Posted on 08/04/2010 10:30:18 AM PDT by mlizzy
MANCHESTER, Conn. — Omar Thornton sat calmly in a meeting with union representative and his supervisors as they showed a video of him stealing beer from the distributor where he worked.
Busted, he didn't put up a fight, company officials said. He quietly signed a letter of resignation and was headed for the door when he pulled out a gun and started firing — "cold as ice," as one survivor described it.
In the end, Thornton killed eight people and wounded two, then turned the gun on himself in a rampage Tuesday at Hartford Distributors where at least some of the victims — executives and managers — may have been targeted, police said Wednesday.
Union and company officials said they would not have anticipated such violence from someone with no history of complaints or disciplinary problems. But authorities found two 9 mm handguns at the scene, and a shotgun in Thornton's car.
Relatives say Thornton, 34, finally cracked after suffering racial harassment in a company where he said he was singled out for being black in a predominantly white work force.
"Everybody's got a breaking point," said Joanne Hannah, the mother of Thornton's longtime girlfriend.
After shooting his co-workers, Thornton hid as police moved in. He called his mother, who tried for 10 minutes to talk him out of killing himself, his uncle Will Holliday told reporters.
"He said, 'I killed the five racists that was there that was bothering me,'" Holliday said. "He said, 'The cops are going to come in so I am going to take care of myself.'"
Reuters: Nine Dead in Connecticut Shooting
Authorities said they found him dead.
Thornton had said he found a picture of a noose and a racial epithet written on a bathroom wall, said Hannah, of Enfield, whose daughter Kristi had dated Thornton for the past eight years. Her daughter told her that Thornton's supervisors said they would talk to his co-workers.
Brett Hollander, whose family owns the distributor, denied any racial bias. And a union official said Thornton had not filed a complaint of racism with the union or any government agency.
"I can assure you there has never been any racial discrimination at our company," Hollander said.
Teamsters official Christopher Roos said, "This is a disgruntled employee who shot a bunch of people."
Company vice president Steve Hollander told The Associated Press he was stunned by Thornton's rampage after a meeting in which he calmly agreed to resign instead of being fired:
"He was cool and calm. He didn't yell. He was cold as ice. He didn't protest when we were meeting with him to show him the video of him stealing. He didn't contest it. He didn't complain. He didn't argue. He didn't admit or deny anything. He just agreed to resign. And then he just unexplainably pulled out his gun and started blasting."
Steve Hollander said he thinks Thornton had guns stashed in his lunch box. The executive said two people standing near him were fatally shot in the head, but he was only grazed in the jaw and the arm.
"He shot at me twice and hit me a couple times," he said. "By just the grace of God, I don't know how he missed (killing) me."
About 50 to 70 people were in the Hartford Distributors warehouse about 10 miles east of Hartford during a shift change when the gunman opened fire, said Brett Hollander, Steve Hollander's cousin.
"I was on the phone with 911 and then I saw him running outside of my office window, shooting his gun, carrying his lunch box, which must have had his weapons in it," Steve Hollander said. "It doesn't seem real to me now."
The shooting was over in minutes. The victims were found all over the complex.
Workers flooded out of the building as police officers raced into it, Manchester police Chief Marc Montminy told the town's board of directors Tuesday evening.
"Some were hiding in the woods and some were hiding under cars," he said.
State police found weapons in the suspect's car, Montminy said, without providing details.
Thornton was not a problem employee and had not had any previous disciplinary issues, said Gregg Adler, a lawyer for the Teamsters Local 1035. He said he was not aware of how much beer Thornton was accused of stealing.
Kristi Hannah had been with him Monday night and had no indication he was planning anything violent, her mother said.
Joanne Hannah described Thornton as an easygoing guy who liked to play sports and video games. She said he had a pistol permit and planned to teach her daughter how to use a gun.
Police declined to release the names of those killed.
Among the dead was Bryan Cirigliano, 51, of Newington, president of Teamsters 1035, according to the union. He had been Thornton's representative at Tuesday's disciplinary hearing, the union said.
Another victim was Doug Scruton, 56, who had worked at the warehouse for nearly 30 years, said his wife, Mikal O'Brien. Anticipating his upcoming retirement, the couple had recently moved to Middleton, N.H., where he loved to visit the White Mountains and beaches. He stayed with a friend in Connecticut during the week.
"It was part of our plan for him to be able to retire in the place that he loved. But he's never going to be able to enjoy that now," she said. "He was just the sweetest, gentlest, kind soul."
Bill Ackerman, a 51-year-old warehouseman, also was killed, said his girlfriend, Stephanie Laurin.
"I was like, 'Where's Billy, where's Billy?' and they said they hadn't seen him. And then one of his co-workers told me ... that he saw the shooter go to where Billy's room is that he works in," she said.
Ackerman, who enjoyed playing golf and rooting for the Boston Red Sox, had worked for the company for about 20 years, she said.
Manchester police identified the other victims as Francis Fazio Jr., 57; Edwin Kennison, 49; Craig Pepin, 60; Louis Felder Jr., 50; Victor James, 61.
Steve Hollander was treated at Hartford Hospital and released. Jerome Rosenstein, 77, was in serious condition there Wednesday.
It was the nation's deadliest shooting since 13 people were killed at Fort Hood, Texas, in November. A military psychiatrist is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in that case.
In Connecticut, a state lottery worker in Newington gunned down four supervisors in 1998 before committing suicide, and six people were killed in 1974 in botched robbery at a bakery in New Britain. Two men were convicted in that shooting.
Hartford Distributors has never had any complaints filed against it, the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities said.
The Hollander family is widely respected in Manchester, said state Rep. Ryan Barry, a lifelong resident. He said the family-owned Hartford Distributors sponsors local sports teams.
"Ten seconds before he started shooting, if you had asked me, does he look like he's going to react in any way? I would have said no, he seems calm," Steve Hollander said. "It makes no sense the people he killed. Why would somebody do such a thing? They were his co-workers. They never ... harmed him in any way."
Prayers for the families involved. So sad.
“showed a video of him stealing beer from the distributor where he worked.”
The trickle down effect of the entitlement mentality-to each according to his need.
Then how would you define a "problem employee"???
Clearly, Thornton’s victims acted stupidly... /s
“Busted, he didn’t put up a fight” sounds like he put up quite a fight - shooting people.
“He was just the sweetest, gentlest, kind soul.” Shooting innocent people doesn’t sound like sweet and gentle to me.
I’m sure the media will find people ready to say that he was a quiet guy, never bothered “nobody”, “my boy was a good boy and would never hurt nobody.”
And of course he was innocent - if you imagine someone is talking behind your back because you are a paranoid wacko who is stealing beer it’s OK to kill people.
This country is in deep poop.
Watch out as Obama’s regime goes into a tighter spiral.
First he takes their lives.
..and then they attempt to take their reputations by claiming they were racist.
In all seriousness, the NAACP would do themselves a world of good if they made a public statement offering condolences to the victims, and added that if racism was indeed the trigger for this man's crimes, that violence is never the answer.
We'll probably never know for sure if this guy ever filed a complaint with his union or the employer. For the moment, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that the NAACP offer to set up their own "whistleblower" hotline and offer it to anyone that feels that their complaints about racism on the job or in school are going unanswered.
Exactly. And whenever they run sob stories about criminal aliens, like the spawn that the BP shot at the El Paso border, the state-run media always has to insert "he was an honor student" or "he did so well in school" or "he was just playing" or something similar.
Sounds like the murderer was the racist....sounds like a Black Ku Klux Klan liberal.
If he was white....he would have been charged with hate crimes by now.
This savage’s family is as worthless as he is...burn in Hell, murderous scum....
Since when is being a thief, a race?
This POS wasn’t racially harrassed....he most likely just had a RACIAL CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER!!
“I can assure you there has never been any racial discrimination at our company,”
At a time like this, the guy’s worried about his company’s PC bonafides?
What color were the victims? Wasn’t that racial discrimination?
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...a union official said Thornton had not filed a complaint of racism with the union or any government agency.
In all seriousness, the NAACP would do themselves a world of good if they made a public statement offering condolences to the victims, and added that if racism was indeed the trigger for this man's crimes, that violence is never the answer. We'll probably never know for sure if this guy ever filed a complaint with his union or the employer. For the moment, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that the NAACP offer to set up their own "whistleblower" hotline and offer it to anyone that feels that their complaints about racism on the job or in school are going unanswered.Your whole commentary is excellent! But what's the chances of this being twisted all around the other way?
“He was just the sweetest, gentlest, kind soul.”
That was said about one of the victims by his wife.
“Another victim was Doug Scruton, 56, who had worked at the warehouse for nearly 30 years, said his wife, Mikal O’Brien. Anticipating his upcoming retirement, the couple had recently moved to Middleton, N.H., where he loved to visit the White Mountains and beaches. He stayed with a friend in Connecticut during the week.
“It was part of our plan for him to be able to retire in the place that he loved. But he’s never going to be able to enjoy that now,” she said. “He was just the sweetest, gentlest, kind soul.”
Hank
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