AURORA, Ill. — The man who opened fire and killed five co-workers at a suburban Chicago manufacturing plant took a gun he wasn't allowed to have to a job he must have known he was about to lose.

Right after learning Friday that he was being fired from his job of 15 years at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, Gary Martin pulled out a gun and began shooting, killing the three people in the room with him and two others just outside and wounding a sixth employee before officers began arriving, drawing his attention their way, police said Saturday at a news conference in the city of about 200,000 people roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Chicago.

Martin shot and wounded five of the first officers to get to the scene, including one who didn't even make inside the sprawling warehouse. After that flurry of shots and with officers from throughout the region streaming in to help, he ran off and hid in the back of the building, where officers found him about an hour later and killed him during an exchange of gunfire, police said.



Martin, 45, had six arrests over the years in Aurora, one of Chicago's far western suburbs, for what police Chief Kristen Ziman described as "traffic and domestic battery-related issues" and for violating an order of protection. He also had a 1995 felony conviction for aggravated assault in Mississippi that should have prevented him from buying his gun, Ziman said.




Warehouse Shooting Aurora mugshot gunman Gary Montez Martin
Aurora Illinois Police Department via AP

Ziman said she doesn't know why Martin was being fired or whether he showed up that day just for the meeting or to work his regular shift. The company, which makes valves for industrial purposes, issued a statement Friday expressing condolences but not mentioning the circumstances surrounding the attack.




