ST. LOUIS (AP) - To his neighbor Burnard Richardson, Herbert Chalmers Jr. was a 50-something-year-old guy in dreadlocks who got up early and rode his bike to his catering job in a red work apron.
"I passed him on his way to work," Richardson said, "but he pretty much stayed to himself."
He walked into his workplace practically unnoticed Tuesday afternoon, after a day's absence, and started screaming out names of people he planned to kill.
He then shot two women to death and wounded another before turning the gun on himself, police said.
A few hours earlier, he had made it past the lobby monitor who registers guests at a St. Louis apartment building, entered the dwelling of his child's mother, 53-year-old Sylvia Haynes, shot her to death, and left.
4 dead after gunman kill's his child's mother, opens fire at workplace
There are about 900 workplace homicides a year in the U.S., according to a study released in 2002 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics:
- Of the occupations examined, police officers experienced workplace violent crime at rates higher than all other occupations (261 per 1,000 persons)
- Most workplace victimizations were intraracial. About 6 in 10 white and black victims of workplace crime perceived their assailant to be of the same race.
- More than 80% of all workplace homicides were committed with a firearm.
Above: Shari Morris, 22, niece of shooting victim Sylvia Haynes
(AP Photo/Post-Dispatch, Amanda Whitlock)
