A shooting at a manufacturing plant in Hesston, Kansas on Thursday that began and was carried out
The gunman, who was not immediately named by police, reportedly drove through neighboring towns firing a gun from the window of his moving car before arriving at what appeared to be his intended destination, the plant. It’s not clear what the motivation was for the shooting spree, but the sheriff raised the possibility that he might have been fired from the company recently.
Here’s more from local ABC News affiliate KAKE:
Officers first responded around 5 p.m. Thursday to the report of a man firing at other vehicles from his vehicle at 12th Street and Meridian in Newton. Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton said one driver was shot before the gunman continued driving to Highway 81, where he shot another person. A short time later, an active shooter was reported at Excel Industries, a business that manufactures lawn mower products, at 200 South Ridge Road in Hesston. An employee said the gunman came through the production area of the business with what appeared to be an AK-47… Fifteen people were shot inside the business. About 150 people were at Excel at the time of the shooting.
Employees at the plant have identified the shooter as 38-year-old Cedric Ford, although authorities have not yet confirmed the shooter’s identity. “The tattooed suspect’s social media shows a mixture of family pictures of trips to the zoo and videos where he sings and dances along to hip-hop music or spraying bullets into an empty field,” according to the New York Daily News. “A handgun is also seen in some photos, including one where the pistol and a bottle of gin are sitting in what appears to be Ford’s car.”
The is the second mass shooting in a matter of days; on Saturday, an Uber driver went on a shooting rampage killing six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
*This post has been updated with new information as it became available.
