Official: 1 person dead, 4 hurt after shooting by man with assault rifle at St. Louis plant

1 dead, 4 hurt in St. Louis plant shooting

ST. LOUIS — A man with an assault rifle walked into a power company Thursday and opened fire, killing one person and wounding four others, authorities said. Officers surrounded the building as they searched for the gunman.

The shooting occurred around 6:30 a.m. at the ABB Power plant on the city’s north side and three hours later, police believed the gunman was still in the building.

Fire Department spokesman Bob Keuss identified the suspected shooter as Timothy Herndon of Webster Groves. Broadcast reports said he was an employee of the plant, but Keuss could not confirm that.

Names of the victims were not immediately released. Two were hospitalized in critical condition and one was in serious condition, Keuss said. The other had injuries he described as minor.

Swiss-based ABB Group makes power transmission and industrial automation equipment. The company manufactures transformers at the St. Louis site, according to its Web site. It wasn’t immediately known how many people work at the plant.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site, citing dispatcher reports, said some employees ran to the rooftop to escape the gunfire, while others hid in interior rooms. The Web site said dispatchers described the gunman as wearing a tan coat and carrying a semiautomatic weapon.

Dozens of emergency vehicles circled the sprawling plant on a day made more chaotic by several inches of snow that has snarled traffic in the St. Louis region and below-zero wind chills.

ABB has operations in roughly 100 countries, employing about 120,000 people. Last October, ABB reported third-quarter earnings of more than $1 billion.

Thomas Schmidt, an ABB corporate spokesman in Zurich, Switzerland, said in statement Thursday that the company had received reports of the shooting.

“This is obviously a very serious situation and we are working to gather more information as it becomes available,” the statement said. “The welfare of our employees is of utmost importance to us.”

Schmidt did not immediately return phone messages and e-mails from The Associated Press seeking additional information.

Calls to the St. Louis office went unanswered Thursday morning. The plant is near Interstate 70 and Kingshighway in a busy part of the city. Police closed about a 3-mile stretch of Interstate 70 near the plant.

Associated Press writer Jim Suhr contributed to this report.