Cops: Okla. Airport Gunman Was Ex-Southwest Worker

A man who gunned down a Southwest Airlines employee outside of Oklahoma City's airport likely did so in retaliation for having lost his own job with the airline last year, police said Wednesday. Lloyd Dean Buie, 45, killed 52-year-old Michael Winchester on Tuesday as Winchester was leaving work and walking to an employee parking lot, police Capt. Paco Balderrama said at a news conference, per the AP. Buie fired the shot from the fourth floor of a parking garage when Winchester was about 50 yards away, he said. "We know his intention was to go to the airport to hurt someone," Balderrama said. "The suspect knew where the employees parked and where they would be walking."

Buie quit his job as a ramp agent for Southwest in April 2015 after he refused to take an alcohol screening, an airline spokeswoman said Wednesday. She said co-workers had suspected Buie was under the influence at work, but she declined to say if Winchester, a ramp supervisor who had worked for Southwest for 29 years and the father of a Kansas City Chiefs player, was involved. Police say Winchester wasn't Buie's immediate supervisor, but they believe the circumstances surrounding Buie's quitting were likely his motive for the attack. After Tuesday's shooting, Buie was found dead in his pickup truck from what authorities say was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. (More Oklahoma City stories.)