Slain Guard From Westminster Had Been At Navy Yard About A Year
HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) -- A contract security guard who was killed at the Washington Navy Yard was an outstanding worker who had been on the job nearly a year, a company official said Friday.
Richard Michael Ridgell, known as "Mike" to friends and co-workers, joined HBC Management Services in September or October of last year, said Michael Beasley, director of contract operations in the firm's Falls Church, Va., office. The company is based in Honolulu.
"Mike Ridgell had an absolutely outstanding record of law enforcement service in a number of different jobs, and his character, professionalism and the nature of his service was outstanding in every way," Beasley said in a telephone interview.
Beasley declined to discuss the shootings Monday that left 13 dead, including gunman Aaron Alexis. The FBI said Alexis fatally shot Ridgell in the lobby of Building 197 and then took Ridgell's handgun.
Ridgell, 52, of Westminster, had worked for other government security contractors before joining HBC. He was with Special Response Corp., of Hunt Valley, Md., from April 2011 to the summer of 2012, according to documents he provided to the management of an apartment complex where he lived.
From 2010 to 2011, he worked for DynCorp International in a program that trained police officers in Iraq, the company said.
From July 2000 to July 2007, Ridgell was a security investigator for Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine, spokeswoman Stephanie Desmon said.
Before that, Ridgell was a Maryland State Police trooper for 17 years, resigning in 2000 as a corporal, the agency said.
The 52-year-old Westminster resident was married and had three daughters. Funeral arrangements are pending.
(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
