Two employees of a West Chester trucking company were killed and three other workers were wounded this morning when a gunman walked into the company's offices and opened fire with two handguns.
The 10 a.m. shooting at Watkins Motor Lines, Inc. prompted a regional manhunt for a suspect named Tom West, described by police as a white male between 45 and 50 years old, with a full salt and pepper beard who left the scene in a white panel van.
About 2½ hours after the shooting, West was apprehended by police in Decatur County in southeastern Indiana.
West Chester Police Chief John Bruce said West last worked at the trucking company in November 2001. Today's victims did not recognize the gunman who shot them, the police chief said.
Police had not released the names of the victims pending notification of relatives. Two of those wounded were being treated at Bethesda North Hospital: a 48-year-old man with arm and chest injuries, and a 50-year old man with chest wounds. Both were undergoing surgery late this morning.
One of the men killed, a 65-year-old man, died after arriving at Bethesda North. The other wounded man was taken to Mercy Hospital in Fairfield. No information on his condition was available.
An employee of Watkins who did not want to be identified said he learned of the shooting from a supervisor who informed workers. "It went on the radio that they carry around,'' the worker said. "He came on the dock and told us all to get to the break room. He told us some people had been shot and they didn't know where he was at."
The shooting occurred in the line hall where trucks are dispatched and freight is received. Line hall workers were later taken to a different building where police interviewed them.
The employee said the break room has only one entrance. "I went out on the lot where I could see to run because they told us they didn't know where he was," he said.
As a precaution, nearby Lakota West schools were locked down and on "high alert" for about an hour after the shooting, said district spokesman Jon Weidlich. The district's closest schools are Lakota West High School at Union Centre Boulevard and Adena Elementary on Minuteman Way. The closest school, Heritage Hill Elementary in the Princeton district, was also locked this morning, said the Princeton district security chief.
Greg Green, operations manager for Masur Trucking across the street from Watkins, also locked down his terminal.
"Nothing moves in, nothing moves out,'' Green said.
Sharing the same building is Dawes Transport, which has continued operations. "The police have not told us to shut down, said Al Gabriel, assistant manager. "We're trying to conduct business as normal."
Another man, Mike Burris, an owner-operator who leases trucks out of Dawes, said he got all of his drivers out on the road as soon as he learned what had happened and then locked down the facility. He has 13 truckers.
"We saw all the ambulances and police arriving. I have a friend over there who called me to let me know he was all right. He was in a different part of the building and didn't really know what happened, but he knew it was bad."
Watkins Motor Lines is one of several trucking facilities in the industrial area north of Interstate 275. Based in Lakeland, Fla, Watkins transports freight from 136 locations and employs more than 12,000 throughout the nation, according to the company's Web site. The company's West Chester facility employs 760 employees.
Company officials declined to comment this morning.
The trucking company is part of the Schumacher Commerce park, a warren of twisting streets connecting to companies with full parking lots.
Outside Watkins, a security guard in yellow rain gear was posted at the entrance as trucks continued to come and go throughout the morning. The employee parking lot remained filled, and white Watkins trucks filled bays in the trucking company and lined the parking lot. At one open doorway. police officers and firemen stood talking mid-morning as an American flag fluttered in the rain.
Today's incident comes nearly eight years after another fatal workplace shooting in Greater Cincinnati that also, ironically, occurred at a trucking company.
In the December 1995 episode, a disgruntled 53-year-old Westwood truck driver, Gerald Clemons, gunned down a secretary and two dispatchers at the Trans-Continental Systems trucking company in Evendale. During the early-morning rampage, Clemons stalked and killed his victims -- including one hiding under her desk -- in retaliation for a dispute over his paycheck and truck routes.
Clemons, whose defense attorneys argued that his lifelong battle with physical and emotional problems contributed to his actions, was convicted of three counts of aggravated murder by a Hamilton County jury and sentenced to death.
He now is on Ohio's Death Row in Mansfield.
