Man Held in Tenn. Shooting Deaths
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A man was being held Wednesday after a bloody rampage at a state maintenance garage. The man's estranged wife and two others were killed, and two others were wounded.
Homicide and attempted homicide charges were expected to be filed against David Jordan, 40, police said.
According to police, Jordan — armed with an assault rifle, a 12-gauge pump shotgun, a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol and a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol — walked into the Department of Transportation garage Tuesday and opened fire on his wife, department employee Donna Renee Jordan, 31. She died at the scene.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Walking back outside, he then shot David Gordon, an employee of HCI Delivery Services who was dropping off a package, and Jerry Wayne Hopper, a Forestry Department employee who was having work done on his state vehicle, police said. The garage is used for maintenance on state vehicles.
Gordon and Hopper both died at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital (search).
Two other men — Transportation Department employees Larry Taylor, 54, and James Goff, 53 — were wounded, authorities said. Both were listed in stable condition Wednesday at the hospital.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Police did not give a motive for the bloodshed. Jordan was arrested a short time later, not far from the maintenance garage, after officers followed him.
Police Chief Rick Staples said that during the attacks, Jordan fired one or more of the pistols and the rifle, a cheap Chinese-made knockoff of an AK-47 (search) known as an SKS (search).
Transportation officials said 49 people work in the garage in a complex of buildings surrounded by a chain-link fence. No security is posted there.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"We are very, very fortunate that this incident wasn't much worse," Transportation Department spokeswoman Pamela Marshall said at a news conference.
TDOT officials said Jordan's estranged wife had two children and two stepchildren.
"Her co-workers say she was pleasure to work with, and she will be missed," TDOT Commissioner Gerry Nicely said. "We are stunned and deeply saddened by this unspeakable tragedy."