Courant.com
9 Dead In Manchester, Conn. Workplace Shooting
Hartford Courant Fox CT Staff Reports1:32 PM EDT, August 3, 2010
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Nine people are dead in a workplace shooting at a family-owned beer and wine wholesaler, police said.
Sources said Omar S. Thornton, 34, was a driver for Hartford Distributors and was described by a Teamsters Union official as a recent hire and a "disciplinary problem."
"The union was bringing him in to meet with the company to remedy the problem," said John Hollis, a Teamsters official. "He started shooting."
Thornton shot a number of people and then shot himself with a .223 caliber semiautomatic rifle as police approached and is dead, sources said. Two people were shot outside the building and five were shot inside, police sources said.
Hollis declined to describe the nature of the disciplinary problem, and he said he wasn't certain if the meeting had taken place when the shooting started. A law enforcement source said Thornton had been suspected of stealing from the business.
Joanne Hannah, who lives in the Enfield neighborhood where Thornton lived until about a month ago, said her daughter Kristi had dated Thornton for eight years. Thornton, who is black, had complained about being racially harassed at work. Thornton brought his complaints to his superiors, who did nothing about it, she said her daughter told her.
Steve Hollander, a member of the family that founded and owns the company, is one of the wounded, a police source said. He was shot in the neck, the source said.
Another shooting victim was identified as Bryan Cirigliano, 51, of Newington, by a man at Hartford Hospital who said he was Cirigliano's brother. Bryan Cirigliano is the president of the Teamsters Local 1035 that represents drivers at Hartford Distributors.
Another victim was identified as Victor James, who died at Hartford Hospital, officials said.
Gloria Wilson, 86, said her son Victor would have turned 60 on Aug. 30.
James, of Windsor, had two adult daughters and four grandchildren.
Wilson said she had already heard about the shootings when her other son called with the news that Victor James was dead.
"I just got praying he wasn't one of them, and he was," she said.
"There wasn't a better family man," Wilson said.
James was planning to retire from Hartford Distributors this year after working for the company as a truck driver for 30 years. He planned to work around his home and tinker with an old car he had, Wilson said.
James grew up in Providence and Cranston, R.I. He had one brother, Robert James, Wilson said.
"He loved his children and his grandchildren," she said. "He'd take the grandchildren out for movies. He devoted his weekends to them."
Two school buses were brought in to transport employees away about 9:30 a.m. They were brought to Manchester High School, where family members gathered.
The shooting occurred shortly before 7:30 a.m. in a facility of the beer and wine distribution company, one of the state's largest. At the time, there were about 35 or 40 people in the office and warehouse, said Brett Hollander, the director of marketing for the company.
"Our shifts were just changing," said Hollander, who said the shooter was an employee.
"There are definitely some people that are shot, some people that are dead," Hollander said, speaking in a tense and shaken voice about 8:30 a.m. Employees were in a warehouse across the street when police entered the building where the shooter was located.
The East Hartford police tactical response team was training at 7:33 a.m., when the department received a general call for help, said Officer Hugo Benettieri, police spokesman. As a result, the neighboring department was one of the first police agencies at the scene. The team helped with "building entry," he said.
Thornton received two speeding tickets, in February 2007 and December 2008, that led to DMV suspending his commercial driver's license for three months, according to DMV records.
Hartford Hospital was treating the only three victims of the shooting that were hospitalized, officials said. One died on his way into surgery.
Shortly after the shooting, a thick column of black smoke could be seen coming from the building. It later turned to white, then stopped as firefighters were on the scene. The fire was caused by a forklift that tipped over when its operator was shot, a law enforcement source said.
A number of bomb squad vehicles were seen entering the property about 9:20 a.m. A state police dispatcher said they were there to check the suspect's car.
Hartford Distributors is at 131 Chapel Road, near the border of South Windsor and Manchester in the area Buckland Hills Mall and Interstate 291. The company is one of the state's largest beer and wine distributorships, carrying hundreds of brands. The company merged last year with Franklin Distributors, a South Windsor company. Employees are represented by the Teamsters union.
Hartford Distributors was founded by Jules Hollander, the father of the current president, Ross Hollander, and grandfather of Brett, the marketing chief, and Steve, who was reported to have been shot. The company was located on Tolland Street in East Hartford for many years before moving to Manchester about 15 years ago, said U.S. Rep. John B. Larson.
Last year, the company bought a rival, Franklin Distributors of South Windsor.
Larson, of East Hartford, who is close to the Hollanders and some of the union officials, visited the company in mid-morning after the shootings.
"The Hollander family is probably one of the most venerated families in the Hartford area in the Jewish community," Larson said. "There isn't a charity that they haven't contributed."
The family, for example, in 1994 donated a full-size bronze statue of Mark Twain to the city of Hartford. The statue had been commissioned by a Missouri riverboat company with hopes of selling it to Hartford, but the city couldn't afford it. It was in front of the library on Main Street for a few years until renovations forced it to a side street – but the Hollanders agreed to pay to move it back to its rightful spot earlier this year.
***************************************************************************
9 dead in shooting at Conn. beer distributor
Officials say gunman shot himself as police approached
People are seen being evacuated from Hartford Distributors, Inc., in Manchester, Conn., Tuesday.
msnbc.com news services
MANCHESTER, Conn. — An employee who had been asked to resign went on a shooting rampage Tuesday at a family-owned beer distributing company, killing eight people and wounding others before fatally shooting himself, officials said.
The shooting took place at Hartford Distributors Inc., about 10 miles east of Hartford.Authorities identified the alleged shooter as Omar Thornton, a 34-year-old warehouse driver.
The driver had worked at the distributor for a couple of years and been called in for a disciplinary hearing, said John Hollis of the Connecticut Teamsters, who was with company officials at the scene of the shooting.
"The union was bringing him in to meet with the company to remedy the problem," Hollis told the Hartford Courant. "He started shooting."
Brett Hollander, Hartford Distributors' director of marketing, said about 50 to 70 people were in the warehouse at the time and that shifts were just changing.
Hollander, whose family owns the distributor, said he did not know the shooter well.
At least one person died at Hartford Hospital, spokeswoman Michaela Donnelly said. Another victim taken there was in critical condition, and one was in fair condition, she said.
Among the victims was Hollander's cousin, a vice president at the company who was shot in the arm and the face. Hollander said he thought his cousin would be OK. It was not clear if he was among the victims taken to Hartford Hospital.
Police officers from numerous agencies and police and fire vehicles surrounded the warehouse, on a tree-lined road in an industrial park just west of a shopping mall.
Families of workers gathered at the town high school to wait for information and comfort each other.
In a statement, Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell offered condolences to the victims' families and co-workers.
"We are all left asking the same questions: How could someone do this? Why did they do this?" she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment