Mail-Well Sued by Victim's Family
VISALIA, CA—Mail-Well company PrintXcel, based here, and the parent company are being sued by the mother of two young children left fatherless when a December shooting took the life of a PrintXcel employee shot to death by a former co-worker.
The Visalia Times-Delta reported that Heidi Gano, live-in companion and mother to the two young sons of shooting victim Jose Manriquez II, filed the suit on behalf of her boys. Manriquez was shot to death by former employee John Gardner last December 9.
The suit alleges that officials at PrintXcel allowed Gardner to harass and threaten co-workers prior to quitting in 2001, then failed to provide sufficient protection for employees, the newspaper reported. Gardner also set several small fires before using one of the two handguns he possessed to take his own life.
According to the lawsuit, workers claimed that Gardner had threatened to "shoot up" Manriquez and other employees. The lawsuit was filed in federal court, the newspaper explained, because it alleges that Mail-Well and PrintXcel violated Manriquez's civil rights by failing to address complaints he and other Hispanic workers made, alleging threats and racial epithets leveled by Gardner.