A Florida man returned Friday to the Orlando high-rise office complex where he once worked and allegedly shot six people, killing one and sparking a manhunt that ended hours later at his mother’s apartment.
The second shooting rampage in two days, following the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, prompted renewed calls by gun-control advocates for limits on sales.
The suspected gunman was identified as Jason Rodriguez, 40. Orlando Police Department officials said they responded to a call about 11:30 a.m. that shots had been fired in the Legions Place building. All of the victims worked on the eighth floor at the Reynolds, Smith & Hill architectural and engineering firm, which is Mr. Rodriguez’s former employer.
A company official said Mr. Rodriguez was an entry-level transportation engineer who was released in June 2007 for performance issues.
Asked by a television reporter outside a police station why he attacked his former co-workers, Mr. Rodriguez, in handcuffs, replied: “They left me to rot.”
The manhunt - which closed city streets and nearby Interstate 4 and forced schools to operate while locked down - began with a description of a man wearing a polo shirt and jeans and ended with the help of a telephone tip that Mr. Rodriguez had fled to his mother’s apartment, about six miles away from the crime scene.
Orlando Police Chief Val Demings called the incident tragic.
“This is a tragedy, no doubt about it, especially on the heels of the tragedy in Fort Hood that is on our minds,” Chief Demings told reporters. “I’m just glad we don’t have any more fatalities or any more injuries than we currently have.”
Meanwhile in Washington, policy advocates such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence used the mass shootings to make an argument for their position on gun ownership.
“America has seen an epidemic of horrific gun violence at churches and synagogues, workplaces, health clubs, high schools, universities, police stations and now Army bases. This latest tragedy, at a heavily fortified army base, ought to convince more Americans to reject the argument that the solution to gun violence is to arm more people with more guns in more places,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “Enough is enough.”
The National Rifle Association said this was no time for politics.
“This is a time for healing. This is a time for families to grieve and communities to mourn,” said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. “This is not the time for politics. Our thoughts, hearts and prayers are with grieving families, their loved ones and their friends during this difficult time.”
The scene in Orlando was one that has become almost familiar across the country - people running out of buildings or other facilities to escape a gunman.
On Thursday, a gunman killed 13 and wounded 31 people at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. Authorities identified the suspect as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist.
In Orlando, Greg Cross, who works in a real estate office on the 12th floor, told the Associated Press that he and his co-workers barricaded themselves inside after hearing about the gunman on television. “We were terrified,” he said. “We locked the door and put a filing cabinet in front of the door and just waited.”
Mark Vella, who works in a different office on the same floor, told the AP that he and five co-workers also pulled a filing cabinet in front of their door. They prayed and talked about what to do if the gunman showed up.
“It was a little scary, a little unnerving,” Mr. Vella told the AP. “We were afraid the guy was still in the building and making the rounds.”
Chief Demings said detectives had Mr. Rodriguez’s license plate number and tracked him through his cell phone. She said a SWAT unit acting on the phone tip went to his mother’s apartment complex, spotted Mr. Rodriguez’s car, then saw him in the apartment window. He surrendered without incident.
Chief Demings did not rule out the possibility that Mr. Rodriguez’s mother might have made the key telephone call.
The chief said she did not have a motive in the shootings. “Our investigators will work round-the-clock to see why he did what he did,” she said.
Officials said the five surviving victims were in stable condition Friday afternoon.
Ken Jacobson, legal counsel for Reynolds, Smith & Hill, told CNN that Mr. Rodriguez worked for the company for 11 months and was released because “his work product wasn’t up to the necessary standards.”
He also said the company tried to help Mr. Rodriguez improve his work and had no contact with him since his departure.
The AP reported that Mr. Rodriguez was so deep in debt that he did not have the money to visit his son 30 minutes away. Mr. Rodriguez recently told a bankruptcy judge he was making less than $30,000 a year at a Subway sandwich shop and owed nearly $90,000, according to the AP.
His former mother-in-law, America Holloway, told the AP that Mr. Rodriguez and her daughter, Neshby, were married for about 6 1/2 years before divorcing several years ago. They have an 8-year-old son who lives with his mother in Kissimmee, about a half-hour away.
Mrs. Holloway told the AP that the couple lived with her in Orlando for several years while they were married and that Mr. Rodriguez abused her daughter and once threw all her clothes into the street.
“I used to tell my daughter he was crazy,” Mrs. Holloway told the AP. “He was always fighting, always yelling. There was always problems.”
After the divorce, Mr. Rodriguez seldom saw his son, but he called last week while the child was at Mrs. Holloway’s house and the boy asked his father why he did not come over, too.
“He said, ’Because I don’t have any money. I don’t have a job. I don’t have anything to eat. When things get better, I’ll come see you,’ ” Mrs. Holloway told the AP, quoting what Mr. Rodriguez told his son.
c Ben Conery contributed to this report.
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