KY - Standard Gravure Shooting (workplace shooting) - Louisville KY - September 14, 1989

[bflocket]

*** Forgive me if there is already a thread for this particular crime. I assumed that there would be something related to it here but I couldn’t find anything. ***

I remember this being covered extensively when I would have been 10. Maybe that was because it was local and didn’t get much widespread coverage outside of Kentucky. One of the main things I remember is that they were trying to blame the shooter being on Prozac (then relatively new to the market) for his rampage.

I just came across something about the killer’s kid getting into trouble (he keeps exposing himself to people) that I was going to post and was surprised that there wasn’t already a Standard Gravure thread.

Standard Gravure shooting
Wikipedia

Joseph Thomas Wesbecker (perpetrator)
Murderpedia

Looking back at the Standard Gravure shooting
WHAS-11 (ABC)
Louisville, Kentucky
April 10, 2023

Almost 34 years ago, a different mass shooting happened; the shooter killed eight people and injured 12 others at the Standard Gravure.

The term "mass shooting" wasn't even used back then.

Joseph Wesbecker, an employee who was on disability for mental illness, came to the plant and started shooting at 8:30 a.m. with an AK-47 and he had many other guns.

Then-Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson rushed to the scene and helped push people to ambulances.

This was one of the first mass shootings that happened in the nation.

One of America’s first workplace shootings had an unlikely suspect: Prozac
Dave Kindy
Washington Post
April 15, 2023

On the morning of Sept. 14, 1989, Wesbecker entered the Standard Gravure building with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. In less than 30 minutes, he killed employees Richard Barger, Kenneth Fentress, William Ganote, James Husband, Sharon Needy, Paul Sallee, Lloyd White and James F. Wible Sr. He shot Campbell six times and wounded 11 other people, including Jacquie Miller, who was shot four times, and John Stein, who suffered permanent paralysis from a bullet to the head. The rampage concluded shortly after 9 a.m., when Wesbecker died by suicide.