This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A gunman killed three people in a workplace shooting in Hesston, Kansas on Thursday afternoon, before being shot dead by an officer at the factory where the shooter worked.

The shooter also injured 14 people, 10 critically, until his rampage across several locations ended at Excel Industries, a manufacturer of turf-care products in Harvey County, 35 miles north of Wichita, Sheriff T Walton told reporters at news conferences on Thursday and Friday.

Walton said the shooter was an employee of Excel but declined to identify him or say how long he had worked for the company. The suspect was served with a protection of abuse order about 90 minutes before the attack, Walton said, adding that he believed the order was the trigger for the shooter to attack 90 minutes later.

Such orders are typically served “because there’s some type of violence in a relationship”, Walton said, but he declined to specify the nature of the relationship in question or to disclose the attacker’s name.

On Friday Walton named the shooter as Cedric Ford, 38.



“The shooter was actively firing at any target,” the sheriff said. “This is a horrible situation – just terrible, terrible.”

“There’s so many crime scenes and so many people,” Walton said. “I don’t have a lot of answers,” he added. “There’s going to be a lot of sad people before this is all over.”

The shootings began around 5pm local time, when the gunman shot a man across the street in Newton, a nearby town, from his car hitting the victim in the shoulder.

Not long afterward another man was shot in the leg at an intersection. Around this time he stole the car of one victim, drove to the Excel factory, and shot one person in the parking lot.

“Right now, it all looks random,” Walton said when asked about motive. “He’s just shooting at people driving their car.”

In a statement, police confirmed what witnesses later told local media: that the gunman entered the Excel factory through a back door with “an assault-style long gun”. Authorities and coworkers said he fired on factory employees on sight.

Employee Martin Espinoza was in the plant during the attack, and told the Associated Press that he heard people yelling to get out of the building. He then heard popping and saw the shooter, a colleague he described as typically pretty calm.

The shooter pointed the gun and pulled the trigger, but it clicked out of ammunition. He reached for a different gun and Espinoza ran. Police later said they found a .223-caliber assault-style rifle and a handgun on the shooter.

Espinoza said the shooter pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger, but the gun was empty. At that point, the gunman got a different gun and Espinoza ran.

Another employee, Marty Pierce, told local KAKE news the gunman “came in through that back door, where assembly is, and just started spraying his AK at everybody, just shooting random people.”

Pierce said that he and others “just barely missed him” as they ran through the hallways. When police arrived the gunman fired at them, and eventually a Hesston officer shot and killed the gunman. The spree lasted 26 minutes, police said.

Noting that more than 150 people were in the plant at the time, the officer “saved a whole lot of lives”, Walton said.

The officer is “a hero as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Paul Mullet, president and CEO of Excel, told reporters: “We’re really saddened by this horrific event. Our heart goes out to all of our employees and all of the families whose loved ones got injured and killed.”

Governor Sam Brownback issued a statement late Thursday, calling the shootings “a tragedy that affects every member of the community”.

Friends and relatives of employees were gathering near the shooting early on Thursday evening.

“We’re waiting until I can see my daughter come out,” one woman told local news station KSN live just after 6pm local time. “We couldn’t understand her a whole lot. She was like, ‘Mom, I need you here. There’s been a shooting.’”

Nearby Hesston College campus was on lockdown early on Thursday evening with a note on its website saying: “Lockdown will continue until shooter is in custody.”

Hesston is a small town of about 3,700 residents. Excel was founded in 1960 and is a third-generation family-owned business, according to the Kansas City Star.

Ron Johnson, who said he works in the weld shop at the plant, told local KAKE during that he was in the building when he started hearing shots. “I thought I was hearing explosions. I see a mob of people just running out, and then ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop’.”

Johnson continued: “A guy that I work side by side with got one through the arm,” noting that he saw eight or nine people with injuries. “In a little town like Hesston, who would’ve ever guessed? I’m thankful to be alive.”

Walton told reporters that the sheriff’s office just recently had a meeting about how to respond to an active shooter situation. “Everybody thinks it can’t happen here, but it’s in those places that it can’t happen that it happens,” he said. “You’ve got to wake up, because it can happen.”