KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The man suspected of killing three people at the Kansas factory where he worked had a criminal record in at least two states and had recently been served with an order to stay away from a woman.
Cedric L. Ford, 38, shot and wounded two people Thursday while driving to Excel Industries in the small town of Hesston. He then shot and killed three people at the lawnmower-parts factory before being shot and killed by an officer.
Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton said Hesston Police Chief Doug Schroeder, who fatally shot Ford, was a "tremendous hero" because dozens more people were still in the factory and the "shooter wasn't done by any means."
Ford, who a co-worker said was a second-shift painter at Excel, also spent considerable time in Florida, where he had felony convictions for burglary, grand theft and carrying a concealed weapon.
His criminal record in Harvey County included a misdemeanor conviction in 2008 for fighting and various traffic violations from 2014 and 2015, according to The Wichita Eagle.
Ford was required to take an anger-management class in Harvey County in 2008 after he was convicted of disorderly conduct, according to The Hutchinson News. Court records show he completed the course.
Walton said his office served Ford with a protective order Thursday, about an hour and half before the first shooting was reported. He said such orders are usually filed because there's some type of violence in a relationship. He did not disclose the nature of the relationship in question.
When the judge issued a temporary order on Feb. 5, he filed it against Cedric Ford and listed his address as that of the Excel plant. The woman said in her request that he usually arrived at the Excel plant around 2 p.m. on weekdays, Sedgwick County court records show.
In her petition, the woman said she was in fear of "imminent bodily injury or beating."
"Cedric and I were verbally fighting. It became physical by him pushing me then grabbing me. He placed me in a chokehold from behind — I couldn't breathe," she said in the petition for the order. "He then got me to ground while choking me — finally releasing me."
"He is an alcoholic, violent, depressed," she wrote in the petition. "It's my belief he's in desperate need of medical and psychological help."
Sedgwick County Sheriff's Lt. Lin Dehning said while Kansas law prohibits people under protection orders from possessing weapons or ammunition, the law doesn't provide a mechanism for officers to seize weapons when they serve them with the order.
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Associated Press Writer John Hanna in Wichita, Kansas, contributed to this report.
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