Gunman Kills Hostage, Self At NASA

One Wounded As Hostage Drama Ends At Johnson Space Center In Houston

(CBS/AP)  A NASA contract worker took a handgun inside an office building Friday at the Johnson Space Center and fatally shot a hostage before killing himself, police said. A second hostage escaped with minor injuries.

"All of us at NASA are profoundly saddened by today's tragedy at the Johnson Space Center in Houston," NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in a written statement. "Our hearts go out to the families of the victims and all those touched by today's events."

The gunman was able to take a snub-nosed revolver past NASA security and barricade himself in the building, which houses communications and tracking systems for the space shuttle.

NASA spokesman Doug Peterson said the agency would review its security.

"Any organization would take a good, hard look at the kind of review process we have with people," Peterson said.

To enter the space center, workers flash an ID badge as they drive past a security guard. The badge allows workers access to designated buildings.

NASA and police identified the gunman as 60-year-old William Phillips. He apparently had a dispute with the slain man, Police Chief Harold Hurtt said without elaborating.

NASA identified the slain man as David Beverly, a 62-year-old NASA worker. Beverly was shot in the chest and was probably killed "in the early minutes of the whole ordeal," police said.

Beverly's wife, Linda, said her husband of 41 years was an electrical parts specialist who felt working at NASA was his calling.

"His intellect and his knowledge, David really felt he was contributor," she said.

Her husband had mentioned Phillips before, but she declined to say in what regard. Linda Beverly said it wouldn't be fair to Phillips.

The second hostage, identified by NASA as Fran Crenshaw, a contract worker with MRI Technologies, escaped after being bound to a chair with duct tape. She worked in the same general area and was presumably taken hostage after Beverly was shot, Hurtt said.

"She was very courageous, a calming influence in this whole issue and apparently was a very positive relationship between her and the suspect because he at no time that we know of threatened to do injury to her," Hurtt said.

Phillips, an employee of Jacobs Engineering of Pasadena, Calif., had worked for NASA for 12 to 13 years and "up until recently, he has been a good employee," Coats said.

He was unmarried, had no children and apparently lived alone.

The shooter left telephone numbers and names of people to contact and wrote a note on a dry erase board in the room, police said.

"I don't recall what was on it," Hurtt said.

During the confrontation, NASA employees in the building were evacuated and others were ordered to remain in their offices for several hours. Roads within the 1,600-acre space center campus were also blocked off, and a nearby middle school kept its teachers and students inside as classes ended. Doors to Mission Control were locked as standard procedure.

A source inside JSC told CBS station KHOU that a meeting was under way in a conference room when the gunman walked in and pointed a gun at one person. He ordered everyone else out.

The gunman shot himself once in the head more than three hours after the standoff began, police said. Initial reports indicated two shots were fired at about 1:40 p.m. and another shot was heard about 5 p.m.

Police said the gun used was a revolver purchased on March 18 at a local gun shop.

Jacobs Engineering provides engineering for the international space station, space shuttle and other spacecraft programs, and conducts research and development for new technology. In 2005, the company received a five-year contract with the space center worth up to $1.15 billion.

[xpozrap]

NASA is clearly a very diseased intitution. These supposedly "secure mentally healthy top of their game brilliant" people are NOT stable, they are NOT working in a healthy professional environment. That this and the other attempted murder by an astroNUT (stemming from illicit affairs within NASA) have bubbled to the surface is merely the tip of a huge iceberg. There is something VERY WRONG. Two shuttle missions have blown to bits killing 14 in 20 years...maybe not everyone is paying attention of doing quality work at NASA, they are focusing on their psychotic little secret worlds.

[down-ndirty]

"If Phillips was a contract worker, he was not a NASA employee and should not have received a performance review, so obviously NASA is playing payroll games. If Phillips was really a contract worker and was that worried about his contract not being renewed, he simply had to go back to his employment agency and have them find him another job before the ax fell." Posted by gmond at 03:27 PM : Apr 21, 2007

Your comment makes it obvious you don't have a clue, gmond. NASA, or any other employer, has every right to review its employees, including "contract services" employees. Jacobs Engineering provides long term engineering services. When these people don't perform, they are usually "canned," as they should be.

Too bad violent nut cases can't be "weeded out" before it's too late.

[joanpz]

Guess things aren't as ROSY in this generation as in the last two - FIND OUT HOW MANY CONTRACTORS in many CORPORATIONS are LEARNING THAT THEY ARE SUDDENLY BEING "LET GO" - STRESS OF THIS TROUBLED WORLD is MAKING THE DIFFERENCE!
Outsourcing, not ability is the beginning of the end...

[feelfree1]

Re: "Gunman Kills Hostage, Self At NASA"

Yet another graduate of the George Bush (the lesser) school of problem solving.

[mikealford3]

What a lovely time to be a NASA employee. Must be something in that anti-gravity stuff. One day an astronut drives from Texas to Florida to kill her lover's lover and within a few months a poorly performing employee kills himself and some others in Texas. Must be the sun spots getting to them.

[gmond]

If Phillips was a contract worker, he was not a NASA employee and should not have received a performance review, so obviously NASA is playing payroll games. If Phillips was really a contract worker and was that worried about his contract not being renewed, he simply had to go back to his employment agency and have them find him another job before the ax fell. If NASA is playing games with federal and state definitions for an "employee", then NASA is doubly to blame for this tragedy, first for lax security and second for using contractors as employees just to avoid payroll taxes.

[randalds]

RandalDS, you said

How much good will your shotgun or my guns be against mortar shells or bombing runs?

Personally I don't have a beef with out goverment, but I do have to point that you are dumb. Poor Iraqies with basic weapons are handing us our butts right now with the use of simple guns, dispite our using the most advanced weapons on the face of the planet.
Posted by kindrox at 08:13 AM : Apr 21, 2007

Actually if you read the post more closely you'll see that I did NOT say that, but was responding to another poster. I'm the one who said a shotgun was better then no gun at all. It was toldyouso that said it wouldn't be of any use.

[zootallures2]

How do you people have thoughts and prayers with no brains and no hearts?

You are fakes, charlatans, swindlers, creeps....

You have no honor, pride, patrotism, cohesiveness. Look at the facts on the ground not your fantacy media world.

There is no United States. Just Everyone for Themselves Land.

[zootallures2]

How could guns or gun laws be the problem?

Never in the history of NASA did this kind of sh*t happen. Not even in the wild west or during the Bonne and Clyde days did anyone shoot up schools.

You people are massively f**ked up!

You are evil, you are bad, you are horrible people and you refuse admit it. So, why bother with analysis and laws? The answer is, change your ways or don't be shocked or sorry this sh*t happens. You aren't fooling anyone.

[gramto7]

"While most people think of us as focused on firearms, ..."
Sandy Froman, NRA President
http://www.nra.org

The reason "most people think of us as focused on firearms" is because the name of the organization is National RIFLE Association of America. Ya think that has something to do with it?