Suspect in Kansas workplace shooting served protection order

Sarah Hopkins, 28, of Newton, Kansas, was charged for the unlawful transfer of a firearm to a convicted felon, according to an announcement by the Justice Department.

Authorities say Ford is the man who shot 15 people, killing three, at the Excel Industries plant Thursday in Hesston.

Hopkins and Ford had a 2-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter, according to a report in The Wichita Eagle that cited a paternity case in Harvey County last year.

A Kansas sheriff’s deputy served a man a “protection from abuse” order just 1½ hours before that man began opening fire – a flurry of bullets that ended with at least 14 wounded and three dead before the shooter was shot and killed.

The other workers killed inside the plant were Josh Higbee, 31, and Renee Benjamin, 30.

He shook his head and said “I don’t want to talk to you” when an Eagle reporter introduced herself.

Authorities say the shooting was not an act of terrorism, but they do have an idea of what might have motivated the gunman.

Walton said his office served the suspect with the protection from abuse order at around 3:30 p.m., which was about 90 minutes before the first shooting happened. Britton said he didn’t notice anything unusual about Ford before the shooting, and remembers him laughing and joking in brief encounters in the past.

Walton said Ford had been in jail several times in the past, raising questions over whether or not he owned the firearms he had in his possession.

The sheriff added that the person who filed the order did not work at Excel. The man was driving with his two children and was shot in the shoulder.

Walton said police surrounded the gunman’s mobile home in nearby Newton after the shooting but that his roommate refused to allow them in, resulting in a standoff.

The investigation is just getting underway, Walton said.

Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton said Hesston Police Chief Doug Schroeder, who fatally shot Ford, was a “tremendous hero” because dozens more people were still in the factory and the “shooter wasn’t done by any means”. “He then got me to the ground while choking me”.

In her petition, the woman said she was in fear of “imminent bodily injury or beating”.

Public records show that Ford has several previous offenses in Florida over the last decade, including burglary, grand theft and fleeing from an officer.

Eleven of the wounded were taken to two Wichita hospitals, Via Christi Hospital St. Francis and Wesley Medical Center, where one was in critical condition, five in serious condition and five in fair condition Friday morning, hospital officials told the Associated Press.

This booking photo released Friday, Feb. 26, 2016, by the Harvey County Sheriff’s Office shows Cedric Ford.

Ford yelled “hey” at a bystander nearby and then shot that person, Jarrell said.

In Kansas, he had a misdemeanor conviction in a 2008 fighting or brawling case and various traffic violations from 2014 and 2015.

Grieving residents of this small Kansas town parked riding lawnmowers with American flags planted beside them along some streets on Saturday and adorned them with “Hesston Hustler Strong” signs in a symbolic reference to the lawn equipment brand from the factory where a gunman killed three co-workers. The police chief, he said, “saved multiple, multiple lives”.