Carl Robert Brown - Shooting

Shooting

On August 19, the day before the shooting, Brown had a heated argument with Jorge Castalleda, an employee at "Bob Moore's Welding & Machine Service Inc.", about a $20 bill for repairing a lawnmower motor he wanted to use to power his bicycle, saying the work was poorly done. He was also angry, because his traveler's check was refused. Realizing that his complaints were of no avail, Brown left the shop, stating that he would come in and kill everybody; no one took him seriously.

Early the next day Brown went to a gun store a few blocks from his home in Hialeah and purchased two shotguns, a semi-automatic rifle and ammunition. An hour before starting his rampage, Brown invited his 10-year old son to join him in "killing a lot of people" telling that the final destination would be Hialeah Junior High School.

Shortly before 11:00 a.m. he arrived at the welding shop on his cycle, wearing a Panama hat and having one of the shotguns, which was variously identified as a 12 gauge Mosberg 500 Persuader or an Ithaca 37 with pistol grip, slung over his shoulder. He entered the shop through a side door and began shooting, saying that he would send everybody to Germany. According to police Brown walked through the building, methodically shooting everyone, most of the time at close range and sometimes twice, leaving three victims in the office and others in the work area and the driveway in front of the shop. In the end six of the eleven employees present lay dead and two more dying, while three who were injured managed to escape and jump into the car of a passing motorist, who brought them to a gasoline station a mile away and called for help. When his gun was emptied Carl Brown stepped out of the store, reloaded and reentered to shoot two more times, before leaving for good and cycling away, apparently towards Hialeah Junior High School. According to a witness Brown "looked very passive and very nonchalant" and "wasn't trying to escape, just strictly leaving the crime scene." Another witness put it this way: "He got on his bike and pedaled off as if he was going for a stroll on North River Drive."

When Mark Kram, an employee at a nearby metal shop, was told of the massacre, he grabbed a .38 revolver and set out to pursue the shooter in his car. Down the street he picked up Ernest Hammett, who was trying to flag down cars, and together they tried to get hold of the perpetrator. Six blocks away from the crime scene, near Miami International Airport, they caught up with Brown and Kram, according to himself, fired a warning shot "over his (Brown's) head", though the bullet hit Brown in the back and later proved to be the cause of his death. When Brown turned in his saddle, aiming at his pursuers with his shotgun, they ran him over, crashing him into a concrete light pole. Brown, who still had 20 shells in his pockets, died shortly afterward.