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A New York City Council member was shot to death Wednesday when a would-be political opponent opened fire in the City Council chambers. A plainclothes officer shot the gunman, who died later, police said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the council member, James E. Davis, 41, of Brooklyn, was shot twice in the chest and died of his wounds at New York University Downtown hospital.

The gunman, identified by police as Othniel Boaz Askew, 31, of Brooklyn, was sitting in the balcony near Davis when he suddenly opened fire with a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol, striking the council member, according to NBC affiliate WNBC-TV, quoting witnesses.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a news conference that a plainclothes member of Council Speaker Gifford Miller's security detail who was on the floor of the chamber shot up at Askew, striking him five times. Askew died later at the same hospital.

Davis, who was allowed to carry a firearm as a retired New York City police officer, was also armed, but he was not believed to have drawn his weapon, Kelly said.

METAL DETECTORS BYPASSED

Bloomberg said at a news conference that a security tape showed Davis escorting Askew into City Hall, bypassing metal detectors, as appeared to be his privilege as a council member. He said that practice, which he also had followed, would be changed immediately.

City election records showed that Askew had gathered more than 2,000 petitions and raised money to challenge Davis for re-election later this year but was barred from the ballot because of a filing error. Erik Engquist, a political columnist for the Park Slope Courier, told MSNBC television that Askew was "extremely upset" by the ruling.

Council member Charles Barron of Brooklyn told The Associated Press that he encountered Davis and Askew outside City Hall on their way into the meeting. Davis introduced Askew, telling Barron, "This is the guy who was once against me, but now he's with me." Askew offered a firm handshake and an intense stare, Barron said.

A short time later, Barron stood staring into the balcony as the gunman shot down at Davis' body.

"He wasn't shooting randomly," Barron said.

'HE WAS A FIGHTER'

Davis, who had specialized in criminal justice issues since joining the council in 2001, founded Love Yourself Stop the Violence, a non-profit foundation dedicated to stopping urban violence, in 1991.

He was a former New York City police officer and an instructor at the police academy. His official council biography said he was a minister, but it did not say whether he had been formally ordained or in what denomination.

A friend of Davis', Rafael Collazo, former president of the New York chapter of the National Latino Officers Association, said he was shocked by the killing and demanded to know how an armed man could enter City Hall, which is less than a mile from the site of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Not my James, not my Davis," Callazo told MSNBC television. "He was a fighter. ... He fought police brutality, for social justice."

Davis' brother, Geoffrey Davis, said as he emerged from the hospital about 4:45 p.m.: "The system killed my brother. They knew that he would fight."

"We're going to keep fighting and do the right thing," Davis said, according to The Associated Press.

NO TERRORISM ANGLE

Before it was clear that the gunman was dead, police threw up a wide dragnet across lower Manhattan, closing subway stations around City Hall, as well as the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

"This is an attack on democracy," Bloomberg said in a statement shortly after the incident. "We will not stop until we find who did this."

The City Council had just begun its meeting shortly after 2 p.m., and 100 to 200 people were in the chamber, when seven or eight shots were fired from the balcony, witnesses said. Reporters in the press room dived beneath their desks.

Witnesses said that a security guard returned fire and that about a dozen shots in all were fired. City Council member Peter Vallone told MSNBC television that the gunman targeted a specific victim, firing several shots at him. He continued firing into the person's body on the ground.

'GENERAL PANDEMONIUM'

There was "general pandemonium" in the chamber as members dived for cover, City Council member Lew Fidler told WNBC. Officers hustled the council members out of the building.

"I thought balloons were being popped until I saw the officers lift their guns and shoot back at the balcony," City Council member John Liu told the New York newspaper Newsday. "It happened quickly, and people were hurt even coming out of the chambers."

Fidler and others questioned how a gunman could have gotten past the building's metal detectors with a firearm, but staffers in the building told reporters that many people were often allowed into the building unchecked.

"Security is a joke," an aide to a City Council member, who asked not to be identified, told Newsday. "It's a well-known fact among City Council workers.

"I'd hate to say it, but it wouldn't be the hardest thing to get a gun in there. ... Frankly, they put one cop at each metal detector, and they have a lot of people going through, and it wouldn't be very hard for somebody to just walk by it."

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