Staying strong, Kansas town says
Lawn mowers line streets to honor plant’s dead in rampage
HESSTON, Kansas — Grieving residents parked lawn mowers with American flags planted beside them along some streets Saturday and adorned them with “Hesston Hustler Strong” signs in a symbolic allusion to the lawn-equipment brand from the factory where a gunman killed three co-workers.
The Excel Industries factory, nestled in the center of the community of 3,700 founded by Mennonite farmers, has long been more than an economic hub. The community is known to bring people together, drawing about 1,000 workers from small towns in the region, and everyone seems to either work there or know someone who does.
The Hustler brand evolved in the 1960s from the tinkering of a man from a nearby town, John Regier, who built a lawn mower that could turn and maneuver more easily to cut grass around obstacles such as trees and winding sidewalks. The company now sells Hustler and Big Dog equipment around the globe and in 2013 earned the Kansas Governor’s Exporter of the Year award.
The quiet of Hesston was shattered Thursday when Cedric Ford barged into the plant while about 300 people were working the second shift and opened fire. Authorities said Ford, a convicted felon, was upset after being served hours earlier at the plant with a protection-from-abuse order to stay away from a former girlfriend. In addition to three people killed, 14 were wounded including two people shot as he drove to the plant.
It fell to Hesston Police Chief Doug Schroeder, one of a force of just six full-time officers, to rush into the plant without backup and kill the gunman in an exchange of bullets. An off-duty officer drove his pickup to the plant and took an injured worker to a nearby ambulance.
The police chief was hailed as a hero in the community. But city leaders said Saturday that there were many heroes that day, including some Excel workers who carried injured people out.
Hesston Mayor David Kauffman said law enforcement officers converged from around the area. Just weeks earlier, the county had hosted a training session on shooter situations for area departments.
“We were prepared as much as we could be for something like this,” Kauffman said.
“At Excel, we are like a family,” said Rick Lett, a friend since high school of one of the dead, Brian Sadowsky, 44. Lett worked an earlier shift that day and recalled his friend’s last words to him as Sadowsky arrived for that fateful second shift: “Have a good evening, brother.”
The other workers killed inside the plant were Josh Higbee, 31, and Renee Benjamin, 30.
For some families, multiple generations work at Excel. Karen Mosqueda worked the first shift and her daughter, Ashley, worked the second shift on the day of the attack. The daughter ran out of the building when someone shouted that there was a gunman. Some workers carried an injured colleague outside, taking their belts off as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding before going to nearby homes to get a blanket for him.
At a Wichita hospital, the son of Dennis Britton Sr. was recovering from a gunshot wound that went through his lower buttock and fractured a femur bone. Dennis Britton Jr. told his father that when he heard the shooting he dropped to the floor and then couldn’t get back up. The shooter made eye contact with him.
The father recalled how his son looked up at him from the ambulance at the plant and said, “It hurts.” But the older Britton knows his son will have more than just his physical injuries to deal with in the coming days.
“It was pretty rough. I don’t think it has sunk in yet,” the father said. “When it does, he is going to have to do some talking.”
The city planned a townhall meeting for this afternoon to answer questions from residents, and a special church service also is planned for this evening in the school gym. The city has embraced the mantra “Hesston Strong” for its recovery efforts.