WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- "Hey man, what's going on, I heard you have a family. What's new? Let's catch up." These are words that Otis Beckford will never hear.
They express the sentiment of longtime friend, Stephen Reid. When he heard the news that Otis was the only fatality in Friday's tragic shooting in Orlando, he was shocked. "Oh man, that...my body just kind of froze," said Reid.
The two men have been friends since high school, they lived in the same neighborhood and played the same sports. "There was a group of us that always hung out. We were friends at the time we were living down there," said Reid.
The group split up shortly after high school, but stayed in touch over the years. "Maybe a year and a half ago, I saw him, and talked a little," said Reid.
Reid describes Beckford as a serious and intelligent man. "He took school serious, and took work serious, went into engineering, or architectural engineering," said Reid. A job which led him to Orlando, and employment with the architecture and engineering firm of Reynolds Smith and Hills. The very same place where he would ultimately meet his untimely end, at the hands of Jason Rodriguez. A man who was fired, according to company officials, because he wasn't good enough to do the job. "His work performance was pretty deficient from the start. We tried to work with him to improve his performance, and then when we could not, we let him go," said a company representative.
Now, one man's misguided revenge, has left a family and a friend, with nothing but memories and love for a man, taken from them, before his time. "For him to die so young, I'm still not believing it," said Reid.
