RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Gunman Kills 5, Self at Miss. Factory

quote:

---

By MATT VOLZ, Associated Press Writer

MERIDIAN, Miss. - A factory worker known as a racist who talked about murdering others opened fire with a shotgun and a rifle at a Lockheed Martin plant Tuesday, killing five people before fatally shooting himself, authorities said.

Dozens of employees at the aircraft parts plant frantically rushed for cover after the gunman started firing in the nation's deadliest workplace shooting in 2 1/2 years. As many as eight people were wounded, some critically.


"At first I thought it was something falling on the ground. Then I walked to the aisle and saw him aiming his gun. I took off. Everybody took off," said Booker Steverson, a Lockheed Martin employee who was helping assemble an airplane when he heard the first shot.


Authorities identified the gunman as Doug Williams, who was an assembler at the plant in this city of 40,000 near the Alabama line. Steverson said Williams was known as a racist who did not like blacks. Williams was white.


"When I first heard about it, he was the first thing that came to my mind," said Jim Payton, who is retired from the plant, but had worked with Williams for about a year.


He said Williams had talked about wanting to kill people. "I'm capable of doing it," Payton quoted Williams as saying.


Sheriff Billy Sollie he had no information on whether the gunman had been in trouble with his bosses.


"We are not sure if those killed were friend or foe," the sheriff said. "There was no indication it involved race or gender as far as his targets were concerned."


Sollie said no other individuals were involved and his officers were securing the scene.


"He had a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle and he appeared to open fire at random on employees," Sollie said.


About two dozen people waited near a busy road outside the plant at midday. Law enforcement agents made vehicles go through checkpoints.


John Willis said he drove to the plant when he heard his brother, assembler Thomas Willis, had been shot.


"They've just had us standing out here," John Willis said solemnly, struggling to find words as he awaited word on his brother's condition.


A worker who didn't want to be identified or speak to reporters was offered a cold drink by friends. His hand shook violently as he drank from the plastic foam cup.


It was the nation's deadliest workplace shooting since a software tester in Wakefield, Mass., killed seven people the day after Christmas in 2000.


Officials at the plant declined to comment and a Lockheed Martin national spokeswoman was unable to immediately provide details.


Gov. Ronnie Musgrove said: "Mississippi's family grieves today for this senseless tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those lost."




Meridian has an economy largely dependent on the military. Besides the Lockheed Martin plant, the area is home to a naval air station and an Air National Guard training facility.

The Meridian plant employs about 150 people and builds parts for C-130J Hercules transport planes and vertical stabilizers for F-22 Raptor jets.

Lockheed Martin is the largest defense contractor in the United States. The corporation had sales of $24 billion in 2001. It employs about 125,000 people.

---

quote:

---

By Leslie Doolittle

MERIDIAN, Miss. (Reuters) - An employee at a Lockheed Martin aircraft parts factory in eastern Mississippi opened fire on co-workers on Tuesday, killing five people before committing suicide, police said.


Eight other employees at the plant near Meridian, Mississippi, were taken to local hospitals with gunshot wounds, Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie said. Two others were being treated for shock.


Sollie said the unidentified gunman wore camouflage pants and used at least one shotgun and a semiautomatic weapon in the shooting, which occurred at around 11 a.m. EDT. He said the motive was still unknown.


But Melvin Young, who was working at the time of the rampage, said it began shortly after the gunman became angry over a problem with a time clock and stormed out of the plant.


He returned a short time later and began to fire at workers, said Young, who added the shooter had a well-documented history of disciplinary problems and weapons.


"This should have been nipped in the bud a long time ago," Young said. "When they search his home, I think they'll find an arsenal." A spokeswoman for Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin declined to comment on the shooter's work record.


The incident was the latest in a series of workplace shootings in the United States and the deadliest since seven people were gunned down at an Internet consulting firm in Massachusetts on Dec. 26, 2000.


It also came one week after a 25-year-old man shot and killed three co-workers and wounded five others at a manufacturing plant in Jefferson City, Missouri, before killing himself in a shootout with police.


The massacre in Meridian, a town about 85 miles east of the state capital of Jackson, stunned residents.


"The whole community is just in shock," Meridian Mayor John Smith told Reuters. "We are the safest city in Mississippi with a population over 30,000 and we are facing an unspeakable horror."


Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in the United States, said it was cooperating with police and other authorities investigating the shooting.


The company's plant in Meridian produces parts for the next-generation F/A-22 fighter jet and the C-130J Hercules transport plane. More than 100 workers are employed at the plant. (Additional reporting by Karen Jacobs in Atlanta, Chelsea Emery in New York and Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington)

---