NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
A7
Gunman fired more than 100 rounds
By JOE SIESS
and ANNA KAMINSKI
The Bulletin
BEND — The gunman who
shot and killed two people and
himself at the eastside Bend
Safeway on Sunday, Aug. 28,
fired more than 100 bullets and
had with him four 30-round
magazines of ammunition for
the AR-15-style rifle used in
the attack, Bend Police said
Tuesday, Aug. 30.
Law enforcement also
recovered 25 shotgun shells
from the shooter’s home at the
Fox Hollow apartments behind
The Forum Shopping Center,
plus 150 rounds of 5.56mm
ammunition and more shot-
gun shells in his vehicle, a
1997 Ford F-250 parked in the
parking lot of the apartment
complex.
Law enforcement was still
searching for shell casings
from the Safeway and the sur-
rounding areas where the attack
took place. They confirmed the
attacker had legally purchased
the three guns recovered by
law enforcement himself,
Sheila Miller, spokesperson for
the police department, said in a
release on Tuesday.
The shooter had worked as
a courtesy clerk at the Safe-
way he attacked. The United
Food and Commercial Work-
ers Union Local 555 confirmed
he worked at the eastside Safe-
way and quit in March of 2021.
The police investigation
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
A memorial with flowers and kind notes sits outside the eastside
Safeway in Bend, where a gunman fatally shot two people Sun-
day, Aug. 28, 2022, before killing himself.
determined he began the attack
by firing into his own vehicle
parked at his apartment at Fox
Hollow before walking across
the street into the parking lot of
The Forum Shopping Center.
The shooter began firing at
stores and customers only min-
utes later, at 7:04 p.m., firing
shots into the Big Lots store
before walking to Safeway.
After the shooter entered
Safeway, he started firing,
according to witnesses.
Video footage from inside
the store showed that upon
hearing gunshots, Safeway
employee Donald Surrett Jr.,
one of the two victims killed
in the attack, used a produce
cart to hide himself from the
shooter, though he had ample
time to flee. Surrett waited
for him to look away, then
attacked him with a produce
knife he kept on his hip, the
police department said. Police
said Surrett’s actions likely
saved lives.
The gunman, Ethan Blair
Miller, 20, then shot and killed
Surrett before ending his own
life as officers stormed the
Safeway.
The footage also showed
two other people inside the
store during the attack went
back inside after seeing the
first victim, Glenn Bennett,
injured on the floor near the
store’s entrance. The two indi-
viduals took Bennett out of the
store where he received medi-
cal attention and was taken to
St. Charles Bend. He was pro-
nounced dead upon arrival.
Several bouquets of flowers
and two handmade signs that
read, “Thank you Donald” sat
on a table Tuesday afternoon
at the edge of the police line in
Safeway’s parking.
A kindly hero, remembered A familiar face, now gone
with Surrett, said he wasn’t
surprised by Surrett’s heroics.
It was what he was trained to
do, said Cusick.
“If it wasn’t for him, there’d
probably be a whole lot more
dead people,” Cusick said. “I
feel he died too young.”
On Sunday, about an hour
before the shooting, Naomi
Landon, a 38-year-old nutri-
tion specialist for Bend-La
Pine Schools, was shopping at
the Safeway with her 5-year-
old son. In her weekly vis-
its over the past nine years,
she has grown close with the
grocery store staff, who are
always asking about her three
growing boys.
Among them was a man
she would always see rush-
ing to meet customers’ needs:
Surrett.
It was no different Sunday.
Landon and her son were
discussing what kind of apples
they should buy when Sur-
rett chimed in. Placing apples
on display one by one, he told
them that his favorites were
the yellow ones. He named the
different types, and he said he
was sad because Safeway was
about to discontinue the sweet-
est apples there are.
He told them that the secret
to making a great apple pie
was mixing a whole variety of
apples together. His wife, he
said, makes the best apple pie
in Bend.
“It was just an inno-
cent, passing conversation,”
Landon said.
Now, Landon is trying to
help her son understand what
happened to that nice man
who spoke to them about the
apples he loves. She tells her
son that he was brave, that he
sacrificed his own life to save
others.
“He totally was a hero, and
it makes me sad to think of
what happened,” she said, cry-
ing. “He didn’t deserve that.”
It’s no surprise that Sur-
rett’s friend, Morrison, is
thinking about the stargazer
lilies the Safeway staff regu-
larly set aside.
In the coming weeks, she
and other Safeway workers
plan to take a big bunch of
stargazer lilies over to Surrett’s
home in La Pine as a tribute to
him.
No one wants Surrett’s
widow to think her husband
has been forgotten, Morrison
said.
By BRYCE DOLE
The Bulletin
BEND — It was 1 p.m. on
Friday, Aug. 26, when Joe Gib-
son, an employee at the Express-
way Market and Deli, walked by
the tall, bespectacled man who
always sat in the same seat in this
convenience store in southeast
Bend.
Wearing blue jeans and a
white T-shirt, he was someone
Gibson and other employees
looked forward to seeing every
day for years.
Glenn Bennett was eating his
second chicken strip. That was
his regular order, chicken strips
with chocolate milk. Like every
Friday, Bennett told him to have a
great weekend, that he’d see him
Monday, same time as always.
“He didn’t come in Monday,”
Gibson said.
The 84-year-old Bennett
was one of the two people killed
when a 20-year-old gunman with
an AR-15-style rifle opened fire
on the eastside Bend Safeway
on Sunday, Aug. 28, spraying at
least 100 bullets at innocent peo-
ple shopping for groceries. Ben-
nett was shot near the store’s
entrance before the shooter was
confronted by an employee near
the back of the store. The shooter
killed Donald Surrett Jr. before
turning the gun on himself.
That night, Gibson watched
in horror as the news unfolded.
He knew Bennett often shopped
at the Safeway on Sunday eve-
nings. The police said three peo-
ple were dead.
There are thousands of people
in Bend, Gibson thought to him-
self. But what if it was somebody
he knew?
“It turned out that it was some-
one I knew well,” Gibson said.
At work Monday, a store man-
ager told Gibson and the Express-
way employees what happened.
He walked out behind the mar-
ket, where co-workers were cry-
ing. Eventually, he wept, too.
“It’s just devastating, the
loss,” Gibson said in a low, grav-
elly voice, sitting just a few feet
from the green chair at the market
that the employees knew as Ben-
nett’s chair.
“It was something I looked
forward to every day, seeing
him,” he said. “He always had
well wishes for me. He always
knew every day that I was getting
off at 1 p.m. and would say, ‘Go
home. Get some rest. I’ll see you
tomorrow.’”
All week, people have come
to the mar-
ket and told
employees
that they’re
sorry for their
loss.
One
woman, who
Bennett
knew Bennett
frequented the
market, arrived on Monday, say-
ing in a panicked voice that she
saw Bennett enter the Safeway
but didn’t see him come out. The
staff told her Bennett was gone.
She burst into tears.
Bennett never told the mar-
ket staff much about himself, but
he was always there, sometimes
trudging through the snow and
ice. A GoFundMe page set up by
the family says he was a medic
in the Korean War whose fam-
ily moved to Bend in 1974. Ben-
nett lived in a home nearby and
supported his sister, a widow on a
fixed income.
The market employees have
only just begun to grieve. Bennett
was more than a customer. He
was their friend who gave them
memories.
There he was, encouraging
them to restock his favorite food
and drink, which they always did.
There he was, messing up
their names, sometimes as a joke
and sometimes because he genu-
inely couldn’t remember.
There he was, flipping up his
goofy sunglasses to reveal clear
lenses underneath.
There he was, sitting in that
same chair for hours at a time,
watching customers walk by, as
if he had all the time in the world
and nowhere else to be but there,
with them.
“I don’t think he had a lot of
people to talk to, so that was us,”
said Amanda Gibson, a store clerk.
This week, the staff donated
$1,000 for funeral expenses and
mortgage payments through a
GoFundMe page for Bennett’s
family that has raised more than
$45,000 in total as of Wednesday
evening.
“I cried for the past two days,”
said 17-year-old Jaymin Hale,
who bonded with Bennett during
chats at the store. “I saw him
more than my friends … Every
morning, right around 7 a.m.,
I’d think, Oh, Glenn’s going to
come in today. I better get some
chicken strips ready. He meant so
much to me.”
That Safeway was another
place where Bennett had devel-
oped a family over the years, said
Debbie Clem, a 60-year-old Bend
resident who worked at the store
for 25 years. Bennett, often wear-
ing a pink tie-dye shirt, would
come into the store every week
and buy cereal, multiple can-
taloupes and heaping stacks of
bacon, which he’d bring home to
his sister. At the checkout, he’d
pull exact change out of a wal-
let he kept together with rub-
ber bands. He would bring Clem
coffee and Christmas ornaments
around the holidays. He would
buy bags from her for local food
drives, and she’d announce over
the intercom: “Glenn Bennett
helped stamp out hunger today.
He purchased four food bags for
our community.”
One day, Clem told Bennett
about the Raggedy Ann & Andy
dolls that her family could never
afford for her growing up and
how she’d always wanted one.
He walked away, bought the
dolls, came back and gave them
to her. It’s a memory she clings to
now that he’s gone.
“He liked to make people
smile,” she said. “He liked to
make people happy.”
In the days since the shooting,
it has been mostly quiet around
the Expressway. Maddie Baker,
a 15-year-old employee, is trying
to grapple with what happened.
She has been homeschooled spe-
cifically because of her family’s
concerns about school shootings.
But next fall, she starts class at
Central Oregon Community Col-
lege. The latest shooting, and that
it happened to someone she’d see
every day, makes her anxious to
start class.
“Nobody deserved that,” she
said, “especially not Glenn.”
Serving Eastern Oregon since 1959!
Pharmacy • Hallmark Cards • Gifts • Liquor Store
TOM CHRISTENSEN
CHRISTENSEN
TOM
CONSTRUCTION
Heppner
Condon
Boardman
(541) 676-9158
(541) 256-1200
(541) 481-9474
www.MurraysDrug.com
(541) 410-0557 • (541) 575-0192
CCB# 106077
REMODELS • NEW CONSTRUCTION • POLE BUILDINGS
CONCRETE EXCAVATION • SHEET ROCK • SIDING
ROOFING • FENCES • DECKS • TELESCOPING FORKLIFT SERVICES
A MAN
WAKES
UP in the
morning
after sleeping on...
an advertised bed, in advertised
pajamas.
He will bathe in an ADVERTISED TUB, shave with an ADVERTISED RAZOR,
have a breakfast of ADVERTISED JUICE, cereal and toast, toasted in an
ADVERTISED TOASTER, put on ADVERTISED CLOTHES and glance at his
ADVERTISED WATCH. He’ll ride to work in his ADVERTISED CAR, sit at an
ADVERTISED DESK and write with an ADVERTISED PEN. Yet this person
hesitates to advertise, saying that advertising doesn’t pay. Finally, when his
non-advertised business is going under, HE’LL ADVERTISE IT FOR SALE.
Then it’s too late.
AND THEY SAY ADVERTISING DOESN’T WORK?
DON’T MAKE THIS SAME MISTAKE
Advertising is an investment, not an expense. Think about it!
Monday - Thursday
7am-
6pm
Monday
- Thursday
7am-
6pm
Friday
8am
- 5pm
Friday Sharpe
8am - 5pm
Mendy
FNP
Mendy
Sharpe FNP
Apppointments
available
Blue Mountain Eagle
MyEagleNews.com
S286526-1
BEND — Every week over
a span of several years, Don-
ald Surrett Jr. would ask his
co-workers in the floral depart-
ment of Bend’s eastside Safe-
way to set aside the nicest, big-
gest bunch of stargazer lilies so
he could take them home to his
wife.
The floral staff would set
them aside in the walk-in
cooler, and before he’d leave
for the night, he’d pay for
those flowers. It’s a fond mem-
ory for Lisa Morrison, who
worked with Surrett for nearly
three years at the Safeway store
before retiring in December.
Now, it’s a memory Morri-
son is holding onto tightly.
Surrett was one of two peo-
ple killed the night of Sunday,
Aug. 28, when a 20-year-old
gunman from Bend walked into
the grocery store near NE 27th
Street and U.S. Highway 20
with an AR-15-style rifle and
opened fire on innocent shop-
pers. The 66-year-old Surrett
was shot as he tried to disarm
the gunman, but police say his
actions likely prevented further
bloodshed. Moments before
his encounter with Surrett, the
gunman also fatally shot Glenn
Bennett, 84, of Bend.
What Surrett did in his final
moments was no surprise to
those who knew him, espe-
cially after police called his
actions heroic.
“Video surveillance shows
that upon hearing gunshots
in the Safeway, victim Don-
ald Surrett Jr. had ample time
to flee the scene but instead
moved a produce cart into posi-
tion to hide from the attacker,”
Bend Police spokeswoman
Sheila Miller said in a news
release Tuesday, Aug. 30.
“When the suspect approached,
Surrett waited for the suspect
to look away, then attacked the
suspect with a produce knife he
kept on his hip.”
Still, none of this is easy
for Morrison to reconcile. An
active shooter was her worst
nightmare, a scenario that had
prompted her to plan escape
routes when she worked at
Safeway.
“This is so surreal,” said
Morrison, 62. “I feel like I’m
trapped in a nightmare. Don
was a kind and caring man.”
It was just a week ago when
Morrison checked in with Sur-
rett while shopping. Since
retiring, she’s made weekly
trips to the store for groceries.
She always sought out Surrett
and they’d chat, sometimes
about his wife, Jacky, who was
on disability.
Morrison worked for
seven years in the store’s flo-
ral department. Surrett worked
in the produce department,
a job he took after working
at the U.S. Forest Service at
Newberry
National
Vo l c a n i c
Monument
from 2013
to
2017.
After that, he
Surrett
worked as
a custodian
at Central Oregon Commu-
nity College for six months,
in 2017 and 2018, forging ties
with people there who would
often drive across town to visit
with their friend.
Surrett would train the
newly hired produce clerks
in the produce department at
Safeway, Morrison said.
“He had a lot of patience to
train them on how to do the job
well,” she said. “He had ideas
on how to make the produce
department run smoother and
cared about doing a good job.
His motto was, work smarter,
not harder.”
An Army veteran, Sur-
rett was proud of his military
experience, Morrison said.
He’d wear military and union
buttons on his hat.
Surrett’s actions have
prompted an outpouring of
community support to help his
wife. A GoFundMe account
set up by Surrett’s sister-in-
law, Jerilynn Morra, had an
initial goal of $8,000 but by
early evening Tuesday had
grown to more than $56,000.
And 140 Safeway and Alb-
ertsons stores in Oregon and
Southern Washington will be
collecting donations at check-
out stands through Sept. 5 for
those impacted by the tragedy
in Bend, according to a com-
pany spokeswoman.
The outpouring of sup-
port is a testament to Surrett’s
character, said Gail Whelan,
who worked with Surrett at
the national monument. In
fact, when Whelan and Surrett
were on the same schedule at
the Lava Lands Visitors Cen-
ter, they’d eat lunch together at
a picnic table.
They called the table the
Lava Lands Cafe.
“He was an all-around
good person,” Whelan said.
“He was a kind person. He
was funny. He liked everyone.
He bent over backward to help
people.”
Surrett enlisted in the Army
out of high school, serving as a
combat engineer during his 26
years in the military, according
to his ex-wife, Debora Jean
Surrett.
He moved to La Pine more
than a decade ago and became
involved in the local chap-
ter of the Disabled American
Veterans, serving as treasurer
and secretary. Veterans across
Deschutes County remember
Surrett, in the brief moments
they met him, as a dependable,
hardworking man.
Robert Cusick, a 75-year-
old member of the Veterans
of Foreign Wars who worked
S283676-1
139101
By SUZANNE ROIG
and BRYCE DOLE
The Bulletin
Don’t get left behind, call today! Kim Kell 541-575-0710