I'm not looking for you: suspect on killing spree tells former co-worker

WATERFORD, Mich. (WJBK) - A surveillance camera captured the suspect in a deadly shooting rampage as he searched for his next intended target.
 
The suspect worked at Assured Carriers in Waterford on two different occasions, back in 2014 and 2016. On Thursday he cans back armed with an AK-47 looking for the general manager.

"'We know him very well and had lots of conversations with the guy," said Nick Verhey, co-owner of Assured Carriers. "He quit two times just wanted to go on and do other things. Never got fired, I never had any words with the guy, he just seemed like a nice guy."

Surveillance video shows him walking around the garage, asking for the general manager and clearly holding a semi-automatic rifle.

"I mean it's very eerie," Verhey said. "Our guys knew who he was in the shop. They thought maybe something was off, but they know who he is."

But what they didn’t know was that 45-year-old Vernest Griffin had allegedly already shot and killed Keith Kitchen at BSD Trucking in Taylor and Eriberto Perez at Aluminum Banking in Pontiac before he came to Assured Carriers looking for his next intended target, who incidentally had left a few minutes earlier to go run an errand.

"He was sitting here at this desk, I was sitting there, 10-15 minutes before," Nick Verhey said.

Verhey was one of the people at assured carriers who came face to face with the armed suspect

"I walked to my door but the time I got to the door, he was standing at my door," he said. "He had the weapon down to his side and I looked right at him. And I knew who he was, I was face to face. I said what are you doing. He looked at me and said 'I'm not looking for you.' 

Immediately Verhey and another employee climbed out of his office window, ran off and called 911.

Surveillance video also shows that the suspect was on the property for a total of just four minutes.

"It was just definitely fate - somebody was looking for us that day," Verhey said.

The suspect was wounded by police a short time later during a dramatic shootout and taken into custody.