Suspect hastily left job hours before shooting spree at Walmart in Colorado

THORNTON, Colorado – A man accused of killing three people as he opened fire inside a Walmart store in suburban Denver abruptly walked away from his roofing company job hours before the attack, his former boss said on Thursday.

Scott Ostrem’s employer and neighbors painted a somewhat dueling portrait of the suspect.

Ostrem worked at a metal fabrication shop for the last three years without any problems, said David Heidt of B&M Roofing. He called Ostrem a quiet worker who was skilled at making metal flashing for roofs. But midmorning Wednesday, he left his work station without explanation.

Two men and a woman were killed at the Walmart store that Wednesday evening.

Though quiet at work, Ostrem’s neighbors described him as a hostile loner who cursed at them and often carried a shotgun in and out of his third-floor unit.

Police arrested Ostrem, 47, following a brief chase Thursday morning in the northern Denver suburb of Thornton, several blocks from his apartment building and about eight kilometers (five miles) from the Walmart store.

Ostrem was handcuffed at a crowded intersection about 14 hours after the shooting that sent dozens of shoppers and workers fleeing in panic from the busy store. Police spokesman Victor Avila declined to say whether Ostrem had a weapon during arrest.

The coroner identified the fatalities as Pamela Marques, 52; Carlos Moreno, 66; and Victor Vasquez, 26 – all Hispanic.

Police offered no possible motive for the shooting other than to say that there was nothing to suggest it was related to terrorism.

Ostrem was identified as a suspect after investigators reviewed surveillance video, police said, though they first had to rule out “a few” other people who drew weapons when the gunman opened fire. Avila said he did not know if any of the people were security officers employed by Walmart.

At the Samuel Park Apartments building where Ostrem lived, most tenants talk to each other, but renter Teresa Muniz said Ostrem never returned her greetings and swore at people for sitting on exterior stairways and leaving laundry in communal machines.

“He didn’t seem to have anybody,” she said. “Being angry all the time. That’s what he seemed like, always angry.”

Muniz said she sometimes saw Ostrem carrying a shotgun or a bow and set of arrows to and from the building, which faces the back side of a liquor store, a dollar store, and a cellphone store.

Gerald Burnett, a 63-year-old retiree who lives in a first-floor unit, said he was sitting on the stairs drinking coffee one morning when Ostrem came down, told him to move, and cursed at him.

“Dude had an attitude, big time,” Burnett said. “He’s the type of person if you said, ‘Good morning,’ he wouldn’t say nothing. If you greeted him, he wouldn’t say anything back. I just learned not to even talk to the clown.”

Thornton is a mostly blue-collar community where about a third of its 136,000 residents identify as Hispanic or Latino. It is about 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of downtown Denver.

Ostrem had minor run-ins with police dating to the 1990s, including a December 1999 charge of resisting arrest in Denver that was dismissed the following year.

In September 2015, Ostrem filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and listed his income for the previous year as $47,028.00. He estimated that he owed more than $85,000, including credit card debt.

There was no evidence Ostrem had ever worked for Walmart, spokesman Ragan Dickens said.

Witnesses said the shooter walked calmly into the store, opened fire, and fled.

Marlena and Jason Fobb said they were paying for a vacuum and contact lenses when a man at a nearby register was shot.

“We were all looking at each other like, ‘Oh gosh, this is it,'” Marlena Fobb said.

According to Fobb, they all hid in a small storage room, and when the police officers arrived, they were told to “hurry and run” and not look at bodies. /kga