User:Lord Gøn/Lockheed Martin shooting

The Lockheed Martin shooting was an act of mass murder that occurred on July 8, 2003 at the Lockheed Martin plant in Meridian, Mississippi, United States. The gunman, 48-year-old Douglas Williams, an assembly line worker at the plant, who was known for his racist remarks, shot 14 of his co-workers with a shotgun, killing six of them, before committing suicide. Eight of his victims, and five of those killed, were black.

It was the deadliest workplace shooting in the United States since December 2000, when Michael McDermott killed seven co-workers at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield, Massachusetts.

Shooting
On the day of the shooting Williams had to attend a mandatory ethics and diversity class together with several black employees. According to his colleagues Williams arrived at the plant in a very agitated state and made threats to kill black workers. At the meeting he stayed only for a few minutes. Telling his supervisor, he would take the matters into his own hands Williams stormed out of the room to retrieve several guns from his pick-up truck. Armed with a 12 gauge Winchester shotgun with an extended stainless steel magazine tube, barrel, and a flashlight attached, a Ruger Mini 14 on his back, and bandoliers with ammunition strapped around his shoulder he returned to the classroom.

At approximately 9:30 a.m. Williams entered the room, yelling "What did I tell you all!", and began shooting. He first killed Mickey Fitzgerald, a white employee, who tried to calm him down, with a shot in the face, before turning his attention towards a group of four black workers cowering on the floor. Remarking "There's four right there." Williams killed Sam Cockrell, whom he believed to have made complaints about him to the management, wounded Al Collier and Charles Scott, and fatally wounded DeLois Bailey, when she was trying to run out of the room. He also wounded Steve Cobb, the plant manager and tried to shoot Jack Johns, the production manager, but missed him. Another person, Brenda Dubose, was wounded by ricochet.

Williams then headed for the main factory, searching for other employees who had reported him to the management for making racist threats. There he shot and killed Charles J. Miller, Thomas Willis and Lynette McCall at their work stations and wounded several others. After shooting a total of 14 people with the Winchester, many of them at close range, Williams committed suicide by shooting himself in the torso.

Three more weapons were later found by police in his car, among them a .22 Magnum Derringer, a .45-caliber Ruger P90 pistol and a .22-caliber rifle with a scope.

Motive
As five of the six people killed by Williams, divorced father of two, were black and co-workers described him as making racist remarks, it was initially believed that the murder might've been racially motivated, though police stated that the shooting was more likely random, as most of the injured were white. One of Williams cousins said he wasn't a racist, even had black friends, though also described him as being depressed. He also said that Doug Williams had expressed concern "about something to do with a meeting at work." It was said that Williams had threatened others for no reason and was angry at everybody. He had run-ins with management and fellow workers and felt mistreated. Said he wanted to kill people 'I'm capable of doing it,'dispute with supervisors at the plant this morning when he and his girlfriend, Shirley J. Price, arrived and tried to punch in at a different spot than usual. Bobby McCall He said he was going to come in one day and kill up a bunch of niggers and then he was going to turn the gun on himself.