For the second time in a year, multiple people have died in a workplace mass shooting in Harford County.
The shooting happened this morning at a Rite Aid distribution center in Perryman, located just south of Aberdeen Proving Ground in northeastern Harford County, Harford County Fire and EMS said via Facebook.
At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said two shooting victims died on-scene, and a third at the hospital. Three others remain hospitalized with injuries. Gahler said they aren’t releasing any names of the deceased until their families have been notified. All are believed to be employees at the distribution center.
The sheriff’s office has identified the shooter as 26-year-old Snochia Moseley. Court records list an apartment in Parkville as her home address. Gahler said she used a Glock 9mm pistol to shoot six people before shooting herself in the head. She was wounded from the time that deputies arrived, shortly after 9 a.m., and later died in the hospital.
Gahler described Moseley as “temporary employee who reported for her workday as usual.”
“We do not at this time have a motive for this senseless crime,” he said.
Gahler said the shooting spree began outside the distribution center, located at 1501 Perryman Road, and then moved indoors. Moseley came equipped with two or three magazines, he said. Three buildings make up the 210,000-square-foot complex, and held “probably 100 people” inside at the time, he said. Rite Aid employs private security, though no guards were present where the shootings began shortly after 9 a.m., he said.
FBI, DEA and ATF agents are assisting with the investigation, along with Maryland State Police. “When something like this happens, you can’t have enough police, and you can’t have them fast enough,” the sheriff said in an earlier press briefing Thursday morning.
In a statement, Rite Aid said the facility is closed and the pharmaceutical company will assess when to reopen it.
“Grief counselors will be made available to our associates and will remain available as long as they are needed,” the statement said. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those involved in this tragic incident, as well as their loved ones.”
The incident comes just 11 months after Radee Prince went on a shooting spree at the granite company where he worked in Edgewood, roughly seven miles southwest of Perryman on Pulaski Highway. Prince shot and killed three co-workers at Advanced Granite Solutions and wounded two others before fleeing to Wilmington, Delaware, where he shot another man in the face, non-fatally.
Prince was convicted of manslaughter in Delaware in May. His trial hasn’t yet been scheduled in Maryland, according to court records.
When stepping up to the podium Thursday morning, Gahler immediately referred to the shooting as “another tragic event for us this morning here in Harford County.”
“Unfortunately, we have become accustomed to this,” said County Executive Barry Glassman at the afternoon follow-up briefing.
