Police Identify Employee Who Killed 5 at Milwaukee Brewery

Police on Thursday identified the gunman in the Milwaukee brewery shooting as an electrician whose home was searched earlier in the day. Milwaukee police Chief Alfonso Morales said the shooter was 51-year-old Anthony Ferrill. Morales identified the victims as Molson Coors Brewing employees ranging in age from 33 to 57, the AP reports. Morales said police are still investigating a motive. Police searched Ferrill's home on Milwaukee's north side as they hunted for clues about why the employee killed five co-workers before taking his own life. The house, a one-story home with a large jungle gym in the backyard, was roped off with crime scene tape Thursday morning. A squad car sat in the driveway and a police van was parked at the curb. Investigators could be seen entering the house. Neighbor Erna Roenspies, 82, said Ferrill had worked at the brewery for 15 years as an electrician.

The shooting happened Wednesday afternoon at the brewery complex, which employs around 1,000 people. The 82-acre complex is known in the area as “Miller Valley," a reference to Miller Brewing, which is now part of Molson Coors. A large red Miller sign that towers over the complex is a well-known symbol in a city where beer and brewing are intertwined with local history. The complex features a 160-year-old brewery, a packaging center that fills thousands of cans and bottles every minute and a distribution center the size of five football fields. Brewery Workers Local 9 of the United Auto Workers, which represents about 400 workers at the complex, issued a statement Thursday calling the shooting a “senseless tragedy" and alerting members that grief counselors would be available at their union hall. (The gunman was still wearing his work uniform when he opened fire.)