GOSHEN, Ind. (AP) A man returned to the factory where he worked after a dispute and opened fire yesterday, killing a co-worker and wounding six others, authorities said.
- Paul Wong
- Paramedics tend to a shooting victim yesterday afternoon at the Nu-Wood Decorative Millwork plant in Goshen, Indiana.<br><br>AP PHOTO
A SWAT team later found the gunman dead inside the simulated-wood factory with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. A shotgun was under his body.
“All I”m aware of is there was a dispute, and he left the property and came back,” Police Chief Terry Schollian said.
The gunman had apparently just been fired or was about to be fired from the Nu-Wood Decorative Millwork, police said. His name and those of his victims were not immediately released.
Six people were wounded, the chief said. Most were “walking wounded,” and one victim in critical condition was upgraded to serious condition late yesterday.
As many as 35 were inside the plant at the time of the shootings, but most escaped unharmed, Schollian said. Earlier, the mayor and hospital administrators said they feared 30 to 35 people had been shot.
One employee called police from inside the factory to advise what route the SWAT team should use to enter the building, the chief said.
Tammy Funderburk of nearby New Paris said she spoke briefly by cell phone with her 18-year-old son, who worked at the factory and escaped uninjured.
“He saw the gunman coming and he had a big rifle,” Funderburk said. “He saw the gunman shooting people and he ran out the back door as fast as he could.”
The shooting jolted this northern Indiana community of 29,000 about 100 miles east of Chicago.