Three people were killed by a gunman Thursday before police shot the assailant dead inside a lawn equipment factory in Hesston, Kansas.
The shooter — who also injured 14, 10 of them critically — was confirmed by authorities to be factory employee Cedric Ford, CNN reported. The victims were said to be targeted randomly.
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"He was a mellow guy," Matt Jarrell, a painter at Excel Industries, told local outlet KSN TV. "He was somebody I could talk to about anything."
The shooting began in nearby Newton, Kansas, with Ford shooting at people from a car while he made his way up the state's Highway 81, officials said.
"There was a report of a stolen vehicle. That vehicle was the person that got shot. The shooter went on into Excel Industries. Once he got to Excel Industries, he shot a person in the parking lot, and he entered into the building itself," Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton said in a press conference, according to KSN TV. "Inside the building he shot a total of 15 people."
Kansas' Republican Gov. Sam Brownback offered his condolences and included the now-familiar assurance of his "thoughts and prayers."
Please send your thoughts and prayers to the people of Hesston tonight.
News of the shooting roughly coincided with the 10th Republican presidential debate, the last matchup of the candidates before Super Tuesday. As a result, much of the breaking coverage was drowned out during the Donald Trump-Marco Rubio-Ted Cruz cage match.
The lack of reportage bears more than a passing resemblance to the Saturday shooting rampage in Michigan that left six dead, but did not even merit a mention on any of the Sunday talkshows.
