Witness Details Flight from Crazed Ethicon Gunman

Gunfire near Ethicon resulted in a full police response and three-hour search on Tuesday afternoon, when Ethicon employees told officers that a white male suspect had fired on them in a field.

The alleged shooter, 27-year-old Kenneth Acy, was apprehended near the area at approximately 3:34 p.m., and in the aftermath of the shooting, a witness recalls the events that led up to the shooting and investigation.

According to an anonymous source, whom we’ve named Scott, two contractors were working in the old Ethicon dump next to the factory Tuesday afternoon when they were confronted by what they described as a “crazed gunman”.

Scott stated that the two contractors had briefly left the dump Tuesday before noon to run an errand, leaving the area unlocked and unattended for a short span of time. The old dump was not considered to be a security area as nothing of value was stored there.

The contractors returned a short time later. As they were standing near their work truck, the suspect approached, firing a single shot into the air. Startled by the man’s approach and the gunfire, the contractors asked Acy what he was doing, to which he replied, “There are bodies buried here!”

Acy then pointed the handgun at the contractors and squeezed off four to five more rounds.

“The contractors ducked below the wall of the pickup bed sidewalls and successfully avoided being shot,” Scott said.

He said they continued to hide as the gunman began walking around the truck, then bolted from the scene with Acy in pursuit, firing multiple shots.

“Bullets whizzed by their heads and landed on the ground around them,” Scott said. “But neither was hit and they were uninjured when they both made it to safety and were able to call 911 just after noon Tuesday.”

After dialing 911, San Angelo Police, Tom Green County Sheriff’s Deputies and DPS officers responded to the scene and set up a perimeter. K9s, officers and an airplane from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection scoured the area for the next few hours, ultimately dismantling the perimeter around 2:30 p.m.

Within an hour of breaking down the perimeter and “saturating the area north…into Paul Ann”, police located and apprehended the suspect nearby, who was hiding in vegetation. He was taken to Shannon for treatment of unknown medical issues due to complaints of medical distress he made at the scene.

Wednesday afternoon Acy was released from the hospital and booked into the county jail. He has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.