An Ohio State University custodian who had been told he was being fired killed a co-worker and wounded another before killing himself early Tuesday morning at a university maintenance building, officials said.
No students were involved in the 3:30 a.m. shooting, and classes were held as scheduled on Tuesday.
The gunman was identified as Nathaniel Brown, 51.
The university released documents indicating that Mr. Brown’s supervisors had complained that he was often late to work, frequently slept on the job and refused to follow instructions. The university sent him a letter on March 2 informing him that he was being fired and that his last day of work would be Saturday.
University officials said Mr. Brown spent five years in prison for receiving stolen property before his release in 1984. On his job application to the university, he lied about whether he had any prior convictions, officials said.
University officials said that the police arrived two minutes after the shooting, and that a text message alert was sent at 4:07 a.m. to more than 25,000 students and Ohio State staff members who had subscribed to the alert system.
Larry Wallington, 48, a building services manager, was pronounced dead at the scene. Henry Butler, 60, an operations shift leader, was wounded, the police said, and was in stable condition at a Columbus hospital.
Mr. Butler wrote a letter on Feb. 11 recommending that Mr. Brown, a recent hire still on probation, be fired, according to records released by the university.
“All of us at Ohio State are shocked and deeply saddened by the shooting that occurred on campus early this morning,” said the university’s president, E. Gordon Gee.
The shooting comes as several state legislatures are debating whether to ban guns on college campuses. Those who support the right to carry concealed weapons on campuses argue that having a gun protects the individual and the community and reduces the likelihood of a rampage like the one that at Virginia Tech in 2007 in which 32 students and faculty members were killed.
Opponents say that with binge drinking, drug use and the pressures that students face, campuses are the wrong place for guns.
Ohio State University main hall. 
An Ohio State University employee allegedly killed a co-worker before committing suicide on Tuesday morning. The suspect was Nathaniel Brown, a 51-year-old custodial worker who has worked at the University since October. The victim of the shooting was Larry Wallington, a 48-year-old building service manager. Another employee, Henry Butler, was also shot, but survived and is in stable condition at a nearby hospital.  

According to officials, the shooting took place at 3:30 A.M. local time. Brown is said to have walked into a maintenance building with two handguns, and then commenced firing.  Although police say that there were six men in the room at the time, only Wallington and Butler were shot. Within an hour of the shooting, a text message was sent out to about 25,000 students and faculty on campus alerting them of what had happened.  

Information gathered following the shooting has revealed that Brown was unemployed and struggling to pay his mortgage prior to his employment at Ohio State. Although a neighbor described him as "happy to be back at work," Brown's tenure at Ohio State ended quickly. Brown had learned from a recent letter from the school that he was going to be let go as of March 13. The letter went on to say that he had gotten an "unsatisfactory" job evaluation, and that was why he was being dismissed.