Woman Opens Fire On Factory Co-Workers
12:45pm Friday September 10, 2010
David Williams
A disgruntled worker has shot dead two female colleagues after being suspended from her job at a factory in Philadephia.
An employee after the shooting. Photo: Steven M. Falk / The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Yvonne Hiller, 43, was escorted from the Kraft Foods plant following the suspension, only to return 10 minutes later armed with a .357 Magnum handgun. Police said she drove her car through a fence surrounding the factory, got out and headed to the third floor, where she worked as a mixer.
She opened fire, causing around 100 workers to flee while seven people remained and attempted to hide, reported The Philadelphia Inquirer. Two women were shot dead and another worker, Brian Daulton, was shot in the neck and shoulder.
She just had some run-ins with them and imagined different things that were going on that really couldn't be proven.
<cite> Colleague Randy Gaines
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"I just heard 'Bang, bang, bang' and ran," an employee told NBC Philadelphia. Hiller is reported to have then fired at responding police SWAT teams before barricading herself in an office on the second floor. Eventually, she dialled 911 on her mobile phone to hand herself in and was calmly arrested about 9:40pm, an hour after she had first entered the building.
Hiller had worked at the factory - which bakes Ritz Crackers and Lorna Doone cookies - for 15 years. The cause of her suspension has not yet been made public, but a former colleague told NBC Philadelphia she had a history of arguments with her co-workers and management. "She just had some run-ins with them and imagined different things that were going on that really couldn't be proven," Randy Gaines said. Mr Daulton remains in a critical condition at a local hospital.
