Gunman kills two at book center

A disgruntled former employee at a book warehouse in Bristol Borough returned to the site yesterday afternoon and shot and killed two employees outside the building, authorities said.

Robert Diamond, 32, who lives down Radcliffe Street from the Simon & Schuster warehouse, was to be charged last night with two counts of first-degree murder, Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry said.

The victims were identified as forklift operator Reginald Woodson, 52, and temporary employee Angel Guadalupe, 46.

Diamond, who was wearing a T-shirt that read "Stupidity Is Not a Crime," surrendered at the scene without a fight.

He told authorities that he had been harassed by fellow employees and was especially upset by how severely he was reprimanded in March after calling an African American coworker "boy," Henry said at a news conference.

Also, Henry said, Diamond told police that "his rent was due and he didn't want to ask his parents for money, so he had no options."

Diamond, of the 400 block of Radcliffe, drove around for an hour with a loaded Smith & Wesson .40-caliber handgun before arriving at the warehouse at 3:40 p.m., Henry said.

He saw Guadalupe, whom he did not know, and opened fire on him as the worker was was leaving the site in a white SUV, she said. Guadalupe fell out of the vehicle and collapsed on the ground, at which point Diamond hovered over the body and kept firing, he told police.

"He said he fired shots until [Guadalupe] wasn't moving any more," Henry said.

Guadalupe died at the scene.

At that point, Henry said, Diamond saw Woodson, who had turned to run back into the building, and shot him in the back. "We believe that this was premeditated on his part," Henry said.

Woodson was taken to St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown Township, where he was pronounced dead.

Bucks County Coroner Joseph Campbell said autopsies would be performed on both victims this morning.

Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Simon & Schuster at its corporate office in New York, said Diamond, a forklift operator, worked in the warehouse from August 2002 to April, when he was terminated for absenteeism.

Employees said Woodson lived in Willingboro and was a deacon at St. Paul's Baptist Church in Florence. He was shop steward of Teamsters Local 830, Rothberg said.

Woodson's cousin, Lorie Reid of Bristol, said employees told Woodson not to go outside when shots were fired.

Reid said her cousin was married and the father of four. "We're a good family. We don't do anybody any harm," she said last night.

"He's a magnificent person. He just loves people."

A coworker said Guadalupe lived in Levittown.

Employee Debra Vorters, noting that Guadalupe was Hispanic, said the gunman, who is white, didn't like "ethnics."

Vorters said of Woodson: "Reginald was a good guy, he'd give you the shirt off his back even if he didn't know you."

A few days ago, Vorters said, while she and Woodson were at a Wawa store near the warehouse, he bought hot dogs for a group of children he didn't know.

Rothberg said the warehouse employs about 125 people, and is one of two distribution centers for Simon & Schuster in the region.