If a man – or any person for that matter – regularly comes into his workplace and makes comments such as, “If I get fired, I’m going to kill every mother***er in here,” then perhaps someone should report that and management should take action? Yes, it’s an understandable debate: do you allow the person to remain in the hopes that they won’t actually turn violent? Or do you go ahead and fire them, removing the threat from the workplace but risking the actual vendetta attack? It helps if you know the background of the person in question and whether or not they’ve ever been arrested for violence or threats of violence.
On February 15, 2019, when Gary M. Martin walked into his former employer’s company headquarters and started shooting people, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He had reportedly threatened to do so frequently; so frequently in fact that workmates didn’t say anything because it was common behavior for him and, after all, he hadn’t done it…. YET.
At approximately 1:30pm that afternoon the emergency dispatch center began getting calls about the shooting at the Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, Illinois. The local police responded and received assistance from multiple other agencies to include the FBI, BATFE and the US Marshals. Martin reportedly engaged the responding police in a gun fight that lasted for about an hour and a half before he was shot and killed. During that gun fight he managed to shoot four officers while another two officers were injured in other ways (one shrapnel wound and another response injury).
Inside the company, before the police arrived, Martin had shot and killed five victims, all of whom were employed by the company. One was a college student interning there and was the youngest of the victims at 21. The oldest was 55. There was a sixth employee who was shot but did not die of the wounds/injuries.
What is exceptional about this event are two characteristics: The length of the gun battle and the perpetrator’s criminal history. It’s reported that the attack started at 1:24pm and that the police radioed a status at 2:59pm indicating the shooter had been neutralized. One hour and thirty-five minutes from start to finish with an alleged police response time of four minutes. This author can’t find any information on how many rounds were fired in that time frame, but a 90-minute gun fight is damned long. Six injured officers balanced against one criminal fatality seems… off kilter.
As to Martin’s criminal history: It’s reported that he had an extensive one. At 45-years of age, Martin had a criminal record that included a violent felony in Mississippi and had resulted in jail time. In addition to that, he had no less than six arrests in Aurora, Illinois for crimes involving domestic violence and violating the attached restraining order. He also had other arrests in Oswego, Illinois for violent behavior (destruction of property). For all that, when he applied to the State of Illinois for a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card in 2014, it was approved and he was able to purchase a handgun. It wasn’t until he applied for a Concealed Carry Permit and had to be fingerprinted that his felony criminal history was discovered by Illinois. Now… this is the ironic part: after discovering that this multiple convicted violent criminal had lied and secured a FOID and had purchased a handgun using it, they sent him written notice - no doubt via certified mail – to surrender both. Sure… this person who has so blatantly expressed his disregard for the law is suddenly going to become compliant and obey the law. He had already ignored a restraining order issued by the court so I’m sure the letter demanding he surrender his weapon was accepted graciously, right?
He obviously didn’t comply and some reports indicate that the handgun he had purchased was the one he used to commit his attack. Now, there is no way to say that if he hadn’t ever gotten the FOID in the first place then he’d have had no access to a gun, but there is obviously a big disconnect in the investigative system if a multiply convicted violent felon can be approved for a FOID in any state and then go on to purchase a handgun using such. Even with it taken into consideration, the NICS check that should have been done at the point of purchase should have caught his criminal background and denied him the ability to purchase the weapon.
Post event investigation revealed that the date of the attack wasn’t even the first time that Martin had taken his gun into the workplace. He had reportedly done so prior but not gone through with the attack at that time. No explanation is given as to what prevented it.
