The gunman who killed three men at a UPS facility in San Francisco and then killed himself has been identified as 38-year-old Jimmy Lam. The victims were Wayne Chan, 56, and Benson Louie, 50, both of San Francisco; and 46-year-old Michael Lefiti of Hercules, California. Two others were shot but survived the Wednesday morning shooting at the UPS San Francisco Customer Center.
Officers responded to a report of an active shooter about 8:55 a.m. local time at the UPS package sorting and delivery facility. When officers entered the building, they found the suspect armed with an assault pistol. The suspect immediately killed himself and no officers fired their weapons during the incident.
Lam, had worked as a driver for the Potrero Hill facility which employs 350 people. He was wearing his uniform during the shooting spree and opened fire on coworkers during a morning meeting for UPS drivers. Joseph Cilia, with a local Teamsters union that represents UPS workers in San Francisco has stated that Lam filed an internal grievance in March saying he was working excessive overtime. Cilia told the Associated Press that Lam did not seem angry when he filed the grievance.
A police official said it appears that Lam felt disrespected by co-workers, but it’s not clear if that was the motivation for the bloodshed. Lam appears to have targeted the three drivers he fatally shot. Shaun Vu, a senior UPS driver, has said Lam also struggled with personal issues and was depressed a few years ago. Vu said that Lam had shown improvement but seemed troubled a few weeks ago-which was around the time he filed the grievance.
Another UPS driver Leopold Parker, who witnessed the shooting, said that he was standing a few feet behind Benson Louie during the morning meeting when Lam walked up and shot Louie in the head. Lam then glanced at Parker but walked the other way so Parker jumped into the cab of his truck and later ran to the roof of the building.
Parker said drivers at the warehouse generally got along and didn’t mind working there. If they did have a problem with colleagues, they would talk to them or ignore them. He also stressed that drivers spent much of their time alone in their trucks, so they had limited interaction with their colleagues. He recalls that Lam sometimes complained about the workload but he never suspected that he would turn violent.
Other witnesses said that Mike “Big Mike” Lefiti was fleeing from the building as Lam followed him into the street and shot him. Mike McDonald, an area resident was walking home from work when he found Lefiti face down, bleeding profusely from the back. McDonald stayed with him and tried to comfort him until help arrived. McDonald said that in his final moments, Lefiti spoke lovingly about his three children. “He said he loves his family, he loves his children and that he didn’t do anything to this man.”
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