U.S.

Workers Grieve After Rampage

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 5, 2001 / 12:12 PM EST / CBS

Workers who survived a gunman's rampage that left five people dead and four wounded at a Navistar engine plant met Tuesday with grief counselors, who told them there is no way to avoid such tragedies.

“This is something that's almost unpreventable; something happening all over the country now,” John Harris, a Navistar employee for 45 years, said a counselor told him.

The plant remains in a state of shock one day after a gunman carrying an arsenal in a golf bag fatally shot four workers and wounded four others before turning a gun on himself.

Police identified him as William D. Baker, a 66-year-old former employee who was supposed to report Tuesday for a federal prison term for helping steal engines and parts from the Chicago-based trucking company.

Special Agent Thomas Ahern, a Chicago spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, said his agency was running an urgent trace on the four guns Baker, a convicted sex offender, was carrying.

Convicted felons are barred from owning guns, Ahern said. If Baker had purchased the guns before his conviction, he would have been required to turn them in, he said.

Office Rage

The shooting at the Navistar engine plant is the latest in a series of violent workplace rampages in the U.S. For a catalog of the major incidents over the past 10 years click here.

Illinois State Police could not immediately say whether Baker had ever possessed a valid firearms owner identification card.

The International Truck and Engine Corp. plant, which makes medium-duty engines for parent company Navistar, was shuttered after the shootings but reopened at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, an optional day for workers.

“Our main focus is on providing counseling for the employees and families,” said company spokesman Roy Wiley.

Melrose Park Police Chief Vito Scavo said Baker showed up at the plant about 10 a.m. Monday with an AK-47 assault rifle, a shotgun, a pistol and a .30-caliber hunting rifle with a telescopic sight. When a security guard -- on her first day on the job at Navistar -- tried to stop him, Scavo said Baker put a .38-caliber revolver to her side and forced his way into the 2 million-square foot plant.

Scavo said Baker then opened fire with the AK-47, traveling one to two bocks through the vast building and shooting seven people — three of them fatally — in an engineering area.

He said Baker then went into an office where he killed one more person and then shot himself. Authorities weren't sure if he fired the other weapons, nor did they know if he targeted certain employees or just fired randomly.

In addition to Baker, the dead were identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office and company officials as

Daniel Dorsch, 52, of Elmwood Park, a supervisor in the engine lab who had worked for the company for 26 years;
Robert Wehrheim, 47, of Hanover Park, who worked for the company for two years as a technician in the engine lab;
Michael Brus, 48, of Hinckley, an engineer who had been with Navistar for 12 years;
and William Garcia, 44, of Carpentersville, who was with the company for 22 years.

Terry Dorsch told reporters that his older brother, Daniel, liked his job and was willing to work with those under him. “He was the person that (would) roll up his sleeves and not go, 'I'm the boss and I tell you what to do.' He would be right in there helping them,” Terry Dorsch said.

Dorsch said the family was in a state of shock. “You don't think it would ever happen to your family, something like that. It is very difficult, very hard,” he said.

Carl S. Swanson, 45, of Des Plaines, was in critical condition at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital after four hours of surgery for a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Mujtaba Aidroos, 24, was in serious condition at Loyola University Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the chest. Bryan Snyder, 26, was in fair condition at Loyola with a gunshot wound to the left arm.

And Matthew Kusch, a 22-year-old Streamwood resident, was grazed by a bullet on a toe of his right foot and was treated and released from Gottlieb.

Monday evening, Kusch emerged from his home briefly.

“I got shot in the foot and all my friends died today. Give me some time,” he shouted to reporters. “I don't want to talk to you people right now.”

Baker was scheduled to surrender to federal authorities Tuesday to start serving a five-month sentence for conspiracy to commit theft from an interstate shipment, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Needles said.

Baker's lawyer, Charles Piet, told the Chicago Sun-Times that Baker was upset over the sentence, saying he “didn't feel it was fair given that his participation was very minor.” But Piet said Baker expressed no bitterness toward Navistar.

“He was a nice guy. You never could imagine something like this would happen,” Piet said. “I'm totally surprised. I'm in shock.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hogan said Baker was part of a ring that included three Navistar employees and three outiders, two of whom were former Navistar employees. All have pleaded guilty and all but one have been sentenced.

A tool room attendant from suburban Carol Stream, Baker had worked at the Melrose Park plant 39 years before he was fired in 1995. He pleaded guilty to the federal theft conspiracy charge last June, admitting that he helped steal diesel engines and components with a total value of $195,400 from the plant.

In addition to the prison term, he was required to pay back that amount of money.

Laura Pollastrini, spokeswoman for the DuPage County State's Attorney's office, said Baker also pleaded guilty on May 22, 1998, to one count of criminal sexual assault, a class one felony, involving a family member under age 17. Pollastrini said Baker also pleaded guilty to criminal damage to property and reckless conduct in September 1993.

The Navistar plant is about 15 miles west of the company's headquarters in downtown Chicago and employs about 1,400 people, Wiley said.

Navistar International is the nation's second-biggest producer of heavy-duty trucks, which it sells under the International brand. It also manufactures midsized trucks, school buses and diesel engines, which it sells to Ford and other truck makers.