300 Remember Caltrans’ ‘Darkest Day’

The Batavia Caltrans Maintenance yard was a sea of orange Wednesday morning when close to 300 state employees gathered to honor four of their co-workers killed in a shooting spree there last December.

Men and women dressed in bright orange jackets and memorial T-shirts bearing the names of the victims stood, some weeping, in remembrance of the fatal rampage in Orange.

Department representatives dedicated a memorial site to the four men--maintenance supervisor Hal B. Bierlein, 51, lead worker Wayne Bowers, 43, heavy equipment operator Michael Kelley, 49, and equipment operator Paul White, 30. When completed later this year, the memorial will include a small park at the entrance of the Batavia station.

The ceremony marked the first time employees gathered with members of all the victims’ families.

“It’s really important you understand that every time we walk through those gates, we think of them,” California Department of Transportation employee Terri Petersen told the crowd. “We can’t walk in here without thinking of them. It’ll never be the same.”

The slayings marked “the darkest day in the department’s long history,” said James W. van Loben Sels, Caltrans’ director. “We’re not going to forget, and it’s good that we don’t forget.”

On Dec. 18, just after 3 p.m., former Caltrans worker Arturo Reyes Torres, reportedly angered over being dismissed from his job months earlier, shot five employees, four fatally, and wounded a police officer with an AK-47 in the Batavia yard. He fired at one man in the parking lot and four others through the windows of their work trailer. After a brief pursuit and exchange of fire with police, Orange officers shot and killed Torres.

Friends and relatives of the slain men remembered the victims’ dedication to the agency and acknowledged their loss.

Many Caltrans workers are familiar with the dangers involved with working on the highway, Petersen said. “But we don’t prepare for going out the week before Christmas and not coming back.”

“We had a lot of fun together,” Glenda Dobbins, a sign worker who was at the shooting site, told the crowd. “This is a big loss for all of us. Things have changed for all of us so dramatically.”

Dobbins remembered her close two-year working relationship with the slain men. “I miss . . . the laughter. I looked forward to going to work everyday so I could see my boys. I called them mine,” she said.

“These men lost their lives. It’s important to remember them,” said employee Michael Edmonson, who knew Paul White. “[White] was the personification of innocence. He did what he had to do, and he shouldn’t have been downed by a gunshot. [Torres] had problems too. This shouldn’t have happened to him either.”

Other workers also spoke of the gunman. “The guy who did it, he was no common criminal; there was some little thing that happened that got out of hand,” said lead worker Andrew Jackson, who was in the crowd.

In addition, family members pleaded for better workplace relations. Van Loben Sels outlined the agency’s efforts to offer anger-management training that he hoped would achieve that goal.

“We must carry on in their memory and make sure this never, ever happens again,” he said.

Melanie Bierlein, wife of one of the slain men, told the audience that strained workplace relations may have contributed to the shootings.

“What can I say to make this evilness go away? Look what’s come of it,” Bierlein told the crowd. “The honor and respect is needed here. [Hal] had so much respect for this company and he was very proud of his position and of the work he did for Caltrans.”

Employees said the memorial could help ease workplace tensions.

“I’m hoping this made everybody think that if they have a problem with someone--a supervisor, someone else--to handle it properly,” employee Herb Rogers said. “It was good that everyone was here to see the family and the wives, the young wives and kids so they know that if you take a life, there are people left behind.”