OCONOMOWOC, Wis. — As police are still trying to figure out what led to a deadly shooting at a Roundy’s distribution center in Oconomowoc late Tuesday night, employees are sharing their thoughts as they try to piece together what happened themselves.
Tom Bennett from the Teamsters Local 200 says 850 of their union members work at the facility, with 150 to 250 inside the build at any given time. Many have worked together for decades, with Bennett saying they are like a family.
“This has hit our family pretty hard,” Bennett said. “Very, very hard.”
“These workers at Roundy’s have all been putting in 15-18 hour days to serve their communities,” Bennett said. “They’re essential workers. They’ve been next to each other 7 days a week, 6 days a week for 16 hour days.”
Police still aren’t sharing much about what led up to the incident, and the complex remains closed to employees. The man accused of shooting two coworkers later took his own life after a a car chase and crash about 30 miles away.
Bennett says his focus is on allowing union members to grieve while grieving himself, and questioning why it had to happen.
“We need to understand that this is not a perfect world that we live in. We have to respect each other. We need to air our differences, but we need to do it in a fashion that we can bring solution,” Bennett said.
The union is currently working to arrange grief counseling for all of the employees involved.
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