Walton detailed a timeline of the shootings.
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Walton says the suspect was an Excel employee.
Brownback told reporters Friday that Schroeder apparently shot and killed Cedric Ford in the Excel Industries building Thursday evening.
– June 17, 2015: Dylann Roof, 21, shot and killed nine African-American church members during a Bible study group inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Ninety minutes before he opened fire in central Kansas, Cedric Ford got served a protection from abuse order – an act a local sheriff thinks led him to kill three people and wound 16 others.
Sloan said law enforcement officers came within four or five minutes and the ambulances arrived around five to 10 minutes after.
Their conditions may have changed since, though. Those who were hospitalized were taken to Newton Medical Center, Wesley Hospital and Via Christi Hospital.
Law enforcement in Hesston, a town of about 3,800 people about 35 miles north of Wichita, has said the mass killing was not terror-related.
A Harvey County sheriff’s dispatcher says the shooting occurred Thursday afternoon at Excel Industries in Hesston.
“Everybody says it can’t happen here, but it’s all those places that it happens at”, Walton said. “And here we are”.
Walton says the attacks were connected and that the suspect traveled between the sites and fired from his auto. In December, a husband and wife shot to death 14 people at a workplace holiday party in San Bernardino, California.
One Excel employee who worked in the paint and powder department with Ford, Brian Johnson, said he believes he was one of the shooter’s targets.
One worker told KAKE News that Ford, of Newton, Kansas, had “mental issues” and was “being teased a little bit” when he worked at Excel. Authorities said he killed three people and wounded 14…
Ford’s rampage started when he carjacked and shot a man, stealing the vehicle he used during the shooting. He said the gunman had an assault weapon and a pistol. “He was a mellow guy, he had a family, I mean he was telling me about going to the zoo for the first time in his life and seeing all the animals and just being in awe by that. I can still see it”.
“Never in a million years” would he have expected his friend to do something like this, Jarrell said to KSNW. When break time came, Jarrell said he couldn’t find Ford anywhere, so another co-worker covered his break. After hearing shouts, the younger Britton stepped out of a welding bay, heard a pop and “immediately went to the ground”, his father said. “We really didn’t know what was going on”.
Another witness, Matt Gerald, told The Hesston Record newspaper that he was outside on break when he saw Ford. “After he reloaded he went inside the lobby in front of the building and that is the last I seen him”. “I was flabbergasted. I was at a loss for words”. “We had to act as if there were other victims or someone else inside who wanted to do harm”, Lt. Brian Hall of the Newton Police Department said.
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Walton said police surrounded the gunman’s home after the shooting but his male roommate refused to allow them in, resulting in a standoff that continued unresolved late Thursday.
