Office Shooting, 1 dead 2 wounded

[Fury161]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/10/mic....ap/index.html

TROY, Michigan (AP) -- Ninety minutes after reporting to work, Jean Larson heard what turned out to be deadly gunfire inside her office building -- then "all hell broke loose."

Police say Anthony LaCalamita III, an accounting firm employee fired from his job last week, returned Monday to the building where he previously worked and shot three people, killing one. Two of the victims were apparently targeted, police said.

"We heard pop, pop, pop," smelled gunpowder and heard co-workers yelling, said Larson, 48, a staff accountant for G&C, a subsidiary of Gordon Advisors.

"I heard one employee screaming, `He's got a gun. He's got a gun.' ... It was a panic. No one knew what to do. No one knew where to go."

The gunman then left the office complex and headed north, where he was spotted hours later by a motorist 50 miles north of Detroit. He was taken into custody after leading officers on a 30-mile highway chase that reached speeds up to 120 mph.

LaCalamita, 38, said nothing after officers surrounded him, Genesee County Sheriff Robert J. Pickell said. Officers subdued him and found a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and three live shells in the vehicle, the sheriff said.

LaCalamita was being held on charges of fleeing and eluding police. Police investigators were expected to meet Tuesday with Oakland County prosecutors to authorize charges in the shootings, and LaCalamita was to be arraigned Wednesday, Troy Police Lt. Gerry Scherlinck said.

Troy Police Chief Charles Craft said LaCalamita was fired last week but still was listed on the Web site of Gordon Advisors, a 40- to 50-employee company where workers had been busy preparing tax returns.

Police said the person killed was a 63-year-old woman but would not name her.

Calls to Gordon Advisors were not answered Monday afternoon. A message posted on the company's Web site said the office would be closed Tuesday in memory of Madeline Kafoury.

Larson said Kafoury was well-known and well-liked. She said Kafoury retired last year after tax season ended, but returned part-time this year after her successor quit.

Scherlinck identified the other victims as a 47-year-old man and a 48-year-old man.

He said the men were in management positions, and the gunman may have also been seeking another man who wasn't at the office at the time.

"It appears that he was especially targeting those two males," Scherlinck said.

The families of the wounded men requested privacy, and Beaumont Hospital would not release any details about their conditions, hospital spokeswoman Ilene Wolff said.

"I'm not positive all three of the people were targeted, but there appeared to be some purpose," said Craft, the police chief.

Witnesses told police that when the gunman walked into the office on the building's second floor around 10 a.m. Monday, he looked as if he was trying to hide something, Craft said.

Police couldn't say how many shots were fired.

After briefly assembling in the employee lunchroom, some employees opted to hole up inside individual offices. Larson joined two female co-workers, barricading the locked door with chairs, turning off the lights and silencing their cell phones.

Beneath a desk, the three curled up and kept quiet.

"I was just so scared," Larson said. "I just kept thinking, `This can't be happening."'


why post this? simple: it happened about three miles from my house. this is unreal, stuff like this NEVER happens in my city. you could be out walking at 2am and not get mugged. shocking to all of us here.

[J A Eyers]

You're from Michigan? I always had you pegged as coming from somewhere like South Carolina or Louisiana.

[Newbeing]

What is up with the mid-west? Jeez.

[Froberg]

Originally Posted by Fury161

you could be out walking at 2am and not get mugged. shocking to all of us here.

I find that you feel that is a privilege disturbing.. and it makes me wonder just how bad things are in the USA.

Originally Posted by Newbeing

What is up with the middle-east? Jeez.

[J A Eyers]

Originally Posted by Froberg

I find that you feel that is a privilege disturbing.. and it makes me wonder just how bad things are in the USA.

I felt safer out at night in the US than I do here. When I was at university someone was mugged along our street at 3am, and the prevailing attitude of everybody was that he shouldn't have been out at that time. As if once the sun goes down, it's perfectly justified for the streets to become a lawless no-man's-land.

And I think the point Fury was trying to make was that this was a shock precisely because it's generally so safe...

[Hamz]

ha, my town is safer than your town.

[Fury161]

Originally Posted by J A Eyers

You're from Michigan? I always had you pegged as coming from somewhere like South Carolina or Louisiana.

assuming that the answer isn't going to be assinine (purposeful misspelling), why is that?

Originally Posted by Froberg

I find that you feel that is a privilege disturbing.. and it makes me wonder just how bad things are in the USA.

Originally Posted by J A Eyers

And I think the point Fury was trying to make was that this was a shock precisely because it's generally so safe...

where i live, pretty much. i did it very often in the summertime when i was still in school, and never had any fear for my life.

[Maelstrom]

Parts of Michigan are pretty rough though right? I have always heard that Detroit is a pretty nasty city as far as crime and violence goes.

[Fury161]

detroit for the most part sucks. although there is a section of downtown humerously called "the strip". you can walk there at 1am and you're perfectly safe. although a joke goes that if you go down just one street away, they never find you.

[J A Eyers]

Originally Posted by Fury161

assuming that the answer isn't going to be assinine (purposeful misspelling), why is that?

I don't know. Just assumptions, really. Like InfamousAndy was precisely what I'd imagine someone from Alabama would be like: a Southern gent, but far, far too religious for the twenty-first century. How you present yourself is very much red state too. I know Michigan is a little purple around the edges, and I suppose every state has its variations... I don't know. Just an impression I got.

[Fury161]

i hate all politics and politicians, don't vote because of dumbass candidates, and am pagan. that fix up your perception of me any?

[Hannibalien]

Across the lake, Milwaukee is becoming an increasingly dangerous city. Our campus has been having robberies DAY and night, no joke. We lost someone last semester when he was making a delivery and got shot and killed, we've had people calling in delivery orders to false addresses, then mugging and killing them. My neighbor across the street woke up to someone trying to get into their house.

I have enough stress already, I don't need to be afraid when I'm walking down the street at night.

[Iago]

See, that is what is wrong with America today.

Go into an office building armed against a bunch of other people who aren't and you can only get 1 lousy kill and 2 wounded? Geez! I mean, assuming your accuracy is only 50% with a full clip you should at LEAST get 6. >,<

And yes, thats me being sarcastic

[PFC_Hudson]

Damn dude. This is very sad.

[TheDarkWaveReturns]

And this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. This might be someone you've known for years. Someone very, very close to you.

That's all I got.

[Fury161]

i said that quote in front of my mother while we were both watching this on TV. i laughed.


she didn't.

[madbomber1998]

Originally Posted by Iago

See, that is what is wrong with America today.

Go into an office building armed against a bunch of other people who aren't and you can only get 1 lousy kill and 2 wounded? Geez! I mean, assuming your accuracy is only 50% with a full clip you should at LEAST get 6. >,<

And yes, thats me being sarcastic

what gun are YOU talking about Iago? With only 25% accuracy, I can still get 7 people....

but yea. seriously. just another reason I should be able to carry a gun to work with me. I HIGHLY doubt that this guy who shot everyone else EVER carried a gun to work. It is the law abiding citizen who gets screwed over.

[dedhed]

good idea. starting a firefight will surely decrease the number of casualties

[Iago]

Originally Posted by madbomber1998

what gun are YOU talking about Iago? With only 25% accuracy, I can still get 7 people....

but yea. seriously. just another reason I should be able to carry a gun to work with me. I HIGHLY doubt that this guy who shot everyone else EVER carried a gun to work. It is the law abiding citizen who gets screwed over.

I'm assuming a standard 12 round magazine. Sure, could tote in my RPK74 with a drum mag and get 100 people on a 50% accuracy rate but I presumed a standard hand-gun that most people would get in this kind of instance. They didn't mention what sort of firearm was used so had to presume.

Edit- And yes. If the objective target can be brought down before they terminate multiple targets, you can go from, say the 3 previous victims down to the 1 kill (the villain dropping). That is a positive success rate if you ask me.

[Fury161]

i'd rather have a gun and at least a chance to defend myself instead of cowering under a desk, with my only option being waiting to get shot.

[Fury161]

Originally Posted by Iago

I'm assuming a standard 12 round magazine. Sure, could tote in my RPK74 with a drum mag and get 100 people on a 50% accuracy rate but I presumed a standard hand-gun that most people would get in this kind of instance. They didn't mention what sort of firearm was used so had to presume.

they did. shotgun.

[StrangeWill]

"YOU FIRE ME! NOW I WILL FIRE YOU! *bang bang*"

Really I dunno what to say, on one had this is sad, on the other, how badly do you have to fuck with an employee to make him come back and shoot you?

I've been fucking pissed with people I've worked for, never enough to wanna shoot them.

[dedhed]

Originally Posted by Iago

Edit- And yes. If the objective target can be brought down before they terminate multiple targets, you can go from, say the 3 previous victims down to the 1 kill (the villain dropping). That is a positive success rate if you ask me.

sure, if life was like an action movie. in real life though, most people don't know how to use a firearm. of those who actually do, i'd wager that almost all of them only have shooting range experience, if even that. in a situation such as this, in the confusion with bullets flying and people screaming, most people will succumb to their nerves and their accuracy will suffer as a result. indeed, even the killer (who was armed with a shotgun, a weapon requiring only a fraction of the skill needed for a weapon you would be able to carry into work) had a terrible 'kill rate' (shudder). you introduce another shooter into the mix, unless they are able to keep their head and aim (we're talking a very small number here, and you know it), then more harm than good will come of it.

[Iago]

Which is why a CCL requires avid testing (at least down here) before you can get one. Everyone assumes that just because you HAVE a gun you are allowed to carry it. To carry it, you have to have training.

I don't know about you all, but when I was trained they did everything from blaring distractions, keeping the shooting area obscured with smoke and targets that weren't all ones you were to shoot. Maybe I might not be 100% prepared for such an instance and will bet money I'm not 100% prepared, but I have as much training as I can have without actually being forced to shoot at an attacker.

[StrangeWill]

Yeah, the guy who came in to KILL people, with a plan, couldn't hit shit.

[Maelstrom]

Originally Posted by Hannibalien

Across the lake, Milwaukee is becoming an increasingly dangerous city. Our campus has been having robberies DAY and night, no joke. We lost someone last semester when he was making a delivery and got shot and killed, we've had people calling in delivery orders to false addresses, then mugging and killing them. My neighbor across the street woke up to someone trying to get into their house.

I have enough stress already, I don't need to be afraid when I'm walking down the street at night.

Which college do you go to bud? UW-Milwaukee? Marquette?

I actually visited Marquette when I was choosing colleges 4 years ago, I ruled it out quickly after I saw the neighborhood. Looked pretty rough from what I remember. I will actually be in Milwaukee tomorrow...got tickets for that Indians-Angels series at Miller Park. They were cheap as hell. Only about an hour and twenty minutes from Chicago.

[Hamz]

any mention of Milwaukee just makes me think of wayne's world, alice cooper and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

[J A Eyers]

It's always amusing how these threads turn out, with a couple of people who have never fired a gun in anger, or had one fired at them, talking like they're Neo out of The Matrix. Even if you had a gun, you'd all be hiding under the desk, pissing your panties, too scared to point a gun at the shooter, because that would make YOU his next target for sure. Do stop talking like you'd be bouncing off the walls of a corridor, firing two guns at a time, dodging bullets. Nobody's fooled and we're all laughing at you.

[BullpupDFWM]

Originally Posted by J A Eyers

It's always amusing how these threads turn out, with a couple of people who have never fired a gun in anger, or had one fired at them, talking like they're Neo out of The Matrix. Even if you had a gun, you'd all be hiding under the desk, pissing your panties, too scared to point a gun at the shooter, because that would make YOU his next target for sure. Do stop talking like you'd be bouncing off the walls of a corridor, firing two guns at a time, dodging bullets. Nobody's fooled and we're all laughing at you.

QFE

[Desdinova]

Originally Posted by J A Eyers

It's always amusing how these threads turn out, with a couple of people who have never fired a gun in anger, or had one fired at them, talking like they're Neo out of The Matrix. Even if you had a gun, you'd all be hiding under the desk, pissing your panties, too scared to point a gun at the shooter, because that would make YOU his next target for sure. Do stop talking like you'd be bouncing off the walls of a corridor, firing two guns at a time, dodging bullets. Nobody's fooled and we're all laughing at you.

It all depends on training. In that kind of situation, once your flight or fight instinct kicks in, you're basically operating on autopilot. If you've trained to react, you can fight back, it really just depends on your muscle memory.