(Reuters) – An employee opened fire at a fire hydrant factory in Albertville, Alabama, early Tuesday morning, killing two people and wounding at least two others before apparently turning the gun on himself, police said.
The suspect began shooting at his fellow employees at the Mueller Co, which makes fire hydrants, at around 2:30 a.m. and then fled in a vehicle, Albertville Police Chief Jamie Smith said in a statement.
Smith said police found the suspect just before 6 a.m. in Guntersville, about 15 miles (24 km) from the plant and about 75 miles (120 km) northeast of Birmingham. The suspect was dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Smith said.
“There is no danger to the public,” Smith said.
Smith did not give the suspect’s age or name, saying more information would be released later.
The two wounded employees were transported to a hospital and their condition was not immediately known. Police were still investigating the suspect’s motive.
It was the latest of a recent series of fatal workplace shootings in the United States, where more than 19,000 people have died from gun violence so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group.
Earlier this month, a Los Angeles County firefighter fatally shot a colleague and severely wounded another before turning the gun on himself. Last month, a California transit employee killed nine co-workers at a light-rail yard for commuter trains of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. In April, a 19-year-old former employee at a FedEx site in Indianapolis shot and killed eight workers and then himself.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
