A friend says he was shocked his neighbor was killed by an MTS co-worker during a shooting spree Tuesday.
Bus mechanic, Michael Stevenson, 55, was one of two transit employees fatally shot by Lonnie Glasco, 47, who killed by police. Stevenson had worked for MTS for 31 years.
"It makes me speechless, really," Stevenson's neighbor Steve Howe said. "I have pity -- I feel sorry for anybody it happens to. This world's a nice world, but why do people have to go out and do things like this? That's what I don't understand."
Howe and Stevenson had a bond over another traumatic experience -- they witnessed a shooting together in the alley near their homes.
"I kind of talked to him as we were sitting in the back of the police car, to identify the people or person who'd done the shooting," Howe said. "I got bullet holes in my back fence from it."
San Diego homicide detectives are trying to determine a motive for the shooting at the Metropolitan Transit System's East Village bus compound.
Glasco "became irrational" shortly after clocking out of an eight-hour shift that ended at 2 a.m., according to Police Capt. Jim Collins.
"He went into an office, brandished a weapon and told several people in there that they weren't going to be leaving," Collins said.
Collins said Glasco, a fare-box repairman and 29-year MTS employee, left the room after an exchange of conversation. The others soon heard shots fired, then found 37-year-old Benjamin Mwangi, a transit foreman, dying of a head wound.
"Witnesses started running from the area, they heard another shot fired, and police were called," Collins said.
Stevenson was hospitalized and placed on life support. He died about 11 hours after the shooting.
