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In Memory

Tony Louis Lacopo - Class Of 1957 VIEW PROFILE

Tony Louis Lacopo

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Louis Lacopo

Mar. 5,1939 - Aug. 30, 1977

NEWPORT, Ind. (AP) – A South Bend, Ind., native was among those killed when a security guard at the Newport Army Ammunition Center, apparently angered by a reprimand, pulled his .38 revolver and began firing, authorities said.

When the spree ended, Juan Gonzales’ supervisor and two other men were dead. Gonzales was wounded critically by fellow guards who sudued him, and two other persons, including a secretary eight months pregnant, also were wounded.

The former South Bend man was Tony Lacopo, 38, most recently of Rockville, Ind., the supervisor who Gonzales first turned on.

Reports indicated that Gonzales, 53, Terre Haute, was called Tuesday to the office of Lacopo to be reprimanded for insubordination. Lacopo was killed. Gonzales left his supervisor’s second floor office, disarmed another guard and continued firing while working his way to the ground floor, officials said.

Relatives of Gonzales, who was retired from the Army and had been a guard about 10 years, said they spoke with him briefly in the hospital and he said, “It’s all over now. I’m sorry.”

Also killed were William Dillard, 48, Cayuga, and James Clarke, 54, Terre Haute, both government employees.

Lacopo was plant protection superintendent and worked for Uniroyal, Inc., which makes explosives related material here under Army contract. Charlene Dunham, in her 20’s, Cayuga, was hospitalized in serious condition. She is secretary to the center’s commander. An Army spokesman said doctors were confident her child will survive.

Steven Posen, 23, Euclid, Ohio, was listed in critical condition. He is with a firm under contract to demolish a number of old buildings at the center.

Details on the shooting were sketchy because security was tightened at the facility, one of three locations under consideration by the Carter Administration for a proposed $400 million Army ammunition manufacturing plant.

Lacopo was born on March 5, 1939 in South Bend and had lived in Rockville, Ind., the past two years, moving there from Joliet, Ill.

In February, 1960, in South Bend, he married Andrea Cobb, who survives, along with two daughters, Jane and Sally, both at home; a son, Dominic, at home; a sister, Mrs. Rebecca Singleton of South Bend; two brothers, Dean of Mishawaka and Thomas of South Bend, and his parents, Dean Lacopo, and Mrs. Marie Hite, both of South Bend.

Friends may call from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday in the Hollis-Palmer Funeral Home, 2528 Mishawaka Ave., South Bend.

South Bend Tribune 9/1/77

 

01/29/2021 DEC

South Bend Tribune



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