The more you listen, the more you go crazy.
You must join in the poking poking gang.
Or else you will be boycotted.
Associated Press/Finance and Commerce, Bill Klotz - This July
2012 photo shows Andrew Engeldinger working at Accent Signage in
Minneapolis. Police say the gunman who killed four people inside a
Minneapolis …more
sign company had been fired hours before the attack.
Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan told a Friday, Sept. 28, 2012,
news conference that the gunman in Thursday's attack was
36-year-old Engeldinger of Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Finance and
Commerce, Bill Klotz) MANDATORY CREDIT less
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This July 2012 photo shows Reuven …
Jim Dow, who said he had been a …
A Minneapolis police officer walks …
The home of suspected shooter Andrew …
An officer walks underneath caution …
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An Israeli immigrant who started a
signage company in his basement and spent decades building it into
a successful business was among five people slain by a fired
employee at a Minneapolis workplace,
authorities said.
Also killed were an avid sculptor and painter with a day job
there and a UPS driver who made pickups and deliveries to the
company for years. Police said he was simply in the wrong place at
the wrong time.
Six people — including the suspected gunman — were shot to death
Thursday afternoon at Accent Signage Systems,
located in a quiet residential corner of northwest Minneapolis.
Police say Andrew Engeldinger, 36, was fired
from the company that afternoon and responded by fatally shooting
others there before he turned the gun on himself in the building's
basement.
Among those killed were Reuven Rahamim, 61, the company's
founder; Rami Cooks, 62, of Minnetonka; Jacob
Beneke, 34, of Maple Grove; Ronald Edberg, 58, of Brooklyn
Center; and Keith Basinski, 50, a Wisconsin native who was the UPS
driver.
No details were immediately released about why Engeldinger was fired, but Minneapolis
Police Chief Tim Dolan said it appeared he singled out some
victims and spared others. Engeldinger's family offered sympathy to
the victims in a statement through the National
Alliance on Mental Illness. It said he had struggled with
mental illness for years.
"This is not an excuse for his actions, but sadly, may be a
partial explanation," the statement said.
Rahamim's family asked that the focus of the tragedy be on those
killed rather than the gunman. Rahamim's son-in law, Chad Blumenfield, wrote in an email that he was born and
raised on a farm in Israel and was a soldier
in the Israeli Army before leaving for the U.S. after the Yom
Kippur War, which occurred in 1973.
"He loved spending time with his children and grandchildren and
especially loved to take his grandson for bike rides," Blumenfield
wrote.
Beneke had a wife and a young son, said Lorrie Link, who heads
the Maple Grove Arts Center. She said Beneke was a volunteer there,
where he displayed his work and promoted the work of other artists
in the suburb northwest of Minneapolis.
Beneke's Facebook page said he worked as digital imaging manager
at Accent Signage Systems.
"He was just a very cool guy. He was very creative and
expressive," Link said of the New Albin, Iowa, native. "His
sculptures and paintings and drawings made us laugh."
Basinski was a Wisconsin native dedicated to the Green Bay
Packers. Dolan said he likely wasn't one of the gunman's primary
targets but was killed simply because he happened to be there.
Minneapolis Police Capt. Amelia Huffman said the scene at Accent
Signage Systems was "very chaotic" and that it was taking time for
police to put together a comprehensive chronology. She said there
were more than 20 people scattered in the building when Engeldinger
began firing, and witnesses only saw bits of what happened.
Huffman said police believe Engeldinger got a letter of
reprimand in the mail and came into the office Thursday afternoon.
At that point, he was terminated.
"From the best we can tell, the incident started right after Mr.
Engeldinger had been fired," Huffman said. She said there was a
struggle in the office and shots were fired, which employees
elsewhere in the building heard. Dolan said Engeldinger used a 9mm
Glock semi-automatic pistol he had owned for about a year.
"And Mr. Engeldinger left the back office area and fired
additional shots throughout the building," she said. Victims were
shot throughout the building, she said.
Police said the first 911 calls came in about 4:30 p.m.
Thursday. Initially, three officers responded; Dolan said the
shooting was over by the time they got there, and they entered the
building to find a scene he described as "hellish." Dolan said
those three officers were put on leave to give them time to
recover.
"This scene is by far the most traumatic these officers have
ever encountered," Dolan said.
It took officers a long time to secure the very large building,
he said. The company had no security, and Dolan said tactical units
found two people hiding "a very long time" after the attack
began.
Later Thursday, SWAT teams and investigators searched
Engeldinger's home in south Minneapolis. There they found a second
gun and packaging for 10,000 rounds of ammunition in the house.
"He obviously had this gun and was practicing how to use this
gun," Dolan said.
Sue Abderholden, executive director of the National Alliance on
Mental Illness' Minnesota chapter, said Engeldinger's family had
sought help from the group two years ago, with his parents taking a
12-week course on recognizing and dealing with mental illness.
She said their concerns were "much more centered around paranoid
thoughts. No violence or anything like that." The Engeldingers were
not able to convince Andrew to seek treatment, she said.
Andrew Engeldinger's uncle, Joe
Engeldinger of New Germany, Minn.,
called his nephew a "good kid" who broke the hearts of family
members when he broke off contact with them about two years
ago.
"When I would see his family, I would ask them about Andy and
nobody could ever tell me anything," Joe Engeldinger said.
Chuck and Carolyn Engeldinger raised Andrew and his two siblings
in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield, Joe Engeldinger said.
"He wasn't a monster. He wasn't," Joe Engeldinger said. "He was
a real good kid, a real good person. He had a real good heart. I
don't know what made all this transpire. Hopefully the truth will
come out and won't get twisted into some demented thing."
The Minnesota Bureau of Labor and Industry said it was the
deadliest workplace shooting since the agency began tracking such
events in 1992. No more than two workers had died in such a
shooting before this week, according to the St. Paul Pioneer
Press.
___
Associated Press reporter Martiga Lohn contributed to this
report.