A man peers at the note in his hand. Coming just seven days after his wife kicked him out of the house, he re-reads the words on his termination notice from his job at the car plant. With the removal of his personal effects as the only thing he has left to do at the factory, he sluggishly puts on his navy jacket and leaves to go down there checking the contents of his left inside pocket. When he gets to the gate of the plant, he shows his ID card and tells the security guy he is there to clean out his locker. The security attendant waves him on in. He enters the factory through the employee entrance, walks to the locker room and loads up his belongings.
Before exiting he walks over to the factory floor. His ex-foreman, seeing him on the floor, comes over to tell him good-bye and “it’s time for him to go.” Disapproving of his foreman’s smirk, the laid off man pulls a gun from his pocket, fires at the foreman killing him with one shot to the cranium and unleashes a series of shots killing two other men directly and one indirectly as the man was shot in the arm while lifting part of a car assembly. The assembly fell onto another man smothering him to death. After the gun’s chamber was empty, the disconsolate man dropped the weapon and was summarily tackled by three other workers.
In addition to the police, a crime scene cleaning company was summoned to the factory. Blood, ripped tissue and other organic material was strewn all over the factory. The crime scene cleaning company, well-experienced in performing suicide scene cleanups, meth lab cleanups, odor removal cleanups and other death scene cleanups and blood scene cleanups, sprung in to action. Knowledgeable of pertinent OSHA regulations, they were able to work well with the management of the factory. Cognizant of the need to preserve certain evidence for the police case against the arrested perpetrator, they consulted with the lead detective to ensure all evidence was properly gathered at certain times of the cleaning. Encouraged by the management of the company to act expeditiously, they worked swiftly but carefully.
The workers on the shift at that time will never forget the horror of that day. However, to the extent the physical reminders of the tragedy were removed as quickly as possible, there was no visible reminder to retrigger the trauma of the day although the sad memories will linger in their minds.