Gunman kills five at an Illinois plant where he worked

By Frederick H. Lowe
Contributing Writer

(BlackmansStreet.Today) — Gary Martin, who went on a rampage Friday, killing five of his former co-workers, had been depressed about losing his job of 15 years at a factory in Aurora, Illinois, his sister said.

“He was very depressed,” Tameka Martin told The New York Times. At a dinner a few nights ago at their mother’s home, her brother could barely speak because he expected to be fired from his job, she said.

Martin, 45, worked as a large valve assembler for Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, 40 miles west of Chicago.

On Friday, he was summoned to a meeting with representatives of the company’s Human Resources department, where he was told he was being fired. Martin pulled a gun and shot to death five people. Martin shot three people in the meeting and two others inside the cavernous plant. He also wounded five police officers and six others before police killed him.

Workplace homicides account for 10 percent of the nation’s occupational injuries, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2016, the latest statistics available, 66 people were killed by co-workers.

Between 1982 and November 2018, Blacks committed 17 of the 107 mass shootings. Sixty of the 107 mass shootings during that period were committed by whites, according to Statista, The Statistics Portal. The remaining 30 mass shootings were committed by Hispanics (10), Asians (8), Other (5), Unknown (4) and Native Americans (3).

This article originally published in the February 25, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.