6 dead, including gunman, in Minn. workplace shooting

A gunman who killed five people and injured three others at a small Minneapolis sign company before taking his own life had been fired that morning,according to local media.

The dead included company founder Reuven Rahamim, who founded the small company, Accent Signage Systems, which makes interior signs for companies and industries.

The gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot in the company's basement.

Update at 8:03 p.m. ET: Authorities have identified the remaining three people who were killed.

The are company employees Rami Cooks, 62, of Minnetonka; Jacob Beneke, 34, of Maple Grove, and Ronald Edberg, 58, of Brooklyn Center. Cooks died today in the hospital, while the other four were killed at the scene. Some were shot in the head, and some were shot more than once, the Star-Tribune says, citing the Hennepin County Medical Examiner.

Update at 5:23 p.m. ET: Police say a fifth victim has died, raising the death toll to six, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune says. The person has not yet been identified.

Besides the 61-year-old Rahamim, United Parcel Service driver Keith Basinski, 50, of Spring Lake Park, was also killed. The names of the other fatalities and one of the wounded have not been released.

Accent's director of operations, John Souter, was upgraded from critical condition to serious, a Hennepin County Medical Center spokeswoman said. Production manager Eric Rivers was in critical condition.

Police Chief Tom Dolan said that the gunman, 36-year-old Andrew Engeldinger, apparently spared some employees. A search of his home found another gun and ammunition packaging for 10,000 rounds. The victims were shot with a Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol.

Engeldinger's family released a statement today, saying he struggled with mental illness for years and had lost contact with the family, the paper writes. "This is not an excuse for his actions, but sadly, may be a partial explanation," said the statement, which expressed sympathy to the families of the dead and wounded.

Update at 2:21 p.m. ET:The Minneapolis Star-Tribunereports that the suspected shooter has been identified as Andrew Engeldinger, 36, of Minneapolis. The newspaper says Engeldinger had apparently lost his job recently at the company.

The authorities have identified a second person among the dead, 50-year-old UPS driver Keith Basinski

Original post: "It's insane. It's crazy," neighbor Heather Buckingham said. "I know the guy, I know all the people."

Buckingham, who lives feet from the business, tells KARE-TV that she used to work at the sign company as a receptionist and knows the victims and the shooter. She did not witness the shooting but is in contact with current employees who did.

Although police did not confirm, she says the gunman was an employee at the business and was laid off Thursday, KARE reports.

KMSP-TV FOX9 reports that the shooter, who has not been officially identified, arrived at the company offices in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood of Minneapolis late Thursday after being terminated from his job that morning. FOX9 quotes unidentified police as saying the gunman "may have been targeting specific employees."

The Minneapolis Star-Tribunesays police told a local resident that the shooter was apparently a disgruntled employee.

Dozens of police squad cars and SWAT officers swarmed the residential neighborhood on the city's north side after an employee called 911 around 4:30 p.m. to say shots had been fired, the Associated Press reports.

Police were able to get people out of the building but did not exchange shots with the gunman.

"Very sad situation in Bryn Mawr," Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak writes in a post on Twitter. "Please stay away and let the police do their work."

The Star-Tribune quotes a high school student, Marques Jones, as saying he was about a quarter of a mile away when he heard around five gunshots.

"They were loud," he tells the newspaper. "Loud enough to make you jump. We froze and (then) just ran for our cars."

According to the company's Facebook page, Accent , which employs about 30 people, started as a part-time engraving business out of Rahamim's basement in 1984, KARE-TV reports.