4 dead after Maryland warehouse shooting

ABERDEEN, MD. — An employee at a Rite Aid warehouse opened fire at work Thursday, killing three people before taking her own life, authorities said. Several other people were wounded.

The suspect was a 26-year-old temporary employee at the Rite Aid distribution centre in northeastern Maryland, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told a news conference. She had been arrested in critical condition that morning. Her name was not immediately released.

It appears only one weapon, a handgun, was used and no shots were fired by responding law enforcement officers, Gahler said. The shooter used a 9 mm Glock that was registered in her name, he said. He said authorities don’t know her motive.

Krystal Watson, 33, said her husband, Eric, works at the facility and told her that the suspect had been arguing with somebody after a “Town Hall meeting.” “And she went off,” she said. Watson said her husband told her the shooting started in a break room.

“She didn’t have a particular target. She was just shooting,” Watson said as she drove away from a fire station where relatives tried to reunite with loved ones.

“She didn’t aim. She just shot,” Watson said.

Area hospitals reported receiving five patients from the incident. Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore said it was treating four patients with gunshot wounds. Two were in stable condition and two were seriously injured.

A spokesman for a health system that includes Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, said one patient was being treated there.

Gahler said the call about shots fired came in at about 9:06 a.m. and deputies and other officers were on the scene in just over five minutes.

Mike Carre, an employee of a furniture logistics operation next to the distribution centre, said he helped tend to a wounded man. Carre locked the doors of his workplace after the injured man came hobbling in, bleeding from his leg. He called 911 from a bathroom before helping colleagues wrap the man’s blood-soaked jeans above his injury to cut off blood flow.

Carre said the man told him the shooter “just came in in a bad mood this morning. He said she’s usually nice. But today, I guess it wasn’t her day.”