City Worker Held After 4 Supervisors Are Slain : Rampage: Suspect, who had received unfavorable job evaluations, methodically shot victims, police say.

A city electrician--angered over a poor performance evaluation and fearing that he might be fired--hunted down and shot to death four of his supervisors at the city’s Downtown technical center Wednesday before he was disarmed and arrested, police said.

Willie Woods, 42, “felt he was being picked on and singled out” by the supervisors and “it seemed he was on the brink of violent action,” according to Robert Sipe, a business representative of the union to which Woods has been paying dues.

The methodical, bloody rampage began about 10 a.m. as hundreds of city employees were streaming in and out of the sprawling, four-story facility next to the Los Angeles River to pick up their paychecks.

Police said Woods, who has a city identification badge, apparently had reported to work as usual and had gone directly to the communications area where he worked as a radio repairman.

After angry discussions with someone there about his evaluation, Woods left the area, returning moments later with a 19-shot Glock semiautomatic pistol, investigators said.

Woods quickly searched out his four victims--Anthony J. Gain, 78; Marty Wakefield, 57; Neil Carpenter, 61, and James Walton, 60--all veteran city employees, police said. Carpenter and Walton are the men who had recently given Woods the poor evaluation, officials said. Gain--the city’s most senior employee with 53 years of service--was the office supervisor.

Gain and Wakefield were shot in their office cubicles on the ground floor. Woods walked down a flight of stairs, bypassing at least one other employee, and opened fire on Carpenter and Walton--one in a hallway, the other in an office, according to accounts from police and union officials.

Two officers from a police gang unit who were in the building to have work done on the keys to their patrol car heard the shots, investigators said. Following the sounds of the gunfire and directions from people who had seen the suspect fleeing, the officers tracked Woods to an open area behind the building.

When the officers confronted him, Woods dropped his pistol and surrendered without incident, according to police.

“This action clearly stopped any further carnage,” Police Chief Willie L. Williams said at a crime scene news conference Wednesday morning.

The attack left fellow employees stunned and fearful.

“I worry about my kids going to school,” said Donald Garibay, a senior storekeeper in the building. “Now I gotta worry about coming to work.”

Woods, a resident of Upland and a former Marine who has worked for the city for a dozen years, was taken to the Police Department’s Parker Center headquarters, where he was questioned for several hours before being booked on suspicion of murder.

Gain, Walton and Wakefield were rushed by ambulance to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where they were pronounced dead on arrival.

Carpenter, who lived in Palmdale, was pronounced dead at the scene. His body remained sprawled on a basement floor Wednesday afternoon as detectives completed their painstaking study of the crime scene.

Investigators said the four men were shot in the upper body--one of them in the head. The precise nature of each man’s wounds was not made clear.

Gain, a Montebello resident, started working for the city during World War II. Walton, who was Woods’ immediate supervisor, lived in Los Angeles and became a city employee 26 years ago. Wakefield, of Venice, went to work for the city in 1984.

Woods started having trouble with his supervisors about six months ago, according to Sipe, who represents the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 45.

Sipe said that while being counseled by Carpenter, Woods hurled a chair across the room.

“He reacted violently to any type of verbal or written warnings,” Sipe said.

The union representative said Woods received at least five warnings over the last six months and during the last few days, he received notification of a Skelly hearing--a formal presentation of the charges against him. Such hearings can lead to suspension or termination.

“I don’t think he knew what a Skelly hearing is,” Sipe said. “He just read that notice and decided that no one was going to terminate him.”

In addition to the threats mentioned by Sipe, Carpenter’s wife, Marda, told a neighbor, Chookiei Prasomsri, that her husband had received a threatening letter from Woods.

“They knew about the problem, but the city didn’t do anything--that’s what Marda said,” Prasomsri told a reporter.

Top department officials confirmed that Woods had been having problems with supervisors. Tom Lee, who works in the communications office, described him as a man with a bad temper, but Garibay painted a different picture.

Garibay, who works in an office near Woods’, said the radio repairman “seemed like a mellow guy.” Garibay was among several employees at the technical center who described Woods as “a nice guy.”

Because Woods has a city employee identification badge, he has been free to enter or leave the building at any time without any search for weapons or other contraband, according to police.

“They just come in and show their badges,” said David Chavez, a security employee who works in the guard shack at the front entrance. “Anybody can walk in and out.”

The technical center is named for the late C. Erwin Piper, who served as the city’s administrative officer from 1962 to 1979.

Known in city circles as “Piper Tech,” the massive, four-story building at 555 Ramirez St., next to the Santa Ana Freeway, houses a wide variety of General Services Department supply and repair facilities, topped by a landing area for the LAPD’s helicopter squadron.

Piper Tech also houses the LAPD’s Scientific Investigation division laboratories, where blood, fingerprint and DNA tests are performed, including some of those for the O.J. Simpson trial.

Five behavioral science specialists were dispatched to the facility late Wednesday to counsel employees unnerved by the incident.

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon in front of the facility, Mayor Richard Riordan credited police with “great courage and decisiveness” in apprehending the suspect so quickly.

“But that’s very, very little consolation to the families who have to be in great, deep sorrow at this moment,” the mayor said. “My heart is with them all.”

“Times are tough,” Garibay told a reporter. “People are doing desperate things.”

Times staff writers Paul Feldman, Andrea Ford, John Glionna, J. Michael Kennedy, John Schwada, Richard E. Simon and Nora Zamichow contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Fatal Shootings at ‘Piper Tech’

According to investigators, disgruntled employee went on a shooting rampage at the C. Erwin Piper Technical Center on Wednesday morning, killing four of his supervisors. Here is an overview of what officials say took place:

THE SHOOTINGS

1) Suspect Willie Woods reports for work, argues about a negative performance evaluation he had received. He leaves the area and when he returns, shoots Anthony J. Gain and Marty Wakefield in their office cubicles on the first floor.

2) Woods walks down a stairway and shoots Neil Carpenter and James Walton in the basement, one in a hallway, the other in an office.

3) He then flees through the back door of subterranean but police track Woods and arrest him behind the building.

THE BUILDING

The C. Erwin Piper Technical Center, commonly known as “Piper Tech,” is a four-story building near the Hollywood Freeway and Union Station. The 1.5 million-square-foot building houses police support operations, the General Services Department, city archives, and other services.

Sources: Dept. of Public Works, Times staff and wire services.

Researched by NONA YATES/Los Angeles Times