CHESTER, Pa. (WPVI) — An employee of a Chester, Pennsylvania, business opened fire Wednesday morning, killing two people and seriously injuring three others.
Action News has learned the suspect, whose name has not been released, has made threats in the past and is currently in custody.
The shooting happened around 8:30 a.m. in Linen, Delaware County, in the 2600 block of W. 4th Street.
Authorities confirmed the deceased was an employee.
“Unfortunately, two people lost their lives just by going to work today,” said Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer.
It is not yet known what motivated the suspect to fire or whether the victim was specifically targeted.
Employees said they knew the suspect well, with one woman saying he had been causing ongoing problems.
“A lot of people have complained to the office about him,” the worker said. “Don’t listen.”
The employee said he was on vacation Wednesday but came to the scene after hearing what happened.
She told Action News the shooter was very aggressive and often had a gun hanging from his waistband. She said the man said he didn’t care and that it was OK for him to shoot people.
Workers said they initially thought the gunfire was an explosion, possibly from chemicals being used in the cleanup.
That was until I heard my colleagues telling me to leave the building and evacuate.
“We’re all scared because of what happened. We saw someone coming but we didn’t stay to see what would happen. Everyone just ran for their lives,” another employee said.
Chester Mayor Stephen Roots said one of the people shot was a supervisor at the company. It is unclear whether the supervisor was among the dead.
Eric Spencer said he witnessed the shooting, which he said started as an argument between several co-workers, including the gunman.
“I stood there for about a minute, and then I walked away because I didn’t understand Spanish. The next time I turned around, he pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot me at close range. Just like that. It was on the street,” he said.
Spencer said he heard the rest of the gunfire but didn’t see it because he had already fled — and for good reason.
“We just had an argument yesterday,” he said of the shooter. “My friend grabbed me and said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’
Helicopter 6 was sent to the scene of a shooting at a business in Chester, Pennsylvania, Wednesday morning.
After the shooting, the suspect fled the scene in a private vehicle.
However, he was stopped by a police officer from Trainor, Pennsylvania, who took a description of the vehicle. The suspect was taken into custody at Kane Street and Culhane Street in Chester.
Law enforcement officials and neighbors said that’s where the suspect lives and that he may have been driving home after the shooting.
Neighbors said they saw the suspect on the ground and being arrested. She added that her family recently moved to the area from Puerto Rico.
“I woke up to police sirens and I looked out the window and saw my neighbor on the ground being arrested and taken away. It was like something out of a movie,” neighbor Christina Martinez said.
Other neighbors said they were a good family but were shocked by Wednesday’s events.
A gun was found inside the suspect’s car, authorities said. It was not immediately known if that was the weapon used in the shooting.
The three injured victims are said to have serious injuries. One of the injured victims was taken to the hospital by Chester police.
The victims’ names have not been released.
“This speaks to the problem of guns in America,” Roots said, noting that his small city has experienced relatively calm periods in recent years, with violent crime on the decline. “Violence is always unpredictable, and in a poor city like ours, you never know what kind of situation people are in.”
Roots called on Pennsylvania’s state legislature to address the gun crisis, especially as it relates to people with mental health issues.
“We can’t put guns in the wrong people’s hands,” Roots said, “There must have been some sort of mental health issue for an employee to walk into his workplace on a work day and lash out in such a violent way, not only at his supervisor, but at coworkers he’d likely been working with for years.”
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