Two IT managers fatally shot by co-worker at Calif. utility

Motive for shootings at Southern California Edison is unknown; gunman took own life

Two IT managers were killed Friday by a co-worker at Southern California Edison in a workplace shooting.

The gunman, Andre Turner, 48, an employee at the company, took his own life, the utility said, citing information it had received from authorities.

Two other people were wounded in the shooting, which took place at mid-afternoon Friday.

The California utility on Saturday identified the two people killed as Robert Scott Lindsay and Henry Serrano. In a statement, the company said Lindsay, 53, was a manager in the information technology area with 29 years at the company; Serrano, 56, was a manager in the same area who had worked for the utility for 26 years.

The two wounded Edison employees were Angela Alvarez, 46, and a contractor, Abhay Pimpale, 38. Their specific job roles were not identified.

A company spokeswoman, reached Sunday, didn't have information on Turner's job role, or whether all of the victims were IT department employees. The facility where the shooting took place houses several departments, the spokeswoman said.

About 1,000 people work in Edison's Irwindale, Calif. facility, most of them in IT. All five people -- the four victims and the gunman -- worked in the IT department, according to the Los Angeles Times. Investigators were interviewing workers to try to determine motive, the newspaper reported.

Edison said it "appreciates the outpouring of support from the community at this difficult time" and noted that it is providing grief counselors for employees and their families and is establishing a fund to support those affected.

Edison International, the utility's parent company, said it is donating $100,000 in seed money for the support fund and will match employee contributions.

The building where the shooting occurred is closed "and only certain authorized employees will be allowed back into the building at this time," the company said.

The utility has nearly 5 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area.

Southern California Edison has been posting updates on its Twitter feed.

Patrick Thibodeau covers cloud computing and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @DCgov or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed . His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.

Copyright © 2011 IDG Communications, Inc.

It’s time to break the ChatGPT habit
Shop Tech Products at Amazon