3 Federal Workers Fatally Shot at Inglewood Office

Three U.S. Department of Agriculture employees were shot to death Wednesday in an apparent murder-suicide during a meeting at a district office in Inglewood, police said.

The employees--a union representative, a supervisor and a worker whose title was unknown--were in a meeting behind locked doors when other workers heard shots shortly before 3:15 p.m., Lt. Hampton Cantrell said.

The shots may have been fired by a disgruntled employee who then killed himself, Cantrell said.

“We discovered that three of the employees had been shot,” the lieutenant said. “We think it was one of the employees” who did the shooting.

The supervisor and union representative died at the scene and the other employee died at a local hospital, Cantrell said.

The office is an agricultural selection bureau where plants and food are inspected. All three people who died were inspectors and were in uniform at the time, Cantrell said.

Normally, inspectors are unarmed, he added.

Officers were interviewing as many as 25 employees to get further details, and counselors were en route to console the distraught.

The victims’ identities would not be released until next of kin were notified. Other details were not immediately available.