Gunman kills eight at beer distributor

MANCHESTER, Conn. – A driver caught stealing beer from the warehouse where he worked agreed to resign his job Tuesday and then as “cold as ice,” one of his victims said, went on a shooting rampage, killing eight people and injuring two before committing suicide.

Omar Thornton pulled out a handgun after a meeting in which he was shown video evidence of the thefts and was offered the chance to quit or be fired.

“Then he went out on this rampage,” company vice president Steve Hollander told the Associated Press. “He was cool and calm. He didn’t yell. He was cold as ice. He didn’t protest when we were meeting with him to show him the video of him stealing. He didn’t contest it. He didn’t complain. He didn’t argue. He didn’t admit or deny anything. He just agreed to resign.”

Hollander said he thinks Thornton, 34, had guns stashed in his lunch box. The executive said two people standing near him were shot in the head and killed, but he was only grazed in the jaw and the arm.

About 50 to 70 people were in the Hartford Distributors warehouse during a shift change when the gunman opened fire around 7 a.m.

“I was on the phone with 911 and then I saw him running outside of my office window, shooting his gun, carrying his lunch box, which must have had his weapons in it,” Hollander said.

The shooting was over in a matter of minutes. The victims were found all over the complex, and authorities said they didn’t know if Thornton fired randomly or targeted specific co-workers.

After shooting his co-workers, Thornton called his mother, who tried for 10 minutes to talk him out of killing himself, his uncle Will Holliday told reporters.

“He said, ‘I killed the five racists that was there that was bothering me,’ ” Holliday said. “He said, ‘The cops are going to come in so I am going to take care of myself.’ ”

Thornton, who was black, was alive when police got to the scene but killed himself before officers got to him.