St. Louis Shooting eight shot, three killed

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) – A gunman opened fire on Thursday at electrical products company ABB Power, where he worked on the assembly line, killing at least one co-worker and wounding several others, authorities said.

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In a chaotic scene at ABB Power, a unit of Swiss-based ABB Ltd, a wounded worker hid in an office and others fled to the rooftop awaiting rescue, while the gunman remained on the loose.

A nearby highway was closed, as police feared the gunman had fled out a back entrance.

ABB Ltd is based in Zurich, and has 120,000 employees making electrical equipment in facilities around the world.

“This is obviously a very serious situation and we are working to gather more information as it becomes available. The welfare of our employees is of utmost importance to us,” the company in Zurich said in a statement.

ABB officials in St Louis identified the gunman to police as Timothy Hendron, 51, an assembly line worker at the plant that makes electrical transformers.

One company official told police Hendron had been dismissed, but a motive for the shooting was not immediately clear.

Hendron was a plaintiff in a class-action federal lawsuit against the company and its pension review committee over financial losses, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

A neighbor said Hendron was a hunter and owned guns.

Armed with a rifle and a handgun, the gunman started firing in the parking lot and then stormed the facility, local radio reported.