Re: {OT] - Postal Shooting in Goleta


Jeff Mayner wrote:
> Yep, I was there. You're going to hear a bunch about this incident over the
> next few days and I thought I'd let you know the story, or what there is of
> the story so far, from one who was there. Probably hear some things you wont
> hear on the news or read in the papers as far as what led up to this
> tragedy. Management is in full-on, info clamp down mode at this moment.
>
>
>
> Well, *** 'em.

Jeff (is that you or are you reposting?), I know it's natural to blame
management for everything after a traumatic event. It's natural to
blame someone, and management is the most convenient target. But think
about your own reaction when you found out there was a shooting. You
were not behaving rationally yourself (e.g. yelling at fully armed
police). Management are people too. They were all probably scared and
confused just like you were, Why would you expect anyone to calmly do
the rational things at such times?

>
>
>
> Around 9:10 tonight I and two other folks that work in the VCS Room walked
> down to use the bathroom. You don't need to know what VCS stands for but a
> description of the room will do. We work on computers and some of what we do
> is voice recognition stuff so we're in a room that is tucked way back in the
> building and the doors are always closed to shut out the noise. The room is
> about 14X18 and the doors are fire-type doors. Solid and almost, but not
> quite, sound-proof. Our building is huge. Total floor space will hold three
> football fields.
>
>
>
> At about 9PM a former employee followed someone in the gate of the facility,
> walked up to an employee that was standing outside and demanded his swipe
> card to get in the building. As she was holding a rather large Automatic, we
> think it was a 9, he figured he'd better do what she said. She took the card
> from him and as she approached the front door she shot dead a woman that had
> just exited the door. Her name is Nicky and is, or should I say was, a very
> nice woman and was just off shift and was going home and walked right into
> it. The shooter then went into the building and approached three employees
> that were working in manual letters and shot them down. Charlotte, Dexter,
> and Lupe. Great people all. Charlotte and Lupe died where they fell, and as
> things are still kind of sketchy, I believe Dexter is the employee that is
> in critical condition at the hospital. Another woman who had just came back
> to work after having a baby was shot next. I believe she was the employee
> that died in route to the hospital. Her name is Malika. We in the VCS Room
> heard nothing.
>
>
>
> I was told later that up to 8 or 9 shots were fired (there was much
> confusion over the number).
>
>
>
> The killer then approached a woman named Michell who tried to talk to her
> and ask her "why". As Michelle was asking the shooter why she was doing this
> the shooter was trying to insert another clip into the gun and was having
> trouble doing it. Michelle snapped out of it and, good for her, turned and
> ran before she could be shot. She ran outside and hid in her car. She was
> still in her car when I left 3 hours later. The cops knew she was there and
> felt she was safer there. Her husband who works there as well was across the
> street and had to talk to her on his cell to keep her calmed down. It was
> weird. Why didn't the cops let her just leave like everyone else? We didn't
> get an answer. Maybe tomorrow.
>
>
>
> By this time only about 5 minutes had passed and most of the employees had
> run out of the building. As it turned out later, several hid under machinery
> and were still there 2 hours later as the cops had locked everything down
> and had not, at least by the time I left, gotten them out yet. We knew they
> were there because they called out on their cell phones and said they were
> there and were wondering when the hell some police were going to come in and
> save them. No one at that time knew where the hell the shooter had gone. It
> was a free for all. No orderly evacuation, no leadership from the management
> team...nothing. While all this horror was transpiring me and the other two
> VCS employees were doing our jobs and did not have a clue what was
> happening. Lucky for us the shooter didn't think about us sitting ducks back
> there.
>
>
>
> Funny, _nobody_ thought about us sitting ducks back there. We have a phone
> in our room. No one from management called to tell us to keep our heads
> down...nothing.
>
>
>
> Anyway, as I said, at or around 9:10 we all decided to hit the bathroom
> before our 9:30 break. We strolled down to the bathroom and it was then we
> noticed that the facility seemed kind of quiet and we couldn't see any other
> workers. What we thought happened was that management had called a "stand
> up" (meeting) and, once again, had forgotten to call us and inform us. It
> happens all the time. We complain but till now it has done no good. Maybe
> from now on? Who knows?
>
>
>
> As we were returning to our room we were remarking on how quiet it was. We
> didn't know what was going on but we knew that something wasn't right, or
> should I say, not normal.
>
>
>
> We went back to the room and at 9:25 I put on my jacket and left to go on
> break. One of my fellow workers came out and we stood there for a second
> commenting on how it was a pretty damn long standup 'cause no one had
> returned to their workstations. I left at that point and Ronnie went back
> into the room. He decided to take his break later. I was walking up to the
> front of the building as I normally do and noticed that there was a bunch of
> equipment in the aisles that normally shouldn't have been there. Usually
> when a standup is called everyone completes what he or she are doing that
> moment and then walks to the conference room at the front of the building
> where they hold the stand-ups. It looked to me like they had just dropped
> what they were doing and left.
>
>
>
> As it turned out that's exactly what they did, and with good reason. The
> aisle I was walking follows all around the perimeter of the inside of the
> building. As I approached the hallway at the front (the very hallway the
> shooter entered the building by) I noticed what looked like red paint on the
> floor. As I came closer to the hallway and began turning into it I remarked
> to myself, "What idiot spilled all that ***?" I was looking down as I
> entered the hallway and didn't notice what was about 10 feet in front of me.
> I happened to look up as 5 big and well-armed cops started screaming at me,
> "Down, Get Down, Get Down!". I was on my knees with my hands in the air
> before I even knew what I was doing. Totally freaking bizarre thoughts were
> running thru my head. It's like my brain disconnected for a second or two. I
> yelled out I was just a worker and what the *** was going on and they just
> told me to approach them and get up against the wall out of view of the
> workroom floor. They made me assume the position and frisked me. I asked
> again what the hell they were doing and it was at that point, 25 goddamn
> minutes after the shooting, that I discovered there _had_ been a shooting
> and that what I had thought was red paint was actually blood and I had been
> kneeling in it. I happened to have my cell phone with me and I told the cops
> I had to tell my fellow VCS workers to get the hell out. The cops wouldn't
> listen to me at first. They wanted to cuff me and take me out of the
> building. They had my arms cranked back and I sort of broke away (probably
> not a smart thing to do with three auto pistols and 2 assault rifles pointed
> at my head) but I had to tell Ronnie and Diane to get the hell out too. The
> police finally heard what I was saying and allowed me to call the room and
> tell Ronnie and Diane to go out the dock door and get behind a truck and
> hide till a cop could get to them and walk them out around the side and
> across the street where all the other employees had been assembled. After
> the call they told me to get out, walk down the driveway and go across the
> street and wait at the fire station with the others. As I left the building
> there was Nicky laying in a pool of blood. ***. That was hard. What was
> really bad was Nicky's father also works there and at that moment was across
> the street thinking she had left already. The blood in the hallway was
> evidently hers. I think but am not sure one of the cops dragged her out of
> the way. :-(
>
>
>
> It was then I really started to get pissed off that no one had bothered to
> tell us to hide, get out, or anything else. By the time I got over across
> the street I was screaming for a supervisor. Any supervisor. My friend said
> later I was saying something like, "Where's a motherfucking supervisor?" I
> finally found one and let him have it. I could not believe that they would
> just let us sit there for almost a half an hour and not tell us. Dude was
> mumbling and stuttering and had no freaking answer. Tried to say something
> about not having a phone. Right. As he was saying that there were about 10
> employees standing all around us on cell phones calling their loved ones to
> tell them they were alright! Typical. I know that sounds bad but it's true.
> I calmed down somewhat and of course I later went up to that supervisor and
> apologized but it was just freaking dumb and damn unprofessional if you ask
> me. There is supposed to be plans in place for just such an occurrence and
> nothing worked. It was a total balls-up. It's not like this kind of thing
> had never happened at a postal facility before, right?
>
>
>
> There must have been 100 cops out there. Sheriff, Goleta PD, Santa Barbara
> PD and two separate swat teams (Santa Barbara and Sheriff). About an hour
> later is when we learned that there were still some folks hiding inside and
> there could have been more injured or dead. No one knew and the cops had not
> entered the facility any further than that hallway where they had almost
> turned me into Swiss cheese.
>
>
>
> When I left (I had to call my wife to come pick me up as the parking lot was
> part of the crime scene and wasn't going to be opened up till probably
> tomorrow) we were just getting the news of who had been shot, etc. It was
> weird. Everyone was operating on adrenalin and it was like we all had been
> snorting some good flake. Laughing (nervously), talking, etc. It hadn't hit
> yet that some of our friends had been murdered, right in front of some of
> our eyes. It's hit now. I am well past bummed. I don't think I'll be going
> to work tomorrow. Just does not seem that important all of a sudden.
>
>
>
> The cops and swat teams surrounded the building and searched all around the
> area. They collapsed the search area up to the building and didn't find the
> woman. No one saw where she went, no one knew if she had even left the
> building. She could still be in there hiding for all anyone knows. I took
> off at around 12:30 when the cops were done interviewing and they had not
> even started searching the place. It will probably be sometime tomorrow when
> they complete their search. It really is that big and there are literally
> thousands of hiding places.
>
>
>
> I'm hoping the woman did the right thing and ate her fucking gun. I know
> that sounds harsh but damn.... I really didn't want to talk about her but I
> might as well. I refuse to say her name right now but she had worked at the
> facility for about three years and had left, actually had been walked out
> and fired about two years ago. She had been getting nuttier and nuttier for
> quite a while. Getting in shouting matches with folks and acting paranoid.
> She had been off work for a month or so and part of her returning was
> predicated on seeing a psych and getting treatment. When she came back she
> was all right as long as she took her meds. Problem was, often she would
> not. Management finally got fed up with her and terminated her employment
> after an unusually loud and scary display in which she ended up laying down
> on a cart and refusing to get up and leave. Management wheeled her out of
> the building and told her to leave or they'd call the cops. That's handling
> the problem, right? That's that professionalism thing again.
>
>
>
> Turns out that she had an affair with a married supervisor and when he
> dumped her she went ballistic. The *** just walked up to her and told
> her it was over and he didn't want to see her again. When asked later what
> the hell did he think would happen he just brush it off like it was no big
> deal. Said she was crazy or something, not his fault. Can you tell I do not
> like this individual? Just another *** that thinks the workplace is his
> own personal dating service. The Unions got involved and tried to get that
> fool disciplined but to no avail. There is a rather strict (but not strictly
> enforced) non-fraternization rule in place but getting management to get one
> of their own is almost impossible where I work.
>
>
>
> Maybe this episode will get them to finally start doing the right thing?
> Again, Right. They were in full CYA mode when I left. I heard talk that they
> were going to go after the kid that gave the woman his swipe card and put it
> on him. Just a rumor so far but I would not put it past them.
>
>
>
> That's what happened at my workplace tonight. I hope you all did not have
> anything near as "interesting" going on. I could do without. L

.

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