Gunman opens fire at Florida office, kills one

A victim of the shooting is transported to a waiting ambulance. Jason Rodriguez (inset), a former employee of the engineering firm, was taken into custody after the shooting. Photos / AP

ORLANDO, Florida - A gunman opened fire in the offices of an engineering firm from which he was sacked more than two years ago, authorities said, killing one person and injuring five others.

Jason Rodriguez, 40, surrendered about three hours later, after officers saw him through the window of his mother's home and asked him to come outside, Orlando Police Chief Val Demings said.

Asked by a reporter outside the police station why he did it, he replied: "Because they left me to rot."

The Florida shooting comes a day after a gunman at the Fort Hood military base in Texas killed 13 people and wounded about 30. An Army psychiatrist is suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers there.

Demings said Rodriguez brought a handgun to the firm in a downtown office tower where he once worked as an engineer, but investigators are not sure what his motive was.

"This is a tragedy, no doubt about it, especially on the heels of the tragedy in Fort Hood that is on our minds," Demings said.

"I'm just glad we don't have any more fatalities or any more injuries than we currently have."

Charles W. Price, an attorney who represented Rodriguez in a bankruptcy case, declined to comment.

Camille Previlon told The Associated Press her uncle, engineer Guy Lungenbel, was shot in the back and was able to talk but had not said much about the shooting.

"He is stable," she said. "He's just hurting real bad in the back."

Everyone who was shot was in the offices of Reynolds Smith & Hills, on the eighth floor. The five survivors were in stable conditions, Demings said.

Company spokesman Mike Bernos said Rodriguez was an entry-level engineer who was fired in June 2007 after working there for a year.

"His performance wasn't up to our standards, so we terminated him," Bernos said.

There had been no contact between the company and Rodriguez since then.

After the lunchtime shooting, people streamed out of the Legion Place building and some said they had barricaded themselves inside their offices while the gunman was on the loose.

Mark Vella, who works in the building, said he and five co-workers pulled a filing cabinet in front of their door. They prayed and talked about what to do if the gunman showed up.

"It was a little scary, a little unnerving," Vella said.

"We were afraid the guy was still in the building and making the rounds."

- AP