Employee Who Frequently Argued With Colleagues Kills Five At Milwaukee’s Miller Brewery
The gunman, who took his own life after shooting and killing five others, had frequent conflicts with his coworkers.
- By Haley Samsel
- Feb 27, 2020
An employee of Molson Coors, the home of Miller Brewery, killed five co-workers at the company’s Milwaukee campus on Wednesday afternoon before taking his own life in what officials are calling one of the worst shootings in Wisconsin history.
The gunman, who has since been identified by local news outlets, worked as an electrician at Molson Coors and had an ongoing dispute with colleagues that appeared to culminate in horrific violence. He believed that he was being discriminated against because he was African-American and had accused another electrician of stealing his tools and messing with his computer, one employee told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
He had become paranoid that his co-workers were breaking into his home, the employee said, and “was dead serious about it.” One of the shooting victims was a colleague he frequently argued with, the anonymous co-worker said.
Families of the victims have been notified, according to local law enforcement. Their identities have not yet been released.
The shooter brought two handguns to the large facility, where over 600 people work each day. One of the guns had a silencer, which is legal in Wisconsin.
Other employees became aware of an active shooter about 10 minutes after police were called through a mass email notification. There were no survivors of the shooting, as each person injured was found dead on the scene by officers.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday that it was the “saddest day that we’ve had” in the history of the brewery, a local landmark in Milwaukee for 165 years.
“This is a time for us to think about those families because there were five individuals who went to work today, just like everyone goes to work, and they thought they were going to go to work, finish their day and return to their families,” Barrett said. “They didn’t, and tragically they never will.”
The Molson Coors plant will be closed for the rest of the week, according to company CEO Gabin Hattersley, who was in Houston on Wednesday. He traveled to Milwaukee shortly after.
"This is an unthinkable tragedy for us," Hattersley told reporters.
About the Author
Haley Samsel is an Associate Content Editor for the Infrastructure Solutions Group at 1105 Media.