XPost: aus.politics.guns, alt.war.civil.usa, alt.journalism.newspapers
XPost: talk.politics.misc

Seven Dead in Mass. Office Shooting

By ABC NEWS W A K E F I E L D, Mass., Dec. 26

Seven people were killed today when a man armed with a shotgun,
a semiautomatic assault rifle, and a semi-automatic pistol
opened fire at the corporate headquarters of a Massachusetts
Internet consulting firm.

Michael McDermott, 42, an employee of the company, Edgewater
Technology, Inc., was arrested in the building lobby and charged
with seven counts of murder, police said

Police received numerous emergency calls at 11 a.m. When the
shooting broke out, several employees who heard the shots fled
the building and took refuge in a store across the street, where
they called police.

All seven people killed in the five-to-10 minute attack were
employees of Edgewater. Two were killed in the company’s
reception area while the other five were gunned down at their
work stations, police said. Shell casings and bullets were found
all over the office. “There was an enormous amount of
firepower,” Coakley said. She said McDermott did not have a
permit for any of the weapons he was carrying and had no prior
criminal record. Police found McDermott sitting silently in the
reception area, a body nearby. Though his weapons were within
reach, he was arrested without gunfire.

Assistant District Attorney John McEvoy refused to comment on
whether the victims were shot at random or whether they were
chosen for some reason out of the 70-80 people working in the
building at the time. No one else was shot.

The victims were identified as Jennifer Bragg-Capobianco; Janice
Hagerty; Louis Javelle; Rose Manfredy; Paul Marceau; Cheryl
Troy; and Craig Wood.

McDermott’s wages were to be garnished after the holidays
because he was delinquent in tax payments, said Middlesex
District Attorney Martha Coakley, who said the IRS had contacted
Edgewater. The garnishment could have been a motive for the
shootings, Coakley said.

McDermott had worked at Edgewater since March, said McEvoy.

During an earlier briefing, McEvoy refused to comment on whether
a rumor that 25 percent of the company’s staff was going to be
laid off triggered the shooting. Company officials said there
have not been any layoffs at Edgewater and none are planned any
time soon.

McDermott was to be arraigned Wednesday morning at Malden
District Court.

Scene Was ‘Absolutely Horrible’

“The gunman went postal,” one witness told reporters while grim-
faced police, wearing bullet-proof vests and helmets, were still
searching the three-story brick office complex about 10 miles
north of Boston in Wakefield.

Heavily armed officers who conducted a room-to-room search of
the offices, located in a converted mill, told reporters as they
came out of the building that the scene inside was “absolutely
horrible.”

For more than two hours, authorities closed off the area,
allowing only emergency crews, ambulances and police near the
building as they tried to locate any other victims and determine
how many people carried out the shooting.

A spokesman for Edgewater earlier today said the software
consulting company is in the process of moving its headquarters
from Fayetteville, Ark., to Wakefield.

The company is undergoing a streamlining process, selling off
its Commercial Services and Intellimark divisions to focus on
Internet services. On Thursday it announced it was offering $8 a
share for some 57 percent of the company’s outstanding common
stock, a total offering of $130 million.

ABCNEWS.com’s Dean Schabner and The Associated Press contributed
to this report.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=94595&page=1
 

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)