| |
ORLANDO, Florida - A sacked worker shouted "they left me to rot" on Friday after he attacked his former office in a shooting spree in Orlando, Florida that left one person dead and five wounded.
In the second mass shooting in the United States in two days, the alleged shooter, 40-year-old Jason Rodriguez, was later and arrested and dragged away in handcuffs from his mother's house.
His arrest hours after unleashing a hail of bullets on former colleagues came as Americans reeled from a rampage 24 hours earlier at a Texas military base that left 13 people dead and 30 wounded.
Panicked Florida workers barricaded themselves into their offices at the Gateway Center in central Orlando as SWAT teams combed through the 16-storey building, trying to find the shooter.
Some three hours later he was eventually tracked down at his mother's house. It was not immediately clear if she or someone else had telephoned the authorities.
"We received information that he may be in the area of his mother's residence. We sent some officers and our SWAT team out there," Orlando police chief Val Demings told a press conference.
"They confirmed they had intelligence on him. They were able to see him through the window and asked him to come out. He did. He was arrested without incident."
Given his outburst to journalists about being left to rot, Rodriguez is assumed to have been exacting revenge for his dismissal by architectural engineering firm Reynolds, Smith and Hills more than two years ago.
"He did work for us, for one year. He was let go in July 2007, he has been gone for over two years," Ken Jacobson, the CFO of the firm, told AFP.
"We have not heard or seen of him since, that is what's hard to work out about all this."
The fire department told AFP initially that two people had been killed and eight wounded but police later confirmed the lower toll. "We do have one confirmed death," said Demings.
Police first received a call that shots were being fired at the office building shortly after 11:30 am (1630 GMT).
A helicopter hovered over the scene as workers fled the scene and dozens of police cars locked down the area surrounding the center, dramatic television images showed.
Mark Vella, 39, emerged from the 12th floor of the building where he and a half dozen colleagues barricaded themselves in their office using filing cabinets after seeing reports of what was going on downstairs on the news.
Vella, dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, said the group said prayers and planed how they would act if the gunman made his way to their office, until they heard Rodriguez had been apprehended.
"I said my prayers," he told reporters. "I'm glad it is over."
The Gateway Center is located in the upscale and picturesque College Park district of the city, an area that became a scene of chaos as police diverted traffic and closed the nearby Interstate Four, the main traffic artery.
"The gunman has been apprehended so the community is safe," Mayor Buddy Dyer told reporters after the drama ended.
"Obviously, we have had a tragic incident here in the city of Orlando, and first, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and the members of their family."
The Orlando shooting occurred as President Barack Obama ordered flags to be dropped to half-staff over Thursday's shooting at a military base in Texas in which 13 people were killed and 30 others wounded.
Alleged shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old specialist in combat stress who had been ordered to deploy to Afghanistan against his will, was under guard and on a ventilator after the rampage at Fort Hood, officials said.
- AFP /ls
|
