A gunman opened fire at an Illinois manufacturing warehouse had just been fired from his job when he killed five fellow workers,authorities said.
Aurora police chief Kristen Ziman said the assailant, identified as 45-year-old Gary Martin, had worked at the Henry Pratt Company for 15 years before the violence unfolded at the firm’s sprawling warehouse in Aurora, west of Chicago.
Ziman said it was not yet clear whether the suspect was carrying the weapon at the time he was being fired or whether he “went to retrieve it” before opening fire.
Five officers were also wounded at the scene Ziman told reporters. Another person also suffered a knee injury.
The bloodshed marked the latest episode of gun violence in a nation where mass shootings have become almost commonplace. It came one day after the one-year anniversary of the massacre of 17 people by a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
“It’s a shame that mass shootings like this have become commonplace,” said the Aurora mayor, Richard Irvin, at a press conference on Friday evening. “We as a society cannot allow these horrific acts to become commonplace.”
A witness told CNN that he saw the gunman,running down an aisle of the manufacturing facility with a pistol equipped with a laser sight. He told the network that he saw people bleeding.
The Illinois governor JB Pritzker paid tribute to the law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting, saying: “You rushed toward danger, and in doing that you saved countless lives.”
Of the families of the victims, he said: “They join a group that should not exist and yet continues to grow”.
Schools were placed placed in “soft lockdown” early on Friday afternoon, after the shooting was reported at the local business.
Donald Trump praised the police response in a tweet and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.
