Authorities in Pennsylvania said that a disgruntled employee opened fire at a linen company near Philadelphia on Wednesday, killing two coworkers and injuring three others.
Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said that the shooting took place at about 8:30 a.m, when the suspect, an employee at Delaware County Lenin in Chester, PA (about 18 miles south of Philadelphia) allegedly walked into the facility with a handgun and opened fire without warning. Police said the suspect left the building after the shooting but authorities stopped a vehicle that matched its description in Trainer, Pa., near the facility later that morning. The suspect, who has not been publicly named, was taken into custody.
DA Stollsteimer said the workers had shortly arrived to work when the shooting happened, and that two of the workers died at the scene of the shooting that happened outside of the building, as well as inside. Stollsteimer said: “This is a story that plays out too often across the United States of America. [The shooting is] an absolute tragedy.” Stollsteimer said according to its initial investigation, no one could point to an immediate motive for the shooting or anticipated the possibility of the incident.
Chester Mayor Stefan Roots said: “It speaks to guns in America. Violence is always unpredictable. We don’t know what conditions people are under, in a city that’s impoverished like ours … We can’t have guns in the hands of the wrong people. There had to be some type of mental health issue that would have an employee walk into his workplace on a day of work and take out his anger in such a violent way — to not just the boss, but his coworkers, who he probably worked side-by-side with for years.”
Chester Police Commissioner Steven Gretsky said during a news conference that one of three people hospitalized in the shooting was listed in critical condition.
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