Workplace Shooting in Connecticut Leaves 9 Dead
By LIZ ROBBINS
Nine people are dead after an employee summoned for a disciplinary hearing opened fire at a beer distributor in Manchester, Conn., on Tuesday morning, the police said. One of the dead was the suspected gunman.
The cavernous warehouse of the company, Hartford Distributors, was at its busiest at 7:30 a.m., with about 100 drivers, sales people and executives in the building during a shift change. That is when the gunman — identified as Omar Thornton, 34, a truck driver — was brought in to look at a videotape after being accused of stealing beer, according to officials.
He was offered a chance to resign or be terminated, the police said, and started shooting as he was being escorted out.
“He came in to meet with the company and after that, all hell broke loose,” said John Hollis, a Connecticut Teamsters representative, said of Mr. Thornton.. “He pulled the gun and ran through the warehouse.”
The shots hit drivers, union representatives and company executives, according to relatives and friends of the victims. . Mr. Thornton killed the president of his local union, Bryan Cirigliano, who was there to represent him, according to Christopher Roos, the secretary-treasurer of Local 1035.
“There are eight deceased and the suspect as well,” said Sgt. Sandy Ficara of the Manchester Police Department . “That is the final count.”
Another fatality was Victor James, 60, who had worked for 30 years hauling Budweiser and was looking forward to retirement, said his mother, Gloria Wilson. “He was very much loved,” Ms. Wilson, 86, said from the Windsor, Conn., home she shared with her son.
Lt. J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police, which is conducting the investigation with the Manchester Police, said the suspect “probably” turned the gun on himself.
Sergeant Ficara said, “It’s been a crazy scene out there.”
Mr. Hollis, a legislative affairs representative for the Connecticut Teamsters, called the suspect “a bottom guy” because he was the last man hired, and said he brought a union representative from Local 1035 for the hearing.
Joanne Hannah, who said her daughter Kristi had been dating the suspect for the past eight years, said that Mr. Thornton, who is black, had been having problems with co-workers. “Things were being put on the bathroom walls,” including “a hangman noose,” Ms. Hannah said.
She added that Kristi and Mr. Thornton spent Monday night at her daughter’s house and that Ms. Hannah’s son, who also spent the night there, woke them both up to go to work.
Ms. Hannah had to cut the conversation short because she said her home was filled with detectives.
Mr. Roos, said the local union had no record of complaints by Mr. Thornton.
“We have no grievance in terms of racial discrimination,” he said. “He never filed anything with the union. As far as I know there was never a state claim or a federal claim. Mr.Thornton was brought into the office about a disciplinary issue and that was it. There was a question of theft.
“He was being brought in to look a videotape about what was going on,” he continued. “That was it. He was going to be asked questions. This is what happened afterwards.”
Public records show that Mr. Thornton graduated from East Hartford High School in 1996. He ran into financial trouble several years later and filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut in 2000. At the time, Mr. Thompson owed money to a dozen creditors, including American Express, Sprint and Sallie Mae.
On his Facebook page, Mr. Thompson counted among his likes and interests Hoffman’s Gun Center & Indoor Range in Newington, Conn. The message from A person who Mr. Hollis said Mr. Thornton had been the last in the company to be hired within the previous three years.
The relatives who those who died tried to remember them in life. Ms. Wilson said she was notified of her son’s death early Tuesday morning.
Mr. James had two daughters and four grandchildren, Ms. Wilson said.
“He was full of jokes all the time, but the nice kind of jokes,” Ms. Wilson said. “He would imitate people — movie stars and things. He did a really good job of it.”
The death toll increased throughout the chaotic morning. At first, officials confirmed three dead. The total was believed to have increased after investigators searched the family-owned warehouse about 10 miles east of Hartford. Three of the injured, all with multiple gunshot wounds, had been transported to Hartford Hospital, and one victim died later in the morning, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
The spokeswoman, Rebecca Stewart, said one patient at the hospital remained in critical condition.
One victim who was treated at the hospital and was later released was the grandson of the company’s founder, Steve Hollander, an executive with the company, said Mayor Sydney T. Schulman of Bloomfield.
Mr. Hollis said the State Police told him they confronted the suspected gunman and ordered him to drop the gun. Lieutenant Vance said, “There was no police discharge of weapons.”
Lt. Joe San Antonio, a spokesman for the Manchester police, said that when officers responded to an emergency call they searched the building and found the suspect shot.
Buses transported employees from the warehouse to Manchester High School, where union representatives and Ross Hollander, the owner of Hartford Distributors, were comforting families of the victims, Mr. Hollis said.
In a statement, Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut called the shootings a “senseless act of violence.”
“In the wake of this tragedy,” Ms. Rell said, “we are all left asking the same questions: How could someone do this? Why did they do this?”
Hartford Distributors, one of the state’s largest wholesalers of beers and wines, was founded in 1944 and has been owned and operated by the Hollander family since the 1960s. The company, which has more than 100 employees, was based in East Hartford until a move to Manchester 16 years ago.
One employee, who did not want to be identified, walked out of the high school on Tuesday afternoon and quickly got into his car. “It was a sad day,” the man said. “I was in there.”
Bill Bartlett, retired from Hartford Distributors, was at the high school comforting his former colleagues. “I lost a lot of friends today,” he said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 3, 2010
An earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of Sgt. Sandy Ficara.
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