Omar Thornton, who was black, had complained about being racially harassed at work, according to Joanne Hannah, who said her daughter had dated Thornton for eight years. Hannah told The Associated Press that Thornton had found a picture of a noose and a racial epithet hanging on a bathroom wall at Hartford Distributors in Manchester, Conn.
"Everybody's got a breaking point," Hannah said.
Company and union officials said they had no information about alleged racial harassment.
Workplace Shooting
An employee of Hartford Distributors in Manchester, Conn., opened fire at his workplace Tuesday morning, fatally shooting eight people before killing himself, according to the Hartford Courant. Here, people are seen being evacuated from the beer distribution company.
Employees of Hartford Distributors comfort each other at a police staging area where employees were brought after the shootings. A Teamsters official told The New York Times the gunman was Omar Thornton, who was on his way to a disciplinary hearing.
A man dressed in the distribution company's uniform walks away from Manchester High School, a gathering point for the families, co-workers and friends of shooting victims. Authorities said they got a 911 call about the shooting at 7:30 a.m.
"The area has been secured, but it's now a criminal investigation," State police Lt. J. Paul Vance said. Here, police are seen moving in on the scene.
The company's director of marketing told the Hartford Courant that the gunman ran through the warehouse at the busiest time of the morning, as employees were changing shifts.
Thornton, 34, was on his way to a disciplinary hearing when he embarked on the rampage, John Hollis, a Connecticut Teamsters official, told The New York Times.
"The union was bringing him in to meet with the company to remedy the problem," Hollis told the Hartford Courant. "He started shooting.'"
Hollis didn't disclose the nature of the disciplinary problem, but the AP quoted an unidentified union official as saying Thornton had been caught on videotape stealing beer.
Thornton ran through the warehouse at the busiest time of the morning, when more than 100 employees would have been there, Hollis told the Times.
"All hell broke loose," Hollis said. "He pulled the gun and ran through the warehouse."
"Our shifts were just changing," Brett Hollander, the director of marketing, told the Courant. "There are definitely some people that are shot, some people that are dead."
The gunman ended the spree by shooting himself with a .223 caliber semiautomatic rifle, authorities said.
"[Police officers] found a victim when they first entered the building [and] we treated it as an active shooter," Manchester police Lt. Joe San Antonio told a news conference this afternoon. "The building was searched and the suspect was found shot. The police did not discharge their weapons at any time during the response."
San Antonio said authorities received a 911 call about 7:30 a.m., alerting them to a shooting at Hartford Distributors. The warehouse is at 131 Chapel Road in Manchester, about 10 miles east of Hartford.
The Courant identified two of the victims as Victor James, 59, of Windsor, and Bryan Cirigliano, 51, of Newington. Cirigliano was the head of the Teamsters local that represents drivers for Hartford Distributors.
Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell offered her condolences to the victims' families and co-workers.
"We are all left asking the same questions: How could someone do this? Why did they do this?" she said in a statement.
Police did not comment on a possible motive, but forensic consultant Dr. Park Dietz told AOL News complaints of injustice are common in incidents of workplace violence.
"This is an angry form of suicide, and 100 percent of the killers provide multiple warnings to those around them," said Dietz, a workplace violence expert and founder of the Threat Assessment Group.
"Incidents can be prevented with early intervention, but unfortunately, [this] is how some of our business comes to us -- after a company has experienced a shooting incident," Dietz said.