A SHOOTER who killed five employees and himself at the Molson Coors brewing complex Wednesday has been identified as an electrician who worked at the plant for nearly two decades.
Anthony Ferrill apparently opened fire on his co-workers after a long-running feud he had with another electrician reached a fever pitch, a law enforcement source told USA Today.
The 51-year-old had been working as an electrician at the iconic brewery in Wisconsin for 17 years, according to the newspaper.
Ferrill believed he was the victim of racial discrimination at work because he was black and he frequently argued with at least one of the shooting victims, who was a fellow electrician, an unnamed colleague told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The colleague spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of being disciplined.
Ferrill often watched movies on his phone during the day – something the other electrician disliked, the co-worker said.
The two allegedly accused one another of entering each other’s offices to steal tools and tamper with computer equipment.
About a year ago, the colleague said Ferrill began acting “weird” by accusing Miller workers of coming into his home, bugging his computer, and moving chairs around.
“‘Are you serious, Anthony? What?’ We all kind of joked about it, saying we should maybe get him an aluminum hat,” he said.
“Things just started getting weird. But he was dead serious about it.”
Worker Randy Chenoweth described the horrifying moment he heard a dead body drop inside the beer complex where 1,000 people work.
He thought someone was playing a game when he heard a corpse tumble down the stairs, a sight he’d never witnessed in his 40 years of working at the brewery.
“I only heard what I thought was gunshots and we thought somebody was playing a game by throwing someone down the stairs, but no, it was a body,” he told WISN Wednesday.
Several of Ferrill’s colleagues were shocked and surprised to learn on Thursday that a man who many said was often in “a good mood” perpetrated the state’s 11th mass shooting since 2004.
Keith Giese said he seemed fine when he had seen him earlier this week and that there were no signs that gave clues to Ferrill’s rage.
“I never had a clue. I talked to him a couple of days ago and he seemed fine to me,” he told the Journal Sentinel.
“I had no idea that there was a problem, that somebody could snap like that.”
Retiree Philip Rauch Sr., who worked with Ferrill for 15 years, described him as “a very good electrician” and had little bad to say about his former colleague.
“He was a very good electrician, a very good worker and I couldn’t say anything bad about the guy,” Rauch said.
“Every time I worked with him he was always in a good mood.”
Do you have a story for The US Sun team?
Email us at exclusive@the-sun.com or call 212 416 4552.
