Orlando shootings suspect had money woes
It’s unclear whether Jason Rodriguez gave any warning signs before he walked into Orlando’s Gateway Center, where police say he shot and wounded five people and killed one, and authorities may never fully understand his motivation.
But Rodriguez, fired two years ago by the company he targeted, has one characteristic not unusual among mass shooters: money problems.
“This guy is a compilation of the front page of the entire year: unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce — all of the stresses,” Public Defender Bob Wesley, who is representing Rodriguez, said Saturday.
Workplace killings, in particular, often can be linked to an economic motivation.
“The person has lost a job, the person has been demoted, the person feels like he’s about to lose his job — it’s not the whole story, but it’s part of the motive,” said Charles Ewing, a forensic psychologist and law professor at University at Buffalo Law School.
Money problems can lead to depression, which can compound the problems of someone already struggling with mental-health issues.
People who commit mass shootings typically are suffering from serious depression and are usually suicidal as well as homicidal, Ewing said.
Wesley didn’t know whether Rodriguez was on medication. The lawyer said a mental-health evaluation of the former draftsman would be conducted.
Rodriguez’s situation “looks like a classic, stress overload,” combined with a chemical imbalance, said Wesley, who often represents clients who have a history of mental illness.
Wesley said Rodriguez was under great stress, including a series of job losses.
“Nobody intentionally goes from solving complex mechanical problems … to trying to solve what type of condiments to put on a sandwich,” Wesley said.
Wesley also told the Orlando Sentinel that people react to stress in a variety of ways.
And one of the great factors no one has control over is genetic, he said.
“We’re all put together differently chemically,” Wesley said. “If you inherit a predisposition or mental-health problems, that will trump everything else.”
Problems earlier in life also can contribute to imbalances.
“When you go back and do a psychological autopsy, you’ll probably be able to find childhood events or events in adolescence that contributed,” said Rande Matteson, a professor of criminal justice at Saint Leo University. “Many times, those things are overlooked.”
But a lot of people have faced the same life challenges, and they aren’t suspected of fatally shooting a man and injuring several others at their former workplace.
“There’s not one template to predict who will snap and at what point,” Matteson said.
Someone struggling with some underlying problems may not be able to see any alternatives to acting out in an angry event, but it’s difficult to figure out when someone has reached that point, Matteson said.
Most depressed people don’t kill themselves or anyone else, but friends, family and co-workers should take someone seriously if the person makes a threat to kill another person or multiple people, Ewing said.
“In many of these cases, people have made threats, or they’ve told their victims or other people what they plan to do,” he said.
Lawyer Cites Mental Illness in Shooting
ORLANDO, Fla. — The lawyer for the man accused of shooting six people, one fatally, at an Orlando office building on Friday told reporters after a court appearance on Saturday that his client was “very, very mentally ill.”
“This guy is a compilation of the front page of the entire year — unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce, all of the stresses,” said the lawyer, Robert Wesley, a public defender assigned to represent the suspect, Jason Rodriguez. “He has been declining in mental health.”
Mr. Rodriguez, 40, who was apparently unemployed, was fired in 2007 from an entry-level job at Reynolds, Smith & Hills, the engineering company where the shooting took place. A company spokesman said Mr. Rodriguez had been fired because his work had not been up to the company’s standards.
“He had been given notice all year that performance was substandard,” said the spokesman, Michael T. Bernos. After that, Mr. Rodriguez had difficulty keeping a job and filed for bankruptcy in May, claiming assets worth less than $5,000, including a Nissan Xterra that did not run.
Mr. Rodriguez is being held without bail on suicide watch in the Orange County Jail. He appeared in court wearing handcuffs and a protective vest.
Mr. Rodriguez is accused of entering the offices of the engineering firm and opening fire, killing Otis Beckford, 26, the father of a 7-month-old, near the reception desk. He then went into the common work area, the police said, and opened fire, wounding five people, who were listed in stable or good condition. Hours later, he was arrested at his mother’s apartment.
According to an arrest affidavit, Mr. Rodriguez told the police, “I’m just going through a tough time right now, I’m sorry.” When asked by a reporter why he had opened fire, he replied, “They know why I did it; they left me to rot,” according to the affidavit.
Mr. Rodriguez had quit his most recent job, at a Subway sandwich shop, the affidavit said, because he was not getting enough hours, and he had filed for unemployment. He believed that the engineering firm was somehow blocking his application for benefits, the affidavit said.
Mr. Rodriguez periodically took medication for what his former mother-in-law, America Holloway, said was schizophrenia. When he was not taking the medication, Ms. Holloway said, he was unbearable to live with — angry, jealous, paranoid and controlling.
Once, Ms. Holloway said, her daughter had appeared at the front door covered in bruises. She moved home, but a few weeks later Mr. Rodriguez apologized and said he was taking anger management classes. Her daughter took him back.
The couple then lived with her for five years, Ms. Holloway said, before she finally threw him out and the couple divorced in 2006. They have an 8-year-old son.
“I’d be standing in the kitchen, he would come from the back room and say, ‘I know you’re talking about me.’ I would say, ‘There’s nobody here,’ ” Ms. Holloway said. “When he had his medicine, he was the most wonderful person.”
Ms. Holloway said that before the couple married Mr. Rodriguez had decided to join the armed forces, but that he changed his mind because he did not want to have to say “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” to anyone. At the same time, he often believed that co-workers were spreading rumors about him or trying to get him fired. “He felt superiority and inferiority at the same time,” she said.
Ms. Holloway said she believed that Mr. Rodriguez, in a downward spiral, had not been able to afford treatment. About six months ago, she said, he left his car and keys behind and walked to a mental health facility, where he stayed for a few weeks before being discharged, she said.
There were other indications that Mr. Rodriguez had received mental health treatment.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that in 2007, Mr. Rodriguez attacked a nurse’s aide while he was at a hospital for a mental health evaluation.
“He was laying down in the bed, said he was going in the bathroom, and I was watching him to make sure he was O.K. going there,” the aide, Denise Exume, said in a telephone interview on Friday. “And suddenly he just pushed me and ran outside the room.”
The Sentinel reported that after that incident, a recommendation for Mr. Rodriguez’s arrest on a charge of battery was sent to the Orange-Osceola state attorney’s office, but there is no record of criminal charges. Law enforcement officials said they did not know what had led to the hospital evaluation.
Ms. Holloway said she believed that Mr. Rodriguez’s father was also mentally ill. Over time, Mr. Rodriguez’s child support payments had dwindled from $365, the amount he was supposed to pay, to $200, to $140, to nothing.
Ms. Holloway said her grandson had called his father about a week ago and begged to see him. He replied, as Ms. Holloway recalled: “No, honey. I cannot see you. I don’t have money, I don’t have anything to eat, and when things get better, I will see you. You know I love you.”
Office shooting suspect’s life spiraled downward
By MIKE SCHNEIDER and MATT SEDENSKY (AP)
ORLANDO, Fla. — Jason Rodriguez’s marriage long ago went sour, his home taken in foreclosure, his job lost to incompetence, his finances sunk in bankruptcy. It was a “stress overload” for the man accused of a deadly shooting rampage at his former office, his lawyer said Saturday.
The 40-year-old man whose life seemed to just keep getting worse was charged Saturday with first-degree murder, accused of killing one and wounding five Friday at his former office. He said nothing in his brief court appearance Saturday, but his attorney portrayed him as a mentally ill man who fell victim to countless problems.
“This guy is a compilation of the front page of the entire year — unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce — all of the stresses,” said the public defender, Bob Wesley. “He has been declining in mental health. There is no logic whatsoever, which points to a mental health case. It looks like a classic case of stress overload.”
Police refused to say anything more Saturday about their investigation into the shooting. But as Rodriguez remained on suicide watch at the Orange County Jail, a portrait of his crumbling life began to emerge.
He couldn’t pay the child support he owed for his 8-year-old son. He was nearly $90,000 behind on bills, his bankruptcy file showed. A once-promising, but short-lived career at an engineering firm faded into a job at a fast-food chain.
Wesley described his client as “very, very mentally ill” but offered no specifics. His former mother-in-law, America Holloway, said he was a schizophrenic who was constantly paranoid, blaming others for all of his woes and who always thought everyone disliked him.
The suspect’s own mother struggled Saturday for words to defend her son. She could only muster an apology.
“Sorry for the families involved,” Ana Rodriguez said. “I’m really very sorry, it is very hurtful.”
Police said Rodriguez himself also offered words of remorse as he was handcuffed Friday, explaining he was just going through a tough time. But it offered little solace to victims, all of whom worked at Reynolds, Smith and Hills, where the suspect was an entry-level engineer for 11 months before being fired in June 2007.
Identified as the single fatality in the shooting spree was Otis Beckford, 26, the father of a 7-month-old daughter who was standing near the receptionist’s desk when the gunman entered the office.
Beckford’s mother told The Palm Beach Post that she had last talked to him Thursday night, firming up the family’s Thanksgiving plans.
“Now, he won’t be there,” Icilda Cole told the newspaper. “Such a shame! I had two children. Otis and my daughter. I have one left. I never thought something like this would happen to him.”
Five others were wounded: Gregory Hornbeck, 39; Ferrell Hickson, 40; Guy Lugenbeel, 62; Edward Severino; 34; and Keyondra Harrison; 27. All were in stable or good condition at Orlando hospitals and were expected to survive. Several employees reached Saturday said the firm has told them not to publicly discuss the shooting.
The Legion Place building, where the shooting occurred, remained cordoned off Saturday with police tape, though some workers returned to get purses and other belongings left behind in a scramble to escape. Courtney Moore, a paralegal on the building’s 17th floor, returned for her car, and remembered frequently sharing an elevator with Beckford or seeing him in the cafeteria.
“He was always so polite and friendly,” she said.
As for Rodriguez, a neighbor said he moved into his mother’s apartment about six weeks ago and said his appearance had grown disheveled in recent weeks. Cassandra Mizhir said she found Rodriguez “creepy” — whenever she sat out on her back porch to smoke a cigarette, he would stand on his nearby balcony and stare at her.
She said he would sit outside the low-slung, seafoam green building in his broken-down SUV, blasting classic rock music for hours. The vehicle remained in the parking lot Saturday, a brochure on claiming unemployment benefits lying on the passenger seat.
Orlando Shooting Leaves 1 Dead, 5 Wounded
Judge Denies Bond to Ex-Employee Accused of Opening Fire at Engineering Firm
A man charged with killing a worker and wounding five others at the Orlando, Fla., engineering firm where he once worked was denied bond Saturday.
Authorities found the suspect, 40-year-old Jason Rodriguez, at his mother’s apartment Friday. He surrendered there two hours after allegedly opening fire in the offices of engineering firm Reynolds Smith & Hill, where he had worked as a transportation engineer for about a year before he was fired.
Mr. Rodriguez told reporters as he was led into the police station Friday that he attacked his former colleagues “because they left me to rot.”
Michael Bernos, a spokesman for Reynolds Smith & Hill, said Mr. Rodriguez was fired for performance reasons in June 2007, about the same time the company completed an unrelated round of layoffs to cut costs. RS&H is a transportation engineering firm based in Jacksonville, Fla.
About 11:30 a.m., Orlando police Sgt. Barbara Jones said, authorities received an emergency call reporting gun shots at the Gateway Center, a 17-story office building downtown. In addition to RS&H, the building has roughly 15 tenants, including law firms, construction companies and a Veterans Affairs office.
Mr. Rodriguez went to the engineering firm’s offices on the eighth floor, police said, and began firing a handgun.
One floor below, Vivian DiDomenico looked out her window and saw nearly a dozen police officers enter the building with rifles. Moments later, she said, “We saw them bring out a gentleman with a bloody shirt. He had been shot.”
Ms. DiDomenico, vice president of Tews Co., a staffing agency, said she and a coworker didn’t know what had happened until receiving a phone call from building security, which warned the gunman was possibly still in the building.
By 12:30 p.m., she was evacuated to a building across the street, where hundreds of people from the Gateway Center were taken. Ms. DiDomenico said one of her subordinates heard an RS&H employee explain on a mobile phone that she had been in the restroom when the shooting occurred and returned to find a male colleague lying on the floor, apparently dead from a gunshot wound.
“It’s pretty scary because we’re in the staffing business, so this could have been us,” Ms. DiDomenico said. “We deal with people every day who have been laid off and are frustrated. It just goes to show the extreme measure somebody can go to when they’re out of a job.”
In May, Mr. Rodriguez filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and listed less than $50,000 of assets and between $50,000 and $100,000 of liabilities. The court filing stated that he earned a monthly income of $890.
After his termination by RS&H, Mr. Rodriguez worked for the Orange County Public Works department for four months in 2008 as an engineering inspector before walking off the job, which paid $40,000 annually, according to county personnel records.
Mr. Rodriguez has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, according to the county records. He was working on a master’s degree in business administration from Ana G. Mendez Metro Orlando University, where he also worked as an English tutor.
Orlando shooting victim originally from West Palm Beach
Media outlets in Central Florida are reporting the victim of Friday’s office shooting in Orlando is originally from the West Palm Beach area. In fact, Otis Beckford’s mother and aunt still live here. Beckford is the father of a seven month old who left our area unemployed trying to find work elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the suspect who police say opened fire at the firm of Reynolds, Smith and Hills appeared in court Saturday morning. Forty-one-year old Jason Rodriguez is accused of killing Beckford and injuring five other victims. Rodriguez’s lawyer says says the defendant was suffering from “stress overload.” The lawyer says Rodriguez saw his marriage collapse long ago, and more recently his home was taken in foreclosure, and he went through bankruptcy. He was allegedly upset over unemployment benefits when he opened fire.
Victims of shooting rampage recover in the hospital
Updated: Saturday, 07 Nov 2009, 11:21 PM EST
Published : Saturday, 07 Nov 2009, 11:20 PM EST
ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35, Orlando) – It was a shooting that stunned the city even Orange County Sheriff’s Jerry Demings, “Well it certainly touched me because it was a horrific incident that happened here in Orlando my own hometown. Paramedics transported five people who were hit by a round of bullets. Four men and one woman.
The majority were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center and are in stable condition. FOX 35’s Valerie Boey has the story.
