http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/mar/25/1n25mts1011213-3-dead-mts-shootings/?metro
3 dead in MTS shootings
Police gun down man who shot co-workers
By Greg Gross (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer, Angelica Martinez (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer, John Wilkens (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. March 25, 2009
Before he pulled the trigger, Lonnie Glasco had a chilling announcement. “Nobody’s going to leave,” he told co-workers in a lounge at a downtown San Diego bus-maintenance depot yesterday.
Then Glasco, a veteran Metropolitan Transit System mechanic, went outside in the early morning darkness and gunned down two employees before police fatally shot him in the parking lot.
Glasco, 47, had suffered some losses in recent years – first his marriage, then the house near Alpine that he saw as an escape from urban aggravation – but police yesterday were still unraveling why he turned violent after working at the agency for 29 years, his entire adult life.
He shot Benjamin Mwangi, 37, a maintenance foreman, who died at the scene, and Michael Stevenson, 55, a mechanic, who was taken to University of California San Diego Medical Center. Stevenson was placed on life-support and died at 3 p.m., the Medical Examiner’s Office said.
Glasco, a revenue technician who serviced fare boxes, had just finished a 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift at the facility at Imperial Avenue and 16th Street in East Village when the shootings occurred.
After he left the employee lounge, witnesses heard two shots. Then, moments later, more shots. The employees ran.
Police were called and found Glasco in the parking lot. He still had the gun in his hand. Officers ordered him to drop it. Glasco made a call on his cell phone, then pointed the gun at the officers, police said. Three of them opened fire, and Glasco was killed.
Mwangi had worked for MTS since 2007, after a job with National City Transit. He also owned Mwangi Smog Test in Spring Valley, where his sole employee called him “a good guy, a good father.”
“He was always a real cool guy with me,” said Diego Delgado, who added that Mwangi hired him because it was too exhausting working the graveyard shift at MTS while running the smog test shop. “He’d even give me bonuses for doing stuff around here. I’m in shock.”
Mwangi grew up in Muranga in south-central Kenya, his family said. He moved to the United States about 13 years ago, and met and married his wife, Mary-Spring, three years later. The couple, parents to daughter Kozette, 8, and Mary-Spring’s daughter, Kylie, 17, had planned to renew their marriage vows on their 10th anniversary, April 24.
A family friend, Diane Moses, called Benjamin Mwangi “kind, caring and willing to help you out in time of need.”
Stevenson was found in an MTS office near the service bays. He was from San Diego and had been with the transit agency for 31 years.
Further information on Stevenson was unavailable last night.
“This has been a tragic day for the victims of this incident, and for their families and friends,” Paul Jablonski, chief executive officer of MTS, said in a statement. “Our hearts and prayers go out to them.”
About 10 other people were working at the yard when the shooting happened. Grief counselors are offering group and individual sessions at the transit agency.
Police and transit officials were tight-lipped yesterday about a possible motive for the shooting. San Diego police Lt. Kevin Rooney said that investigators are following certain leads and have some thoughts on what prompted the shooting, but added that “feelings are not facts.”
Rob Schupp, an MTS spokesman, said Glasco had not been laid off. Schupp said he was unaware of any recent job-related actions and declined to comment on Glasco’s disciplinary record.
MTS is struggling to close an $11 million budget gap caused by a drop in state transit subsidies. Directors are planning to vote on fare increases and other adjustments later this week, but there has been no public talk of layoffs or furloughs.
Experts in workplace violence, which claims dozens of lives nationwide each year, said past episodes offer clues to a possible motive.
“I can tell you what it’s going to be: He was mad at someone in particular, or mad at the business itself,” said Greg Moffatt, a college psychology professor in Atlanta and author of “Blind-Sided: Homicide Where It Is Least Expected.”
“It usually comes down to someone who believes that something has been taken from him that he didn’t think they had a right to take.”
Chris McGoey, a security consultant in Los Angeles, said, “Something set him off, something that was probably building, which is why he brought the gun.”
MTS policy prohibits firearms at work, Schupp said, and the facility has security guards around the clock. Neither the employees nor their cars are routinely screened.
Schupp said he was not aware of any past workplace shootings at MTS, which daily transports about 230,000 passengers on its trolley and bus lines. Some buses were delayed after the shooting, but service was normal by midmorning.
Glasco lived with his parents, William and Shirley, in Monarch Ridge, a gated subdivision southeast of El Cajon. A woman at the house yesterday said the family would not be commenting.
Glasco previously lived with his wife, Robin, on Dunbar Lane in Blossom Valley, near Alpine, and was active with neighbors who unsuccessfully fought construction of a new middle school. They were concerned about traffic, noise and safety.
“This is a tranquil setting with lots of privacy and peace,” Glasco told a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter in August 2002. “I came out here to get away from the city.”
Neighborhood worries mounted in 2003, when firestorms swept through that area and large swaths of the county. The Glascos stayed and fought the flames that October day, setting lawn sprinklers on the roof. The house survived.
The couple divorced in 2005, and Robin Glasco received the house on Dunbar Lane as part of the settlement. Property records show she sold it this year and apparently has moved to Montana. She could not be reached yesterday.
Mickey Smith, an 18-year-old senior at El Capitan High School in Lakeside, lives on Dunbar Lane. Smith recalled Lonnie Glasco as a friendly neighbor.
“He was pretty cool,” Smith said. “He helped me through a lot. He helped me with my motorcycle, and he encouraged me with school.”
The workplace-violence experts said the nation’s ongoing economic troubles are contributing to stress in the workplace, but they know of no evidence showing that workplace shootings are prompted by hard times.
“That would be the easy answer, but no,” McGoey said. “We’ve had them when times were great. People have their own issues. The economy just tightens the screws.”
Police said the three officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative duty, which is routine while a case is investigated. One is a 14-year veteran; the others have been on the force for one and two years, respectively.
Staff writers Mark Arner, Debbi Baker, Ray Huard and Pauline Repard, and staff librarian Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.
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Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:55:14 +0000 [09:55:14 AM CDT]
From: Mundia Kamau
Subject: Kenyan shot in San Diego