come Monday, i'm gonna buy me some CAG stock!!
DIGTBK!!!
http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/front/story/1474048p-8896006c.html
Gunman kills 4, commits suicide at Kansas City plant
By BILL DRAPER, Associated Press
Last Updated 9:41 am PDT Saturday, July 3, 2004
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) - A man whom police describe as a disgruntled employee went on a shooting spree inside a meatpacking plant, killing four of his co-workers and injuring three others. He then took his own life.
The ConAgra Foods Inc. workers were on break at 5 p.m. Friday when the 10-minute rampage began. Officials continued their investigation early Saturday; they had not identified the victims or the gunman.
A sign posted on the property stated no guns were allowed at the plant. ConAgra spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said there were security measures in place inside, but declined to discuss them.
Deputy Police Chief Sam Breshears said more than one weapon was used, but he didn't say how many.
Breshears described the gunman as a disgruntled employee, but said the motive for the slayings was not known. He said the bodies would remain inside the plant while the crime scene was investigated.
Plant employee Andre Porter, who encountered the gunman right after hearing the first shot, said the shooter had a conflict with some of the workers earlier in the week, but did not describe the conflict.
Porter, 38, of Atchison, said he was reading a magazine in the men's locker room when he heard the first shot. He said he then saw the shooter - a co-worker he knew only as Elijah - and asked, "What are you doing ... shooting fireworks?"
He said the gunman slowed only long enough to give him an acknowledging glance, then sprinted out of the locker room. Porter said that's when he noticed the man was carrying a handgun, then he saw a co-worker lying motionless in the hallway near the entrance to the locker room.
Porter said he stepped over the body and into the hall, where he heard 10 to 12 shots fired rapidly in the nearby cafeteria. He said the gunman told some workers in the cafeteria, "You haven't done anything to me, so you can go."
Porter then ran to the women's locker room and told everybody to stay there, then alerted other workers wandering around to get out of the building.
Porter said three of the slain workers were related. Asked why he wasn't shot, Porter said of the gunman, "He was always friendly to me and I was always friendly to him."
Police said the victims ranged in age from 21 to 60. Two of the men killed had not been identified. The injured were taken to the University of Kansas Medical Center. One was listed in critical condition, another in fair condition. Third person was treated and released.
Employees were kept at the plant for hours for interviews with police while friends and family gathered outside, waiting for word.
Many milled nervously about near the plant's main entrance, waiting for any news at all and getting increasingly agitated by the lack of information from authorities.
"Everybody out here is trying to find out if their loved one is a victim or a survivor," said Robert Thompson, whose wife was inside when the shooting took place. Thompson later learned his wife was OK.
The ConAgra plant is in an industrial section of the city, about four miles southwest of downtown Kansas City, Mo. Workers there process and slice meat for deli and sandwich products, company spokesman Bob McKeon said.
ConAgra is working with police in the investigation, but had no other details, McKeon said in a telephone interview from Omaha, Neb., where the company is headquartered.
"Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the families of the employees who have been involved in this tragedy," McKeon said.
DeYoung said counselors would be available Saturday and Sunday for employees, but couldn't say what other kinds of assistance, if any, would be given to the families of the victims.
The plant, which operates 24 hours a day, was to remain closed indefinitely while the shooting was being investigated, she said.
The shooting came a year and a day after an employee of a manufacturing plant in Jefferson City, Mo., shot eight people, three fatally, before killing himself in front of the city's police headquarters.
