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TWO people have been killed and nine others wounded after a disgruntled ex-employee opened fire on his manager outside the Empire State Building. Witnesses said the gunman � named today as Jeffrey Johnson, 53 � then began firing indiscriminately at 9am local time beside the city�s iconic skyscraper in the heart of midtown Manhattan. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said today that some bystanders may have been accidentally shot by police. Johnson, who had worked for handbag retailer Hazan Imports, stalked his 41-year-old boss down 33rd Street before shooting him dead. He concealed his .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun in a black bag and walked away from the scene, walking about two blocks. A construction worker followed the gunman and alerted officers near the Empire State Building. When two police officers confronted Johnson, he unleashed a devastating fusillade at random pedestrians during a shoot-out before the officers shot him dead. Nine were wounded in the shootout, seven men and two women. The midmorning mayhem sent panicking commuters and tourists scrambling from the crowded intersection of 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. A white sheet covered what is believed to be the gunman�s body in front of the entrance to the office building. Sid Dinsay, 38, who works nearby the crime scene, said: �This is the last thing you are expecting to see walking to work � someone shot dead in broad daylight in Midtown. �I am shocked � something like this is enough to rattle your nerves. My nerves are rattled right now. �I saw a guy lying there covered in blood. He was in his late 30s. �People around him were crying, a police scooter was whizzing by. It was chaos.� Another witness, Aliyah Imam, said she was standing at a red light when a woman standing next to her was hit in the hip and collapsed on the ground. Police cordoned off the area around the building, causing traffic chaos as surrounding streets were shut down. It comes at the height of the tourist season outside one of New York City�s most popular attractions, startling tourists and commuters. Empire State Building worker Adrianne Lapar, 27, said: �People started running, saying somebody has a gun, so I just ran the other way. I was scared.� A spokesman said the fire department received a call about the shooting just after at 9 am and that emergency units were on the scene within minutes. The FBI is said to be now assisting the investigation. Just minutes before the mayhem, Mayor Bloomberg � who appeared at the crime scene at 11am local time - had warned about the dangers of �too many guns on the streets� on his weekly radio show.