800 Attend Funeral for a Victim of Gunman’s Caltrans Rampage

Wearing bright orange shirts identifying them as Caltrans workers, they stood out in the crowd of somberly dressed mourners.

Among the 800 people who came to bid farewell to Michael J. Kelley on Tuesday were dozens of his co-workers still trying to make sense of last week’s tragedy. “This is something that should never have happened. . . . The pain that his family is going through could have been my family’s pain,” said Ed Castro, 32.

Kelley, along with co-workers Wayne Bowers, Hal Bierlein and Paul White, were shot to death Thursday by disgruntled former employee Arturo Reyes Torres at a Caltrans maintenance yard in Orange. After the rampage, police killed Torres, 41.

Services for White, 30, were held Monday night in Wilmington while Bowers, 43, was eulogized Tuesday afternoon in Sun City. A service for Bierlein, 51, is scheduled for today in Santa Ana.

“We are very stunned at what happened to Mike,” Father Jim Williams told the mourners at the Beatitudes of Our Lord Catholic Church. “The anger and violence around us is very disturbing.”

Kelley’s 19-year-old daughter, Michelle, couldn’t hold back her tears. “He was a very good man,” she said. “We were his life, we were everything he had. He loved his kids and his family so much.”