Six Dead in Mass Shooting at Milwaukee Brewery

VOA NEWS

A gunman in the U.S. city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killed five people before killing himself Wednesday at a Molson Coors brewery.

Police identified the shooter as a 51-year-old man but have withheld his name and the names of his victims until their families are notified.

“There were five individuals who went to work today, just like everybody goes to work and they thought they were going to finish their day and return to their families,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said. “Tragically, they never will.”

President Donald Trump opened a White House news conference on the coronavirus Wednesday by calling the shooting “a terrible thing. Our hearts go out to the people of Wisconsin and to the families.”

Police gave little information about the attack or what motive the shooter may have had.  

Barrett said such “vile and heinous deadly violence makes no sense.”

The Molson Coors campus includes not only a brewery, but corporate offices and underground caves for tourists, and a large outdoor beer garden.

Molson CEO Gavin Hattersley said in a statement, “There are no words to express the deep sadness many of us are feeling right now.”

There have been a number of mass shootings in the upper Midwest state of Wisconsin over the past 20 years. They include the 2012 massacre of six people by a white supremacist outside a Sikh temple in Milwaukee. The gunman also wounded four others before taking his own life.

Workplaces have been the most common sites for mass shootings over the last five decades.