May 11, 2004
Firm back in business after fatal shooting
Jonathan Fowlie
Globe and Mail
Working amid the broken doors and patches of pink fingerprint dust, employees at the Mississauga trucking company where one man was killed and two others injured tried as best they could to conduct business as usual yesterday morning.
As drivers continued their routes and called in for direction, two men picked up where the now hospitalized dispatchers were injured in the shooting had left off.
“Everything is going ahead as scheduled,” a notably busy Matthew Newman announced yesterday in a brief interview before returning to juggle the fleet of drivers.
Around him, the office was in shambles, damaged wither in the triple shooting that took place Friday morning or in the police search that ensued.
At about 11:00am Friday, a man with a gun entered a small room on the second fllor of Liquiterminals Ltd. and opened fire, killing general manager Michael O’Rouke and injuring dispatchers Red Zimmermann and Mike Bunney.
Less than an hour later, a man turned himself in at a nerby community police station. He has been charged with murder and two counts of attempted murder, and is in custody. His next court appearance will be on May 17.
A source told The Globe and Mail that the amn arrested by police used to drive as a subcontractor for Liquiterminals about 1 ¬Ω years ago and no one at the company had seen or heard from him since about last August. He is believed to have had a dispute with management over money, that person said.
Jean Delgrave, 49, of Ottawa, has been charged with first- degree murder and who counts of attempted murder.
Gary Batasar, Mr. Delagrave’s lawyer, would not speak directly to rumours about his client being in a fight with management over money, but did say he had received “80 to 100 calls” from truckers in Quebec and Ontario “voicing empathy, not necessarily with what [Mr. Delagrave is charged with], but with his plight.”
“I think they have probably been hearing the same rumours about money owing or past debts, and a lot of them are calling asking if there is anything they can do.
Speaking generally, Mr. Batasar said he has been told the trucking industry is rife with “constant pressure to work extra hours, drive longer than [drivers] should be driving and be at locations quicker than [drivers] should be getting there.”