Published on August 29, 2003 - Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN)

WAREHOUSE SHOOTER LET WORKER LIVE

"Do you want me to tie you up, or do you want to die? "The voice belonged to Salvador Tapia, a co-worker who had been fired from the warehouse six months earlier."I said, `Tie me up.' I didn't want to die," Sanchez said.

Published on August 28, 2003 - Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN)

FIRED WORKER KILLS 6, DIES IN SHOOTOUT WITH CHICAGO POLICE

A man who was fired from his job at an auto parts company six months ago returned Wednesday with a handgun and shot six former co-workers, killing them all, authorities said. He then waged a gunbattle with police before a SWAT team member fatally wounded him. Salvador Tapia, 36, who had been arrested a dozen times on weapons, assault and other charges, died after being transported to a hospital, police said. Four of his victims died at the scene - slain among a maze of engine parts, crates and 55-gallon drums.

Published on August 28, 2003 - Philadelphia Daily News (PA)

FIRED WORKER FATALLY SHOOTS 6, THEN IS SLAIN BY COPS

A man who had been fired from an auto-parts warehouse six months ago came back with a gun yesterday and killed six employees in a rampage through a maze of engine blocks and 55-gallon drums before being fatally shot by police. Salvador Tapia died in a gun battle he waged with police inside and outside of the building, hiding behind a container as he fired rounds from his semiautomatic pistol, authorities said. "He got up, he had the gun, they ordered him to drop the gun, he refused...

Published on August 28, 2003 - Southern Illinoisan (Carbondale, IL)

7 DEAD, INCLUDING GUNMAN, AFTER SHOOTING AT CHICAGO WAREHOUSE

CHICAGO (AP) — A man fired from an auto parts warehouse six months ago came back with a gun Wednesday and killed six people in a rampage through a maze of engine blocks and 55-gallon drums before being shot to death by police. The dead included two brothers who owned the business and one of their sons along with three other co-workers. Only one of the employees inside the building at the time of the shooting survived — he was inexplicably tied up by gunman Salvador Tapia.

Published in Chicago Tribune , August 28, 2003

Gun in massacre linked to 2 cops

Both had owned weapon illegally before killer got it

A day after the family of three men slain this week by a former co-worker decried the lax control of handguns, Chicago police acknowledged that the two last known owners of the gun Salvador Tapia used in his rampage were Chicago police officers, neither of whom had legally registered the weapon.

One of the officers was Richard Schott, who died of a heart attack in 1997 after struggling with a prisoner in the Deering District lockup, sources said. Schott sold the gun to another officer, with whom he had worked closely between 1994 and his death, the sources added.

The Police Department declined to identify the second officer, who died in 2002. Interviews with their families and the gun's previous owner, who has been jailed in the case, have created a trail of possession that ends somewhere between 1994 and 2002, police spokesman David Bayless said.

Police do not yet know how or when Tapia, 36, acquired the gun. Under a court order of protection since August 2001, Tapia could not legally possess a firearm. But he walked into the Windy City Core Supply warehouse at 3912 S. Wallace St. Wednesday morning armed with the Walther PP .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun and an extra clip of ammunition.