Officers involved in Middleton shooting ID’d
Police chief, sheriff praise life-saving rapid response
The four law enforcement officers involved in the shootout with the gunman at a Middleton software company Wednesday have been identified as Middleton Police Officers Richard O’Connor and Tyler Loether and Dane County Sheriff’s Deputies David Lambrecht and Matthew Earll.
The four officers exchanged fire with Anthony Y. Tong after he opened fire on co-workers at WTS Paradigm. Tong died later at a hospital. The four have been on administrative leave pending a review by the state Department of Justice.
O’Connor is an active shooter response trainer for the department and has been with Middleton police since 1998. Loether joined in 2012 and is a member of the Middleton Police Training Team.
Lambrecht, 49, has been with the Sheriff’s Office for 21 years and is currently assigned to the traffic team. Earll, 46, has been with Sheriff’s Office for 11 years and is currently assigned to child support enforcement.
Tong, who had worked at the Middleton software company since April 2017, was armed — with a semiautomatic handgun and extra magazines — when he began firing at co-workers Wednesday morning. Three people were hospitalized with serious injuries. A fourth person was grazed by a bullet.
Two of the victims who were hospitalized were released Friday, UW Health spokesman Gian Galassi said Saturday. The third is in fair condition at the Madison hospital.
Middleton Police Chief Charles Foulke and Dane County Sheriff David Mahoney have praised the quick response by law enforcement officers, saying they were certain lives were saved as a result of their training.
“I can’t say enough about how law enforcement responded,” Mahoney said at a news conference Thursday.
“Law enforcement in Dane County, from the City of Madison, from the City of Middleton, from Dane County Sheriff ’s and all of our partners responded to this incident, and immediately their training kicked in,” he said.
“They assembled an entry team, and within minutes ended this situation. It was because of that training, it was because of the scenarios that we’ve practiced for years … (that) saved lives. There’s no doubt about the fact that lives were saved.”
According to police, the first call came in at 10:26 a.m. Wednesday for an “active shooter” at 1850 Deming Way, where several businesses, including WTS Paradigm, are located. The first officer arrived at the building three minutes later and by 10:31 a.m., six Middleton police officers were at the building along with sheriff’s deputies. The regional FBI office is only a block away and FBI officers also quickly responded.
Inside the company’s offices, Tong shot at police officers, who returned fire. At 10:37 a.m., according to Broadcastify, an officer told dispatchers, “Subject is down,” and called for a ballistic shield so officers could approach Tong.
A search of Tong’s Madison home revealed two firearms, a pellet gun, dozens of boxes of ammunition, a number of gun parts and accessories including a silencer and three bulletproof vests, according to a search warrant.
Tong, who moved to the Madison area in 2017, was flagged as a danger to co-workers and banned from having firearms more than a decade ago, according to police records made public Friday.
He had obtained a concealed carry permit in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but it was revoked as a result of a 2004 incident in which he disabled his smoke alarms, ceiling fans and other electrical devices in his apartment because he felt the neighbors below him “were eavesdropping on him,” according to Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Department records.
Sioux Falls police said Tong was acting defensive, delusional and paranoid, and was carrying a loaded handgun with a double magazine, pepper spray and two knives. Police also found a Colt AR-15 rifle in the apartment and a large amount of ammunition.
Tong would not answer when asked if he considered shooting someone else, and put his head between his knees instead.
Tong in 2004 was taken to a Sioux Falls hospital’s mental health unit by police after the search of his home revealed a number of weapons and a large amount of ammunition — all of which were confiscated.
During the incident, Tong wouldn’t tell police whether he would consider shooting anybody but said “there were people at work who were talking bad about him” prompting police to flag Tong as a danger to others.