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7 shot dead last night a mile away from my house here in Goleta
Death toll rises to seven in Postal Service shooting
By Thomas Schultz and Shelly Leachman
January 31, 2006 10:16 AM
Seven people are dead and an eighth in critical condition after a former employee of a U.S. Postal Service processing and distribution center in Goleta opened fire with a handgun late Monday before fatally turning the weapon on herself at the Storke Road facility.
Postmaster General John Potter today expressed "complete shock and sadness" upon learning of the shootings.
"Our heartfelt prayers and condolences go out to the families of the victims and to our employees who have suffered through this tragic incident," he said in a prepared statement. "Their families are being notified and professional counselors will be available to the families and to other facility employees."
"The Postal Service and the Postal Inspection Service are cooperating fully with local law enforcement officials in their investigation," Mr. Potter said.
The scope of the massacre, described by veteran law enforcement officials as the worst they could recall in Santa Barbara County, became clear early this morning.
At 2 a.m., after two heavily armed SWAT teams scoured the building, the Sheriff's Department added four more fatalities including the unidentified shooter to a count that had stood at three fatalities just hours earlier.
Another victim remains in critical condition at Cottage Hospital.
"We are very sorry that this has occurred," a grim-faced Sheriff Jim Anderson told reporters from across Southern and Central California during a hastily-planned 3 a.m. news conference. He said his department was doing all it could to piece together the sequence of events and a motive for the carnage that began around 9:15 p.m. and sparked an evacuation of up to 50 shaken workers inside at the time. The plant employees about 300 people.
Two dead bodies were discovered outside the main entrance of the 203,000-square-foot center, according to Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Erik Raney.
Another deceased individual was found just inside, along with the critically injured victim.
Later, investigators found four additional bodies including the shooter's in locations throughout the sprawling center, Sgt. Raney said.
Employees corralled by authorities and interviewed by law enforcement officials inside the adjacent County Fire Station 11 after the evacuation were instructed by Postal Service supervisors not to discuss what they saw, heard or felt with the media.
Once released to go home, many ventured into the night wrapped in blankets, or rushed past a growing gaggle of print, television and radio reporters and photographers without uttering a word.
As searchers frantically combed the mail plant for survivors and the shooter, another tragic scene unfolded at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, where postal employees, family and friends huddled outside the emergency room doors until after 3 a.m., awaiting word on potential victims.
The employee rumor mill swirled in high gear with stories of the female shooter and her well-known strange behavior when she worked at the plant, theories about exactly who got shot, who was alive and who was dead.
"It's just the waiting and the wondering that's so hard," said one woman, who worried her best friend was among the fatalities.
The husband of one victim sat on a bench, surrounded by his parents and friends, his entire body trembling, hands shaking as he spoke on a cell phone, shortly after being denied access to his wife's body at the hospital.
A Sheriff's Department chaplain instructed him to call the morgue to arrange a viewing.
"I just want to hug her while she's still warm," he said through sobs.
For updates throughout the day, see newspress.com and for the full story, see Wednesday's News-Press.
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