Aurora police release surveillance video of Henry Pratt mass shooting

Thursday, April 18, 2019
Aurora police release surveillance video of Henry Pratt mass shooting
The Aurora Police Department released a little over eight minutes of surveillance video showing a portion of the mass shooting at Henry Pratt Company in February.

AURORA, Ill. -- The Aurora Police Department released a little over eight minutes of surveillance video showing a portion of the mass shooting at Henry Pratt Company in February, which killed five people and injured several police officers.

Police posted the video, which combines four different shots from four different security cameras, on their Facebook page.

"We agree that you have the right to see for yourself what transpired at the Henry Pratt facility that day where, sadly, five members of our community lost their lives, and five of our police officers were shot while simply doing their jobs," the post said in part.

Police said there is "no significant surveillance video available from inside the facility" except for a camera that captures the front foyer area. That video is included in the released. The security cameras do not record sound.

The video starts at about 1:50 p.m. and shows police cruisers pull into the Henry Pratt parking lot within seconds. From another angle inside the plant, you can see gunman Gary Martin storm into a front foyer area through an internal door. He paces and tosses things around the lobby area.

For a few minutes Martin stirs around, then ducks behind a small partition and fires multiple shots out the front double glass doors. At one point you can see him empty the clip from hi gun and reload.

Police said Martin, 45, was armed with a pistol and eight pistol magazines. Police confirmed he fired 64 rounds during the mass shooting.

By 1:57 p.m. police officers are arriving en masse, sprinting across the parking lot. Shielded SWAT officers start running two by two into the plant after their armored vehicle rams the double doors, breaking them open. By then Martin has disappeared from view.

Five Henry Pratt employees were killed and five police officers were shot.

The five victims were identified as Trevor Wehner of Dekalb, Vicente Juarez of Oswego, Clayton Parks of Elgin, Josh Pinkard of Oswego and Russell Beyer of Yorkville. All five worked at Henry Pratt at the time of their deaths. Wehner was a college student at Northern Illinois University. The four others were all fathers.

Martin also died in the shooting. An autopsy showed he was shot six times, including one shot that was likely self-inflicted, but the autopsy was unable to determine whether his death was suicide or not.

Aurora police released 911 calls from the shooting at the end of February.