminal record when he was hired in 2014, despite running a background check, the Times reported.

“At that time, and as a result of a human resources and security department background check, which includes fingerprinting, there was no record of any conviction for sexual abuse,” Schneer said.

Bello’s title as a house physician meant that he could treat patients and prescribe medication only if other doctors were looking over his shoulder, Schneer noted. Bello, who graduated from the University School of Medicine in Dominica, was an international medical graduate with a limited permit to practice medicine in New York. 

Source: Hospital Safety Insider