A shotgun-toting nutjob with a grudge against the mayor of upstate Middletown stormed City Hall and opened fire yesterday, wounding a court officer before he was shot dead, cops said.
Timothy Mulqueen (right), 43 - who had a history of legal and financial troubles - had a long-simmering hatred for Mayor Joe DeStefano after he was jailed in 2000 during a crackdown on slumlords.
DeStefano told The Post he had highlighted the crackdown again during his State of the City speech Tuesday, and said press coverage of the speech may have set Mulqueen off.
"You never know," DeStefano said.
Court records show Mulqueen had been arrested on menacing charges after an encounter with DeStefano's daughter at their home in August.
Nicole DeStefano, 23, told cops she heard a "violent knocking" on her door on Aug. 6 and answered it to find Mulqueen asking for her dad.
Mulqueen pleaded guilty to harassment last week, the mayor said.
Mulqueen - wearing a scarf around his face - showed up at City Hall yesterday at around 9 a.m. on a motorcycle with a rifle carrier and rode in circles around the building, witnesses told cops.
The lunatic ran toward the doors of the City Court and fired off a blast from a 12-gauge shotgun that wounded the unidentified officer. Other officers returned fire and killed him.
The bomb squad later searched Mulqueen's home, as well as his father John's house nearby.
With Post Wire Services
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