Fla. shooting suspect ‘mentally ill’

ORLANDO, Fla. | The engineer accused of fatally shooting one employee and wounding five others at the firm where he once worked is “very mentally ill” and crumbled under the stress of his divorce, bankruptcy and unemployment, his attorney said Saturday.

Jason Rodriguez, 40, was ordered held without bail at the Orange County Jail, where he was under suicide watch after Friday’s shooting. His mother, Ana Rodriguez, apologized Saturday, telling reporters she was “so sorry for everything that has happened.”

“Sorry for the families involved. I’m really very sorry; it is very hurtful,” she said.

Public defender Bob Wesley asked the judge at a brief court appearance Saturday to bar police and prosecutors from any contact with Mr. Rodriguez without the defense attorney’s permission.

Mr. Wesley told reporters that Mr. Rodriguez “is a very, very mentally ill person” who lost his emotional stability because of deep financial problems.

“This guy is a compilation of the front page of the entire year - unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce - all of the stresses,” Mr. Wesley said. “He has been declining in mental health. There is no logic whatsoever, which points to a mental health case. It looks like a classic case of stress overload.”

Employees at Reynolds, Smith and Hills recognized their former co-worker when he drew a handgun from a holster under his shirt, police said, and killed Otis Beckford, 26, next to a receptionist’s desk in an office at a downtown Orlando office tower. He then walked into the office and fired several more rounds, wounding five other employees at the company he had been let go from two years ago.

Orlando police identified the five wounded victims Saturday as Gregory Hornsbeck, 39; Ferrell Hickson, 40; Guy Lugenbeel, 62; Edward Severino; 34; and Keyondra Harrison; 27. All were in stable condition at Orlando hospitals, and all were expected to survive.

Mr. Rodriguez was taken into custody several hours after the shooting. He was charged with first-degree murder.

Police said Mr. Rodriguez told detectives he blamed the firm for recent trouble he had receiving unemployment benefits. As officers led him handcuffed into a police station Friday, a reporter asked him why he had attacked his former colleagues.

“Because they left me to rot,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who recently told a bankruptcy judge he was making less than $30,000 a year at a Subway sandwich shop and had debts of nearly $90,000. He is the divorced father of a young son.

All the victims worked at Reynolds, Smith and Hills, where Mr. Rodriguez was an entry-level engineer for 11 months before he was fired in June 2007, the company said.

Hours after the shootings, police tracked Mr. Rodriguez to his mother’s home and ordered him to come out. He surrendered peacefully, apologizing as officers handcuffed him, police said.