2001 Navistar shooting

2001 Navistar shooting
Baker in an undated mugshot
Location	Melrose Park, Illinois, U.S.
Date	February 5, 2001 c. 9:50 a.m. – 10:02 a.m. (ET)
Attack type	Mass shooting workplace violence
Weapons	SKS rifle
Deaths	5 (including the perpetrator)
Injured	4
Perpetrator	William Daniel Baker

On February 5, 2001, a mass shooting occurred at a Navistar engine plant in Melrose Park, Illinois, when 66-year-old William Daniel Baker fatally shot four employees and wounded four others with an SKS rifle before turning the gun on himself. He had previously worked at the facility until he was fired for conspiring to steal machinery. He had been convicted of crimes related to the plot months before the shooting and was due to turn himself into custody the next day.

Shooting

At approximately 9:45 a.m. on February 5, 2001, Baker drove his car to the sliding iron gate northwest of the facility on Armitage Avenue. Armed with multiple weapons, including an SKS rifle stuffed in a golf bag, he attempted to persuade a female security guard to let him enter and claimed the bag contained belongings that he was giving to a friend. Once the guard asked if she could inspect the bag, Baker brandished a .38 special revolver and demanded entrance to the facility. She obliged and Baker entered the building, which at the time housed over 800 employees.

Once he infiltrated a diesel engine testing room, Baker brandished his rifle and began shooting. There, seven employees were shot, including three who were killed; supervisor Daniel Dorsch, 52, and technicians Robert Wehrheim, 47, and Michael Brus, 48. Several employees who witnessed the attack began running and alerting the other workers. Meanwhile, Baker continued to wander the facility looking for victims room by room. Approximately 8 to 12 minutes later, Baker entered an office room where he fatally shot a fourth employee, test engineer William Garcia, 44. Afterwards, he turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.

After officers made their way into the facility, the four other workers who were shot were rushed to get treatment. Two of them, 45-year-old Carl Swanson and 22-year-old Matt Kusch, were treated at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital and survived. The other two, 24-year-old Mujtaba Aidroos and 26-year-old Bryan Snyder, were treated at Loyola University Medical Center and also survived.

Victims

Killed

• Daniel T. Dorsch, 52, of Elmwood Park
• Robert E. Wehrheim, 47, of Hanover Park
• Michael Brus, 48, of Hinckley
• William Garcia, 43, of Carpentersville

Injured

• Carl Swanson, 45, of Des Plaines
• Mujtaba H. Aidroos, 24, of Roselle
• Bryan Snyder, 26, of Maywood
• Matt Kusch, 22

Perpetrator

William Daniel Baker (c. 1935 – February 5, 2001), the perpetrator of the shooting, had previously worked at the facility. He was hired in 1955 and worked as a forklift operator and tool room attendant until his firing in 1994 after he conspired with a group of his co-workers to steal truck engines and parts from the facility. Many of Baker's acquaintances and old co-workers described him as a "bully."

After Baker was fired in 1994, he was charged in federal court with conspiracy to commit theft relating to the plot. In November 2000, he pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to serve five months in federal prison, followed by five months of home confinement. He was due to surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons on February 6, one day after the shooting. Baker was also a registered sex offender after pleading guilty in 1998 to having a sexual relationship with an underage girl. Due to this, he was forbidden to own a firearm.

See also

• 2003 Chicago warehouse shooting
• Gun violence in the United States