About two weeks after the fact, a well-chronicled murder-suicide at a Gresham lounge has claimed the life of an Oregon AFSCME member.

 

Victoria "Vickie" Schulmerich has passed away at OHSU Hospital in Portland. She was a teacher's assistant with the Multnomah Education Service District and a member of Oregon AFSCME Local 1995 at MESD since 2004. She was 53.

 

Schulmerich becomes the fourth fatality of a Feb. 12 off-duty shooting spree by Clackamas County Sheriff's Sgt. Jeffrey Grahn at the M & M Lounge & Restaurant in Gresham. Schulmerich was a friend of Grahn's wife, Charlotte, and was at the lounge with Charlotte Grahn and another mutual friend, Kathleen Hoffmeister. Jeffrey Grahn and his wife had documented marital problems, and he came into the lounge and confronted her. They stepped outside, where he fatally shot her. Moments later he returned to the restaurant and shot Schulmerich and Hoffmeister, then went back outside and killed himself. Hoffmeister died at the scene; Schulmerich had been on life support at OHSU since the incident.

 

"This has been a trying period for our members at MESD," says Council 75 Staff Representative Issa Simpson, who represents Local 1995 members. "Vickie was well-respected by her co-workers. She worked in the Early Childhood program, meaning she helped special needs pre-schoolers and grade schoolers.

 

"Vickie was also supportive of and active in the Local 1995 strike at MESD in 2007," Simpson added. "She was in that class of teacher's assistants that truly defined the strike. She was out there on the lines with us. She will be greatly missed, both by MESD in general and by her Local 1995 brothers and sisters in particular. And, of course, by her students."

 

Schulmerich's death comes on the heels of the news that Local 745 Corrections Officer Gary Williams of Deer Ridge Correctional Institution in Madras died Feb. 22 in an auto accident.

 

"As I had to say earlier this week with the passing of Gary Williams, when this happens we lose a family member within AFSCME," said Council 75 Executive Director Ken Allen. "Such situations are always difficult, but to lose two respected members in one week is particularly hard. As with Officer Williams, on behalf of our union I offer our thoughts, prayers and condolences to the family of Vickie Schulmerich as well."

 

Funeral arrangements for Schulmerich are pending. She married her husband, Scott, in 1979. They have three children.