By LIZ ROBBINS
Published: January 7, 2010
A factory worker who was suing his employer opened fire Thursday morning at an electrical equipment plant in North St. Louis, killing three co-workers before apparently taking his own life, St. Louis fire and police officials said. Five other people were injured.
Armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun and a handgun, the man began his shooting spree in the parking lot and continued inside the ABB Power plant, officials said. .
Four men were pronounced dead at the scene, the police said at a news conference on Thursday afternoon. Two bodies were found in the parking lot, and two were inside the building.
“We are pretty confident that the shooter is deceased,” said Chief Daniel Isom.
Two other shooting victims were in critical condition and two were in fair condition at a local hospital, and one was treated and released, police officials said. All five of the wounded were men.
The police said that they were awaiting confirmation of gunman’s identity from his family before releasing his name. St. Louis news media identified the gunman as Timothy Hendron, 51. A police official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing inquiry, confirmed the name.
Mr. Hendron was one of four named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed against ABB in 2006, in a dispute over the company’s pension fund. According to the complaint, ABB’s pension fund managers assessed fees that were “unreasonable and excessive,” and without plaintiffs’ knowledge. The plaintiffs had sought to recover financial losses, and the trial had just begun this week in federal court in Kansas City, Mo.
“We’re not really sure what the motivation of the shooting was,” Chief Isom said at the news conference. “It will take a long time for us to put together the pieces.” According to Chief Isom, the gunman opened fire around 6:30 a.m. and sent employees racing for cover in closets, under desks and on the roof, where wind chills dropped dangerously below zero.
Police officers and firefighters entered the building about 6:45 a.m., and found two bodies inside, but were not immediately sure whether one was the gunman. The plant was evacuated and for the next four hours, officers searched the 200,000-square-foot building in case the gunman was at large. The police set up a protective perimeter that included closing a section of Interstate 70.
Capt. Robert Keuss of the St. Louis Fire Department said he heard a police bulletin seeking a man with the name “Hendron.”
ABB Inc. said in a statement, “Our thoughts are with our employees and their families,” adding, “The St. Louis plant will be closed on Friday to accommodate further police investigation.”
Michael Sweney, a neighbor of Mr. Hendron in Webster Groves, Mo., said that the police had restricted access to their suburban St. Louis street early Thursday morning, and that officers had entered the house where Mr. Hendron lived with his wife.
The eruption of workplace violence took place on a frigid, snowy morning just as shifts were changing at the factory, which makes electrical transformers for power systems. ABB Power is a subsidiary of the Swiss-based multinational company ABB.
Before Mr. Hendron, who at one point helped assemble transformers, became a lead plaintiff in the suit, he sought the advice of Mr. Sweney, a lawyer, who lives two doors down. “I sensed a current from Tim that he was disenchanted with the way management dealt with the pension fund,” Mr. Sweney said in a telephone interview. Mr. Hendron asked Mr. Sweney to recommend a good employment lawyer, he said.
“He felt he was standing up for the working man, in many ways,” Mr. Sweeney said, “but obviously the events of today do not show that to be the case.”
The police did not release names of victims, but Carl Poelker, a football coach at a local university, identified one of those killed as Cory Wilson, a plant supervisor and a volunteer high school football coach with Mr. Poelker’s son. “He was a leader,” Mr. Poelker said of Mr. Wilson in a telephone interview. “The thing with Cory, he was one of those guys, as soon as you meet him, you like him.”
Carlton Carter of St. Louis was also killed in the rampage, according to Mary Kelly, a neighbor.
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/us/08gunman.html
Friday, January 8, 2010
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