Few Clues Emerge in Killing of 7 Men at Honolulu Office

Police had few clues Wednesday as to why copier repairman Byran Uyesugi allegedly opened fire on his co-workers, killing seven a day earlier.

Uyesugi, in police custody since his arrest Tuesday afternoon, has offered no explanation, police said.

“He was under no threat of losing his job. There was no thought of it, no hint of it,” Xerox President and CEO G. Richard Thoman said Wednesday. He and other company officials would not comment on the Uyesugi family’s statement that he had threatened a supervisor and had gotten anger counseling in 1993.

Thoman and other officials refused to provide details about Uyesugi’s work history, citing employee confidentiality rules.

Xerox’s vice president for Hawaii, Glenn Sexton, said he had no information to indicate that Uyesugi had been anything but a good worker in his 15 years with the company. Co-workers knew him as “a very quiet, reserved and probably shy individual,” he said.

“Maybe it was the last straw. I don’t know,” said Uyesugi’s brother Dennis, who helped talk him into surrendering. He said he didn’t ask his brother why.

Police said Uyesugi, a 40-year-old gun collector, calmly walked into his two-story office building Tuesday morning, said hello to a co-worker and then allegedly fired 20 rounds at his fellow technicians.

One of the victims was his supervisor.

Uyesugi surrendered to police SWAT teams after a five-hour standoff near the Hawaii Nature Center, which was full of schoolchildren taking hikes. A search of his home found 11 handguns, five rifles and two shotguns.

Uyesugi likely will face a first-degree murder charge, punishable by a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hawaii has no death penalty.