News Stories related to Workplace Shootings

Aug. 31, 2007 - Disgruntled worker kills former boss and shoots 2 others

A disgruntled worker shot dead his former supervisor and injured two other people at a New York apartment complex where he used to work.

Authorities say Paulino Valenzuela walked into his former workplace, and cornered supervisor Audley Bent, 59, before shooting him dead. He then shot two other workers, injuring one critically, before catching a bus and a train to turn himself in at a local courthouse, authorities said.

The 44-year-old was fired in February 2005 from his job as a porter at the Co-op City housing complex in the Bronx for making threats against other employees, according to court papers. Valenzuela had been disciplined for drinking beer on the job, threatening Bent, and telling a co-worker he would not "pass the day without dying," the court papers say.

Just last Friday, a judge ruled against Valenzuela in a discrimination lawsuit that alleged RiverBay Corporation's management, and Bent in particular, "hate the Latinos" on the work force. "They always look at me with bad eyes," Valenzuela, a native of the Dominican Republic, said in a statement while representing himself in court. The judge said the case had no merit.

A manager at RiverBay, which manages the housing complex, said the shootings had left workers stunned and horrified.

"It's just unbelievable," manager Herbert Freedman said.

One of the surviving victims is in a critical condition with a neck wound. The other has been treated for a gunshot wound to the arm and released. The sprawling Co-op City was built in the late 1960s on the site of a former amusement park. It includes 35 high-rises and seven town house clusters, and has its own security force and power plant.