Orlando Shooting Update
ORLANDO, Fla. — A man who was deep in debt and did not have the money to visit his son only 30 minutes away opened fire Friday at the engineering firm that terminated him from his job two years ago, killing at least one person and wounding another five, authorities said.
As officers led the suspect Jason Rodriguez into a police station, a reporter asked the 40-year-old divorced man why he had attacked his former colleagues.
“Because they left me to rot,” said Rodriguez, who recently had told a bankruptcy judge he was making under $30,000 a year at a Subway sandwich shop and owed nearly $90,000.
The shooting which took place on the eighth floor of an office tower shutdown downtown Orlando for over three hours. Police quickly tracked Rodriguez to his mother’s home, and spotted him through a window.
He surrendered peacefully and was in custody Friday evening, though he had not yet been formally charged in the shootings.
All of the victims worked at the firm of Reynolds, Smith and Hills, where Rodriguez was an entry-level engineer for 11 months before he was let go in June 2007, the company said.
Police said Rodriguez used a handgun in the shooting, but they did not release additional details, including how he got inside the building, whether he said anything to people in the office or how he initially escaped.
The five wounded people were in stable condition at Orlando hospitals. The person who died was not identified.
Rodriguez worked on drawings in the firm’s transportation group, but his supervisors said his performance was not up their standards, and when he did not improve, he was fired. The company did not hear from him again.
“This is really a mystery to us,” said Ken Jacobson, the firm’s general legal counsel and chief financial officer. “There was nothing to indicate any hard feelings.”
He did not know why Rodriguez would say the company had left him “to rot.”
“It’s been 2 1/2 years,” Jacobson said. “We don’t know where he’s been or what he’s done.”
Police Chief Val Demings said investigators did not know why Rodriguez targeted the engineering firm.
“This is a tragedy, no doubt about it, especially on the heels of the tragedy in Fort Hood that is on our minds,” she said, referring to an Army psychiatrist suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at a Texas military base Thursday in an attack that killed 13 people and wounded 30.
Charles Price, an attorney who represented Rodriguez in his bankruptcy case, said he could not comment on specifics of the matter. He had not seen Rodriguez since the summer.
A somber Gov. Charlie Crist visited some of the wounded at Orlando Regional Medical Center.
“They’re obviously traumatized,” he said. “At the same time, I was impressed with their spirit and strength.”
Camille Previlon told The Associated Press her uncle, engineer Guy Lungenbel, was shot in the back and was able to talk but had not said much about the shooting.
“He’s just hurting real bad in the back,” she said.
After the lunchtime shooting, some people streamed out of the Legion Place building while others holed up in their offices. A major highway was closed, and nearby schools were locked down.
Greg Cross, who works in a real estate office on the 12th floor, said he and his co-workers barricaded themselves inside after hearing about the gunman on television.
“We were terrified,” he said. “We locked the door and put a filing cabinet in front of the door and just waited.”
Mark Vella, who works in a different office on the same floor, said he and five co-workers also pulled a filing cabinet in front of their door. They prayed and talked about what to do if the gunman showed up.
“We were afraid the guy was still in the building and making the rounds,” Vella said.
Orlando shooting suspect
Related articles by Zemanta
- One dead in Orlando office attack (news.bbc.co.uk)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f6d8a979-17d4-4a17-8a35-df69d649b571)
