Police: 3 dead, 4 wounded in Albuquerque shooting
ALBUQUERQUE, NM
The shooting at Emcore Corp. appeared to involve the 37-year-old
gunman's girlfriend, police Chief Ray Schultz said. It was not
immediately clear whether she was among the dead.
Chaos unfolded as the gunman opened fire, sending employees
fleeing for cover as police locked down the entire neighborhood.
Police were alerted to the shooting shortly before 9:30 a.m. Five
officers were inside the building within three minutes, Schultz
said.
The Emcore campus was surrounded by police cars, many arriving
with sirens wailing, as helicopters circled overhead.
The chief called the Emcore campus "a very secure facility"
and said it appeared the gunman forced his way into the building
and entered several areas. Schultz said detectives and FBI agents
were reviewing surveillance video.
"It was a large and complex shooting scene," he said.
Schultz said one victim who confronted the gunman was found dead
outside the building. The other victims included the gunman, who
was found inside, and a person who died at University Hospital.
Schultz said the gunman carried a handgun, and investigators
were trying to determine if there were additional weapons. No
victims' names have been released, and an investigation was
continuing.
Schultz said the gunman and his girlfriend had children who live
in Rio Rancho and said the youths were taken into custody by
"another agency." The chief said there was at least one previous
domestic violence call involving the gunman but that it was outside
Albuquerque.
He said 226 people were transported by bus from Emcore buildings
to a community center, where detectives interviewed them. Employees
also were offered grief counseling and treatment for asthma or
diabetic conditions.
Schultz initially said six were dead, then explained at a later
news conference later that the responding officers had seen people
down and believed they were dead, then continued into the building
to search for the gunman. He characterized it as standard practice
when a crime scene could have an active shooter.
"You work to get the shooter contained, then you triage the
victims. That's what happened here," Schultz said.
Officers who arrived later determined some shooting victims had
survived.
Schultz also said there was confusion at University of New
Mexico hospital, where one victim died but was reported as two
deaths.
Emcore manufactures components that allow voice, video and data
transmission over fiber optic lines. They also manufacture solar
power systems for satellite and ground-based systems.
Based in Albuquerque, the company has about 700 full-time
employees.
In January, a disgruntled worker embroiled in a pension dispute
with ABB Group in St. Louis killed three people and wounded five
others before killing himself at a company plant. That month in
Kennesaw, Ga., a disgruntled employee killed three people and shot
two others at a Penske truck rental office.
Of the 5,071 workplace fatalities in 2008, 517 were homicides,
or about 10 percent of all workplace fatalities that year,
according to U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.
The department reported the 2008 numbers represent an 18 percent
drop in workplace homicides from 2007 and a 52 percent drop from
1994, when 1,080 workplace homicides occurred.