MANCHESTER, Conn. — An employee who had been asked to resign went on a shooting rampage Tuesday at a family-owned beer distributing company, killing eight people and wounding others before fatally shooting himself, officials said.
The shooting took place at Hartford Distributors Inc., about 10 miles east of Hartford.
Authorities identified the alleged shooter as Omar Thornton, a 34-year-old warehouse driver.
The driver had worked at the distributor for a couple of years and been called in for a disciplinary hearing, said John Hollis of the Connecticut Teamsters, who was with company officials at the scene of the shooting.
"The union was bringing him in to meet with the company to remedy the problem," Hollis told the Hartford Courant. "He started shooting."
Thornton shot a number of people inside and outside the building and then shot himself with a .223 caliber semiautomatic rifle as police approached, sources told the Courant.
Brett Hollander, Hartford Distributors' director of marketing, said about 50 to 70 people were in the warehouse at the time and that shifts were just changing
