Fired Employee Guns Down Co-Workers, Kills Himself

A man dismissed from his job on the city’s beach-cleanup crew more than a year ago opened fire on former Parks Department co-workers before dawn Friday, killing five and critically wounding one. He then killed himself.

“Everyone is going to die!” announced Clifton McCree, 41, who then raised a 9-millimeter handgun and shot several men who were sitting around a conference table in a temporary office set up in a parking lot near the Intracoastal Waterway.

Several of the victims were shot in the head, according to Fort Lauderdale Police Capt. James Hurley, and others apparently were killed as they attempted to seek refuge under desks and chairs. Among those killed was McCree’s former supervisor.

McCree’s final statement was reported to police by a man who survived the slaughter by playing dead after he was wounded.

A female employee escaped death when she bolted out the back door of the office after walking in while McCree was firing at her co-workers. She ran across the street to a convenience store to call for help. Police said the gunman may have fired at her as she fled.

According to police, McCree had worked for the city for 18 years, most recently on the beach maintenance crew, before being fired in December 1994 for using drugs on the job, threatening co-workers and being rude to the public.

City Manager George Hanbury said that McCree refused an offer of counseling when he was fired. “He thought there was nothing wrong with him,” said Hanbury, adding that McCree dismissed as “jokes” the threats he had made to co-workers.

After he was fired, McCree “made threats to come back and do things, come back and kill everybody,” according to a city employee who identified himself only as Doug.

Police said they recovered two guns at the scene, including the semiautomatic handgun used in the slayings and a loaded .32-caliber pistol that McCree carried in a shoulder holster under his jacket. Also found at the scene were an empty 10-round magazine, a partly loaded magazine and 12 spent shell casings, police said.

Hurley said McCree also left a “relatively coherent” suicide note, which will be released today.

The crime scene is just two blocks from the heart of a Fort Lauderdale beach that once was the East Coast mecca for college students on spring break. By midmorning, the sand was thick with sunbathers, skaters dodged sidewalk palm trees and pedestrians, and the open-air bars and cafes were busy with tourists.

*

At noon the yellow crime-scene tape around the murder site--a prefabricated office made of two double-wide trailers--had been taken down and a fund-raising go-cart race went on as scheduled.

Nonetheless, the bloody rampage--another in a series of workplace murders that have erupted all around the United States in recent years--shocked those who live in this sunny beach resort.

“The whole city is grieving right now,” said Mayor Jim Naugle. “This is a horrible tragedy; we all feel the pain. Sometimes there are tragedies that happen that just can’t be prevented.”