Former Worker Opens Fire, Dozens Of Bullets All Miss
A man fired from Packard Bell after handing out a newspaper article about office violence shot up his former workplace with 50 to 60 rounds of ammunition Monday until he was wounded in the shoulder by a security guard.
No one else was hurt in the shooting at the computer maker’s headquarters.
“It’s really miraculous that somebody wasn’t hit with at least a ricochet,” police spokesman Michael Heenan said.
Phuoc Bui, 34, was treated at a hospital, then booked at the county jail on attempted murder and kidnapping charges.
The kidnapping charge was filed because Bui grabbed a woman who works at the plant and forced her through a turnstile to get into the building, Heenan said.
Bui had been fired Friday after he gave co-workers a newspaper article that discussed “the wisdom of having a plan to protect workers against violence,” Heenan said.
“That was distributed in such a way that it left some of his co-workers with the idea that he admired the idea of settling a grudge by coming into a workplace with a gun,” Heenan said.
Bui became belligerent when his managers tried to discuss the article with him, he said. He did not know if other factors were involved in the firing.
Bui entered the Packard Bell complex about 9 a.m. and went to his former worksite, a large packing room, carrying a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and more than 100 rounds of ammunition in a small nylon bag, the police officer said.
The gunman began shooting, mostly into the ceiling and into an office where nine supervisors were meeting, Heenan said.
Two security guards, both former police officers, ordered Bui to drop his gun, and when he did not, they fired one or two shots each, hitting Bui once in the shoulder, Heenan said.
Worker James Hunt said he heard the gunfire and dashed for the nearest exit. “My instinct at the first shot was I was gone. I thought that some of the workers I knew were killed on the spot,” he said.
Packard Bell said in a statement that it is re-examining its security.