Man fatally shoots boss, kills self at Dallas office

DALLAS — A man fatally shot his female supervisor and then killed himself, leading to an evacuation of a multi-story building in the northern part of Dallas on Monday morning, police said.

Randy Blankenbaker, Dallas police assistant chief of investigations, said that they won’t release the identities of those who died until relatives are notified. He said they also are not yet saying what kind of office they worked in.

Blankenbaker said that the man was a current worker in the office. “We don’t know if today was a regular workday for him or not,” Blankenbaker said.

He says that there were witnesses to the shooting in a meeting room who were not injured.

Police were alerted to the shooting at about 10:45 a.m. and responded to the office where the shooting was taking place. He said that an officer had to shoot a glass entry door to access the office where the shooting happened. He said that’s the only known shot fired by an officer. One of the officers suffered minor injuries from broken glass during the entry.

Officials found the two dead in the meeting room.

Officers then conducted a floor-by-floor search of the building, searching for suspects and also ensuring that all tenants who took shelter were safely escorted from the building. That was completed by 12:49 p.m.

Television footage showed a heavy police response, including a SWAT team, at the office tower near a multi-level highway interchange known as the High Five. A broken window could be seen on one of the upper floors of the mirrored building.

Bailee Christian told KXAS-TV that she heard two gunshots — one when she was still inside and another after she and her co-workers had been evacuated from the building. She said that when she heard the second shot she also heard screaming.

“It was very intense in the moment, very scary,” Christian said.

Christian, who works in a call center on the 10th floor, said her boss told everyone to hide in the back corner of the office.

“Probably about 6 minutes goes by and a police officer, a couple actually, came up to grab us,” Christian said.

Mary Jo Nsuk, who works on the 10th floor, heard a commotion coming from below and heard police say, “Come out with your hands up.” About five minutes later, police came to the door to escort her downstairs. She left her belongings behind, including her cellphone and shoes.

“Police were doing their best to make sure all floors were clear,” Nsuk told The Dallas Morning News. “They protected people with shields and a cop was facing backwards when they were trying to get us downstairs.”