Jason Rodriguez, Orlando Downtown Shooter, snaps after Layoff from job.

Months ago, I wrote a blog and it was called, “The Christmas Party everyone hates” or something along those lines. It was one of the more sensitive blogs that I had written. I’d written about President elect Obama, I had written countless blogs about Caylee Anthony and so many other injustices in the world. Apparently I was ahead of my times, and hardly anyone read this particular blog. This blog was borderline “confessing” some things that my husband Erick had been enduring on his past job. His most recent job to be exact. Let me take this one step further by letting you know how I feel, and where I stand. Some of you won’t agree with me, but I don’t see any fault in this man. Let me tell you why. First let me say, my heart goes out to the families of those that were “Innocent” and I must express that separately from those that are “guilty”. I will go further into detail with this later.

The story that is out now, and was breaking news as on November 6, 2009. A man by the name of Jason Rodriguez went on a shooting “spree” if you will and actually went into a building near Lake Ivanhoe and began shooting his past employees. As the story is, Jason Rodriquez had been laid off 2 years prior from this corporation and his life was heading on a down hill spiral. His wife had left him, and the only job that he could land was working in a sub shop. Not much aspiration from the aspects of a “Engineer”. Jason Rodriguez commented that he felt the company had “Left him to rot.”

Lets view the story in parts…

ORLANDO, Fla. — Orlando police have identified the man who died in a shooting spree at an Orlando business. Police say the victim is 26-year-old Otis Beckford, mentioned in police documents as an employee of Reynold, Smith & Hills, an engineering firm.It all started Friday morning when a gunman opened fire in the offices of a downtown Orlando engineering firm where he was let go more than two years ago, killing one person and injuring five others.Jason Rodriguez, 40, was identified as the suspect. An Orlando Police Department investigator said, Friday evening, that Rodriquez has been charged with 1st degree murder in the incident and that more charges are pending. ()()()()

That is the gist of the story, and the facts are as follows…

Bernos said Rodriguez was an entry-level engineer who was fired in June 2007 after working there for a year.”His performance wasn’t up to our standards, so we terminated him,” Bernos said. Court records show Rodriguez’s life has been unraveling over the last several years, including a divorce, a drastic drop in income, to under $4,000 the first half of this year, and bankruptcy filed in May 2009. He went from working at engineering firms on the Florida Turnpike to working at a Subway restaurant in Orange County. Eyewitness News learned he also worked as an engineer/inspector from February to June 2008 and was fired for absentee issues. Rodriguez has been married twice. The parents of his second wife spoke to Eyewitness News late Friday afternoon. They say he was on medication for his paranoia and he hated authority.“He felt he was being discriminated against, but not because of his ethnic or anything else, but because they let him go from the job that he had because he didn’t perform,” the killer’s ex-father-in-law told Eyewitness News.”This is a tragedy no doubt about it, especially on the heels of the tragedy in Fort Hood that is on our minds,” Demings said. “I’m just glad we don’t have any more fatalities or any more injuries than we currently have.”Orlando police said Friday afternoon that anyone who has a family member or employee that works at Reynolds, Smith & Hills should go to College Park Baptist Church at 1914 Edgewater Drive (see map).“We received a call about shots fired at the 1000 block of Legions Place,” Sgt. Barb Jones said early Friday afternoon (watch raw video). “We deployed our active shooter teams.”
FEAR GRIPPED WORKERS INSIDE BUILDINGEyewitness News arrived on the scene and spoke to one man who said he saw someone screaming at him to get out of the building immediately. Other people were led out of the building, distraught and crying.“We got back in our office and everybody kinda huddled in our office waiting for police,” eyewitness Gerry Kilga told Eyewitness News (watch full interview). Greg Cross, who works in a real estate office on the 12th floor, said he and his co-workers barricaded themselves inside after hearing about the gunman on television.”We were terrified,” he said. “We locked the door and put a filing cabinet in front of the door and just waited.”Mark Vella, who works in a different office on the same floor, said he and five co-workers also pulled a filing cabinet in front of their door. They prayed and talked about what to do if the gunman showed up.”It was a little scary, a little unnerving,” Vella said. “We were afraid the guy was still in the building and making the rounds.”
1ST DEGREE MURDER CHARGE An investigator from the Orlando Police Department said, Friday evening, that Rodriguez has been charged with 1st degree murder in the shooting incident.According to the charging affidavit, obtained by Eyewitness News, at 11:44 Friday morning Rodriguez entered the offices of Reynolds, Smith & Hills at 1000 Legion Place in Orlando. A witness to the event saw Rodriguez pull a handgun from a holster under his shirt, point it at a company employee and then fire two shots killing the victim.The affidavit says that Rodriguez then went into a common work area and began firing shots “causing injuries to several other employees of the business.”According to the affidavit a witness saw Rodriguez leaving in a small silver car. The witness was able to copy most of the vehicle’s tag. Officer found a vehicle fitting the description and discovered it to be registered to Rodriguez’ parents. While officers were approaching the vehicle they saw Rodriguez in the window of his residence. He came out of the residence and was taken into custody without incident.The affidavit states that as he was being handcuffed officers heard Rodriguez say, “I’m just going through a tough time right now, I’m sorry,”As he was being questioned by police investigators Rodriguez said that people at the Reynolds, Smith & Hills Orlando office had “harassed him and threw him out for no reason at all, making it look like incompetency.” The affidavit goes on to say that Rodriguez stated that his former employers were hindering his efforts to get unemployment benefits. He went on to say the he “felt he was forced into a situation where he could no longer provide for his family.”

ENGINEERING FIRM REACTS TO TRAGIC SHOOTING The business where the shooting happened is a special engineering firm that is working on projects for NASA, including the Ares 1-X rocket system.A spokesperson for Reynolds, Smith & Hills said, as far as he knew, Rodriguez had very little contact with the office until the shooting Friday.The shooting has rattled employees at all of their offices. In fact, they advised employees they could all go home early.The company at the center of the downtown Orlando shooting has its sight set on the stars. The design and consulting firm is already working on constructing a new mobile launch platform for the next Ares rocket launch.The company provides large-scale design work on big infrastructure projects ranging from launch pads to highways. Jason Rodriguez had only worked for them for a short time and was let go in 2007 for poor performance.

A spokesperson said they hadn’t heard from him since.”We can’t account for why he would be harboring these feelings toward our company, particularly two and a half years later,” company spokesperson Ken Jacobson said.The spokesman said Rodriguez worked on transportation projects until he was let go.”His performance was below our standards. We were working with him on his performance for 11 months,” he said.The company has had a presence in Central Florida dating back 25 years. RS&H has 800 employees in offices in 11 Florida cities and in 11 other states across the country.Workers at offices across the state are now being offered counseling as they try to cope with the shooting. Workers at the Merritt Island office said they do work with their colleagues in Orlando from time to time, but none of them knew the gunman.

My thoughts below.

I believe this guy, and I know from personal experience that it is a great possibility that they had it out for this guy. Why? I have no clue, but I hope that the person who gave him hell is thinking about his actions, and I truly hope that if the person who fired him unjustly was killed, then justice was served. It is the way I feel, and I think that when you destroy a life, then your life should be destroyed in return.This man lost his wife, he lost his family. He lost his place in the community. Times are so hard right now, and when you treat others unjustly, then you get what you deserve. I guarantee you this man accepted his fate on the day he was fired. But later thought about his “outcome” and knew that if things had worked out at the firm, that he would still be confident to live as a human being. They shattered his dreams.

Frankly, when you fire someone unjustly, you take away their life. You take away their dreams of owning a home, you take away their childrens lives, you take away their “security”. You take that persons life as a “somebody” and immediately turn them into nothing. And most of this is done with one felt swoop of a pen. Florida is a right to work state, so you can be fired for no cause at all. It is explained on every disclaimer you read from your application, and they make sure you know it. So many are terminated for “lack of performance” and most of the times, that’s just not the case. There is so much racism and discrimination on the job that it is unthinkable that no laws are passed on Fair work exchange. Now yes I just made that up. But what it means is, I work for you, and you treat me fairly and equally. Let me guess, you’re saying that we already have this sort of organization right? Well then, what can we do when your boss or his assistant is a racist asshole? What can you do when you see your boss go to lunch and comes back smelling of alcohol? What can you do when your boss calls another employee a “Nigger” and the company does nothing about it? What can you do when your boss says ” I would love to fire all of you niggers and get my Latino friends in here to replace you.”  Let me tell you a personal story.

My husband Erick was just “fired” and the reason given was “poor work performance”. None of you out there knows my husband, however, I know him. There is nothing “Poor about my husband except for his wallet. My husband is a workaholic. He gives 100% all the time. Yet he was fired. Let me tell what is worse about him being fired. The asshole that did it was one of the most ignorant fools you could meet. But this company put him in charge to watch over the employees. That says something about “their reputation”. This “boss” if you will was shrewd and incompetent, and though my husband knew the job better than he did, his insecurities made him attack my husband for quite some time. Now typically, when you’re confronted by your boss for what ever the reason, you’d refrain from any sort of ” insubordination” as you don’t want to be terminated. If your boss yells at you or calls you names or badgers you, most of the times you grit your teeth and bear it. Right? Well my husband is no exception to the rule. However, there comes a time when you have to speak up and stop people from mishandling and disrespecting you. My husband became more assertive and began to demand his “respect” as a man would. My husband is 42, and no 27 year old should be addressing him as a child. This was not the case. This “boss” was demeaning, he was arrogant, insecure, and lacking the knowledge to perform his duties, and therefore, to take the focus off of his “performance” he chose to “pick on and bully” the weakest links in the company. The blacks were his choice. This boss would also avoid training employees the proper way for the simple fact that, he knew that if they became better than he was, that perhaps his job would be in jeopardy. So he would deliberately stick my husband on menial jobs just to keep from furthering and empowering him on the job, then complain when he couldn’t do an unlearned task. Now how shady is that? This boss would go as far as telling them, “You can be replaced.” and the blacks there would keep silent, after all, who wants to be unemployed, especially when they have a family to provide for.  He’s been doing it for over a year now. But because no one looks into the grievances of employees, and yes My husband had seen or at least heard of other grievances reported, that were met with no solutions, he refrained from taking the same road, and just hoped things would get “better” they never did. His main reason for not reporting such activities as witnessing the boss drunk and other coworkers “high” were, He didn’t want to be met with retaliation. He was “fired” in June of 2009 and it could have been avoided if the company had chosen wisely when it came to picking an authority to handle its employees. The owner of this company is an idiot. Let me tell you why. When you call yourself the owner of a company and you don’t know what is going on with the day to day operations of it, then you’re a fool. The owner of Odonnell Corporation, Timothy J. Odonnell,  where my husband was employed for 4 years needs a lesson in what it is to actually “Manage” a business. It’s not about designating authority, it’s about you being the final authority in your business. Odonnell Corporation has a very high turnover rate, and this would be the reason why. Nothing should go on in your business that you are unaware of. I suppose that this owner didn’t know that his employees, all in management positions were sneaking out and having a drink. Then returning to work and using the certified equipment and dangerous chemicals. I guess he didn’t know that they were heading out and returning back from lunch 2 hours late. But if the employee was 1 minute late, they could get written up. Tsk tsk tsk…shame on Mr. Odonnell for being so ignorant.

In saying all of this, No one has the right to violate the Equal Opportunity Act, and no one should be violating the terms an employees right to work by bullying and the mistreatment of another human being, and when you hire fools to run your company, and when you unjustly fire people who are hard working, people tend to respond. Sometimes, employees just walk away and get another job, and they eventually forget about the past employers. And sometimes they get upset and come back and kill your ass.  If this entire story is true, and I am inclined to believe it is, this man had simply resorted to his only known option. I’m not saying that he didn’t commit a crime, I am not saying he was right, but what I’m saying is this…I know his pain and I know where it comes from. Employees are tired of being bullied and mistreated by disgruntled bosses. The employee is most of the times not disgruntled, it’s the boss who has the problem, and I think in the coming months, we will begin to see a lot of this. Think on this why would I go to college for 4 years to obtain a degree in a field only to be discriminated and called “nigger” on the job and receive unequal pay for the same work? I wouldn’t.

Let me say this too, I know many of you will be pissed at what I’ve said here, but if you’ve never lost everything and done everything to keep it, then you will never know what it feels like. Let it happen to you, and I bet you will want vengeance to be done.

I’m reminded of a story of a man who walked into a building and met the secretary. She was sitting behind the desk and as he walked in, adorned in his military fatigues, and holding a fierce shot gun, he looked at her as he held his weapon and said, “You were nice to me, you’re free to leave.” Then he proceeded to enter the work area that housed his former coworkers and he scanned through, setting free those that were kind to him, but he killed the assholes that bullied him and tortured him on the job. Hmmm, food for thought.

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