Governor: Police chief chased, shot gunman at Kansas factory

Fourteen others were injured, and five of those are in critical condition.

Although the shooting was unprecedented in his 28 year career, Walton said, it wasn’t totally unexpected.

Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton gave the updated death count at a news conference Thursday night.

Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Lt. Lin Dehning said while Kansas law prohibits people under protection orders from possessing weapons or ammunition, the law does not provide a mechanism for officers to seize weapons when they serve them with the order. His only complaint at that time was that the company’s rapid growth made the corporate structure seem disorganized at times and claimed that more highly educated employees were being hired rather than depending on other adequately capable people in the ranks. “Gunfire was exchanged between law enforcement and the shooter”, Walton said.

A couple of hours later, Newton police and a SWAT team converged on a home in a Newton trailer park where the gunman was believed to have lived.

“It’s my belief he is in desperate need of medical and psychological help!” she wrote. The Hesston Record reports that there will be a vigil held on February 26 at 6 p.m.at a vacant lot along Highway 81 and Ridge.

Hesston gunman Cedric Ford was shot and killed by Police Chief Doug Schroeder.

Investigators are unclear on the shooter’s motive, but Walton said it was “not terrorism”.

The sheriff said a shooting also took place in the plant parking lot and two other locations nearby.

A 1997 Miami Herald story said Ford was arrested that year after he was seen breaking into a vehicle with two accomplices.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is heading to Wichita to investigate the shooting at Excel Industries Inc.

The Wichita Eagle reported Ford shot one person in the parking lot. “We’re working on that”, Walton said.

Three people were killed by a gunman Thursday before police shot the assailant dead inside a lawn equipment factory in Hesston, Kansas.

Police guard the front door of Excel Industries in Hesston, Kan., where a gunman opend fire on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016.

“I heard him yell something – that’s what got our attention – turned around, hopped out with an AK-47 – appeared like – and fired a few shots outside and then ducked down and went into the building”, the witness said.

“What crossed my mind was finding the bad buy, protecting everyone else who was there”, Carter said about arriving at the plant where some of his relatives work.

Espinoza said the shooter pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger, but the gun was empty.

At that point, the gunman got a different gun and Mr Espinoza ran. He didn’t wait for backup, he went right in. Another Excel worker, Matt Jarrell, told CNN that Ford was “a mellow guy” to whom he could talk about anything. A college nearby was briefly locked down.

The carnage left many grasping for answers in Hesston, a small city of about 3,700 people located about 35 miles north of Wichita.

He added that the FBI and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation had been called in to assist.