Firing Began Downward Spiral for Killer

The fuse was lit when Arturo Reyes Torres was fired by Caltrans in June for stealing highway scrap metal worth $106.50 after a supervisor warned him that it was against the rules.

The 41-year-old ex-Marine, a proud, jovial man who fixed roads and bridges, had never been disciplined in 12 years on the job. He kept the firing secret from his family, even as he appealed the case to state authorities.

He lost in October, friends and family members say.

Torres cast about for other jobs. A friend said he almost landed one with the post office before getting turned down after a background check. Finally, he got a job cleaning sewers on Dec. 1. But he lost that after 11 days at work. The Orange County sanitation district said he failed to meet the physical standards for the job.

A week later, Torres exploded.

About an hour after visiting his elderly parents at their Santa Ana home Thursday, Torres drove his 1977 Mercedes 300D sedan through the front gate of a Caltrans maintenance yard in Orange, walked into the rain and started firing with an AK-47 assault rifle, authorities said.

First he went for the supervisor who he believed unfairly targeted him for dismissal.

Then he apparently walked around an office trailer and fired more than 70 bullets, police said, fatally wounding three men inside. It is unclear whether Torres had other specific victims in mind, although police say he had a clear view of workers through the windows as they scrambled for cover.

Minutes later, police chased Torres down. He engaged them in a running battle that ended when officers shot and killed him at a nearby intersection.

About 300 bullets were fired in all, police say. The toll: four killed, in addition to Torres, and two wounded, including a police officer. The rampage devastated the state transportation agency and proved another shattering example of the damage that can be caused by a disgruntled ex-employee with a powerful weapon.

The record appears to indicate that before Thursday, Torres was generally a responsible man.

He was discharged as a corporal after three years in the Marines. He owned a four-bedroom, two-story house on a quiet cul-de-sac in Huntington Beach and kept his lawn, to his last day, freshly mowed. He was friendly to neighbors and a loyal son to his parents. He worried about his wife’s cancer. After holding a green card for many years, the Mexican-born Torres had recently become a U.S. citizen, his father said. And in more than 12 years at Caltrans, records show, he had never been punished for breaking a rule.

“I honestly don’t know what he was thinking,” said James H. Torres, no relation, a former co-worker who was fired at the same time as Torres and appealed the case with him. “I wish I knew. Caltrans is like a big family. It shouldn’t have happened. I feel bad for the people who were killed. No one deserves to die.”

Interviews with friends, family, employers and co-workers and a review of public records show that Torres was a man who, though ready with a smile, had grown increasingly embittered, distressed and unemployable.

One guess at a motive came from James H. Torres. He said that Caltrans had made the two workers “scapegoats” over a minor incident and that their supervisor had framed them.

Caltrans doesn’t see it that way. Agency spokesman Albert Miranda declined to speak in detail Friday about the gunman’s firing. He referred reporters to a complaint argued before the California State Personnel Board.

The document details allegations by Caltrans that Arturo Torres and James Torres had broken agency rules in a scrap-metal salvaging scheme. The agency said supervisors had videotaped the two men on Feb. 24 as they sold scrap aluminum they took from a bridge they repaired.

That incident, the agency said, occurred three days after supervisor Hal Bierlein had read a statement to his crew prohibiting the practice. Copies of the policy were handed out to the men.

The two Torreses contended that the agency had tacitly allowed employees to sell scrap metal to raise small amounts of money for employee barbecues and other staff events. They said they had given Bierlein the $106.50 they earned from the aluminum they sold.

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An administrative law judge, Melvin R. Segal, heard the employees’ appeal and found in favor of Caltrans. The state board ratified the judgment at a meeting in October.

That judgment is not the only evidence of Arturo Torres’ conflict with his boss. There is also the word of the supervisor’s widow.

Melanie Bierlein said Friday that she and her husband, Hal, spoke often about the problems he encountered while managing Arturo Torres. Bierlein said she and her husband grew fearful in the months after Arturo Torres and James H. Torres were caught selling scrap aluminum.

The family suspected that Arturo Torres was harassing and threatening them. One day a boulder was thrown through the window of a family car.

“I was worried because they knew where we lived,” Bierlein said. “We started to get nervous for our safety. But then, you think, he got it out of his system, and he’ll leave it alone now.”

Besides Hal Bierlein, the other victims were identified as Paul Edward White, 30, address unknown; Wayne Allen Bowers, 43, of the Temecula area; and Michael James Kelley, 49, of Fullerton.

Another Caltrans employee, Reginald T. Tennyson, was struck in the ankle by a bullet. He was in good condition Friday at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange.

In addition, Orange police Officer John Warde was struck in the abdomen. He was in stable condition Friday at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange.

Arturo Torres’ family gathered in Santa Ana on Friday, answering media questions cautiously and trying to square the image they had of him with the television footage they saw of the killer whose body lay Thursday afternoon in a rainy gutter.

“What’s done is done,” said Pedro Torres, the 69-year-old father of the gunman. “Of all our children, he looked after us most. He loved us, and we loved him. He wasn’t a fighter. He was never a troublemaker. That’s all.”

The second-oldest of six children, Torres was born in March 1956 in Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. His father, a migrant worker, brought his family to Orange County in about 1960.

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The elder Torres said his son graduated from Saddleback High School in Santa Ana and served in Germany during a stint in the Marines from November 1979 to December 1982. It was impossible to verify Friday whether Arturo Torres received a general or honorable discharge, but a spokesman for the Marines said the discharge was not dishonorable. Pedro Torres said his son had always been a hard worker whose favorite hobbies included hunting deer in Alaska. He said that although his son kept in close touch with his parents, he never told them that he had been fired from Caltrans.

On Thursday, Pedro Torres said, Arturo stopped by his parents’ house for a few hours in the morning and early afternoon. The son seemed pale, agitated and nervous. But he explained to his parents that he was simply worried about his wife, who had been diagnosed with cancer some years ago. A neighbor, however, said the cancer had been in remission.

At his parents’ house, Arturo Torres sought to take care of some pending business. He placed a call to Renee Renz, who is purchasing a bar on East Chapman Avenue in Orange from Torres and his father. Renz said Friday that Torres called at 11:59 a.m. to check on the deal.

“Hi Renee, it’s Art Torres,” the tape on the phone machine said. “Can you give me a call at my dad’s phone number today? It’s Thursday.”

/ Torres then called Renz at the bar about 2 p.m., about an hour before the killings began. Renz said she told him he should come over for a beer and talk business. “He said, ‘Sure, I’ll do that.’ ”

But Renz said Torres never took her up on the offer. “It’s just weird,” she said. “He’s a nice, nice guy.”

Times staff writers Geoff Boucher, David Reyes, Steve Carney, Esther Schrader and Janet Wilson contributed to this report.