SCRIPT: Lockheed Martin Shooting 5/05

May 12, 2005 — -- We're going to take "A Closer Look" at a hate crime that civil rights leaders are calling the worst-ever committed against Blacks since the 1960s. A mass murder that until now has gotten relatively little attention. What makes it even more stunning is that the man responsible and his victims all worked for the largest US defense contractor in the nation, Lockheed Martin. It has contracts with the government worth $25 billion. And ABC's Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross joins us now with more on this extraordinary story.

BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS

All this happened in a place that has tried hard to get past its history of racial ugliness and violence. A note of caution, some of the language and pictures you're about to see are quite disturbing.

911 CALL

We've got a shooting at Lockheed in the Industrial Park, Northeast. Please hurry, hurry.

BRIAN ROSS

It was described at the time as another senseless workplace tragedy. Six people shot dead at this Lockheed aircraft plant in Meridian, Mississippi. The fact that five of the dead workers were Black was, and is, dismissed as an issue by the county sheriff.

SHERIFF BILLY SOLLIE, LAUDERDALE COUNTY, MS

I myself cannot say it was racially motivated.

BRIAN ROSS

But an ABC News investigation has found deep racial overtones to the Lockheed murders. Workers say the killers' racist threats and slurs went virtually unchecked by the country's largest defense contractor.

911 OPERATOR

Okay, do you know who it is?

911 CALL

His name is Doug Williams.

BRIAN ROSS

The name of the killer was no surprise to many at the plant: Doug Williams, a longtime Lockheed employee who had told coworkers he was preparing for a race war.

AARON HOPSON, LOCKHEED MARTIN EMPLOYEE

He said, "You know, one of these days I'm gonna come in here and kill a bunch of niggers, and then I'm gonna kill myself."

BRIAN ROSS

Previously undisclosed Lockheed documents obtained by ABC News reveal at least six plant workers had warned management a year and a half earlier that Williams was threatening Black workers. "You're on my list," he told one.