Police: Fired worker shoots 3 at Co-op City

(Co-Op City - WABC, August 30, 2007) (WABC) -- Police say a disgruntled former employee shot and killed one person and injured two others Thursday at a massive apartment complex.

The shooter, identified as Paulino Valenzuela turned himself in to authorities shortly after the shooting at the Co-op City apartments in the Bronx.

Police say Valenzuela shot and killed his former supervisor 60-year-old Audley Bent.

The gunman had been fired about a year earlier from his job at the apartment complex, then lost his arbitration hearing on Wednesday, said police spokesman Paul Browne.

Eyewitness News' Marcus Solis spoke to residents. "Was shocked with the guy who got shot. He was pretty quiet, you don't really hear a lot about him, I mean you see him out here all the time, but I'm pretty shocked about it," said Kathleen Stack.

At about 8 a.m. Thursday, the shooter entered a basement office at the apartment complex and shot and killed another employee, possibly his former supervisor, police said. After leaving the basement, he shot two other people.

One of the surviving victims was hospitalized in critical condition with a neck wound. The other was shot in the arm and was released.

The sprawling Co-op City was built in the late 1960s on the site of a former amusement park. It including 35 high-rises and seven town house clusters, and has its own security force and power plant.

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