2 Employees Dead in NYC Home Depot Murder-Suicide

Worker shot supervisor in packed Manhattan store
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 25, 2015 10:37 PM CST
Updated Jan 26, 2015 1:00 AM CST
2 Dead in NYC Home Depot Murder-Suicide
New York City Police officers stand in front of a Home Depot in Manhattan yesterday.   (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Panicked shoppers and workers fled a Manhattan Home Depot yesterday after an employee shot a supervisor dead before turning the gun on himself, police say. Scores of customers and employees were inside the store when gunfire erupted in the lighting department yesterday afternoon, reports the New York Times. The shooter has been identified as Calvin Esdaile Jr., 31. He shot the 38-year-old supervisor of the lighting department three times before shooting himself in the head, according to the New York Daily News.

No motive has been identified for the shooting, although some sources say that Esdaile, who arrived in the US from Jamaica in 2006 and had a 6-year-old son, was fired a couple of days ago. Witnesses described scenes of terror inside the store, which was packed with people buying supplies for the approaching blizzard. "A woman started screaming at the top of her lungs, howling. And then it was like the running of the bulls, everybody just took off," Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of Nancy Pelosi, tells the Daily News. (More Home Depot stories.)

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