Fired felon shoots five in rampage
Had punched a coworker
EDGEWOOD, Md. — A man with a lengthy criminal past who was fired from a job earlier this year for punching a colleague, then showed up for work at a countertop company yesterday and shot five of his co-workers, has been arrested, authorities said. Three of them were killed and two critically wounded.
Less than two hours later, Radee Labeeb Prince drove to a used car lot about 55 miles away in Wilmington, Del., and opened fire on a man with whom he had “beefs” in the past, wounding him, police said.
The shooting rampage set off a manhunt along the Interstate 95 Northeast corridor and Prince was “apprehended ... in Delaware by ATF and allied law enforcement agencies,” the Harford County Sheriff’s Office in Maryland tweeted last night. Authorities said it wasn’t clear why Prince opened fire on his colleagues.
Prince is a felon with 42 arrests in Delaware. Court records showed he had been fired from a Maryland job earlier this year after allegedly punching a co-worker and threatening other employees. He also faced charges of being a felon in possession of a gun, was habitually late paying his rent, was repeatedly cited for traffic violations and was ordered to undergo drug and alcohol counseling in recent years.
The rampage began about 9 a.m. at the Emmorton Business Park in Edgewood, Harford County, Maryland, Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said. Although deputies arrived in four minutes, Prince had already fled the scene.
The victims and Prince worked for Advanced Granite Solutions, which designs and installs countertops. Prince has been an employee for four months, working as a machine operator, owner Barak Caba told AP in a brief telephone interview.
The second shooting took place at the 28th Street Auto Sales and Service shop in Wilmington, Del. The police chief wouldn’t elaborate the history the victim and Prince had, other than to say: “This individual knew the people he wanted to shoot.”
The victim was shot in the vicinity of his head and once in the body but was expected to survive.
Investigators were treating the shooting as a case of workplace violence and didn’t see ties to terrorism, said Dave Fitz, a spokesman for the Baltimore FBI field office.