Alabama Shooter Had 'Revenge List' / Alabama Shooter Michael McLendon Was 'Quiet'
A man who killed 10 people and himself in an hour-long rampage in Alabama had been keeping a list of people who he had a grievance with, officials say.
"We found a list of people he worked with, people who had done him wrong," Gary McAliley, Coffee County's district attorney, said on Wednesday. The list was one of several perplexing clues that emerged about Michael McClendon's life, but the authorities could not say what set him off on the Tuesday afternoon killing spree that left his mother, grandmother and other relatives dead. The list was made up of former employers, including at a sausage plant where he suddenly quit his job last Wednesday. McAliley was quoted as telling The Dothan Eagle that the list also included people at the sausage factory who had complained about McLendon for such things as not wearing earplugs and slicing the meat too thin. 200 rounds fired The rampage started around 3:30pm on Tuesday and lasted about an hour, during which time McClendon fired more than 200 rounds of ammunition, the authorities said. Then, he drove through town and fired seemingly at random, killing three more people. With police in pursuit, he ended up at a metals plant where he once worked, and shot himself after engaging in a shootout with police. McLendon had tried to join the police academy in 2003 but lasted only a week before dropping out, the authorities said. A colleague at the sausage plant where he quit last Wednesday, said McClendon was shy, quiet and laid-back. english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/03/2009311223851172748.html *************************************************
Officials do not know what set McLendon, centre, off on his killing spree [EPA]
First, McLendon set his mother's house on fire and killed her, then he drove nearly 20km and opened fire on his uncle's front porch, killing five more people there and his grandmother, who lived next door, the authorities said.
The shooter was reportedly shooting at random during the police chase [AFP]
Alabama Shooter Michael McLendon Was 'Quiet'
Alabama Shooter Often 'Kept To Himself,' Had Quit Job Last Week
The gunman who turned a rural stretch of Alabama into a slaughterhouse was a "quiet " guy who was briefly a member of a small town police department.
Michael McLendon, 27, of Kinston, Ala., was described by former high school classmates and others who knew him as a former A student who "never had very much to say."
The only clueto a motive that McLendon left behind was a list of people he had once worked with and had either disciplined him or had reported him to supervisors for work related infractions.
The list included a sausage factory where McLendon worked until last week and a metals factory that he left back in 2003. McLendon killed himself at the factory.
Coffee County Assistant District Attorney Tom Anderson told ABCNews.com that no one on the list was among the dead. Nevertheless, investigators were trying to determine whether it was a hit list that McLendon had composed.
Until last week, McLendon was working at Kelley Foods, a sausage manufacturer and food distributor in nearby Elba., Ala. He abruptly quit last Wednesday.