As officers led a handcuffed Jason Rodriguez into a police station, a reporter asked the divorced 40-year-old why he had attacked his former colleagues.

"Because they left me to rot," said Rodriguez, who recently told a bankruptcy judge he was making less than $30,000 a year at a Subway sandwich shop and owed nearly $90,000.

The shooting on the eighth floor of an office tower paralyzed downtown Orlando for three hours. Police tracked Rodriguez to his mother's home, spotted him through a window, and ordered him to come out.

He surrendered and was in custody yesterday evening. Police said he apologized as officers handcuffed him.

"I'm just going through a tough time right now. I'm sorry," officers quoted him as saying.

Police said that he would be charged with first-degree murder and other crimes. Officials said he could make a court appearance today.

All the victims worked at Reynolds, Smith & Hills, where Rodriguez was an entry-level engineer for 11 months before he was let go in June 2007, the company said.

Witnesses told police they recognized Rodriguez when he entered the company's eighth-floor lobby. They said he pulled a handgun from a holster under his shirt and shot an employee standing next to the receptionist's desk, killing him. The slain man, identified by police as Otis Beckford, 26, was hit by at least two bullets. The gunman then went into the common work area and fired several shots, witnesses said, wounding five other employees.

The wounded were in stable condition at Orlando hospitals. Police said all were expected to survive.

Gov. Charlie Crist visited some of the wounded at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

"They're obviously traumatized," he said. "At the same time, I was impressed with their spirit and strength."

Rodriguez worked on drawings in the engineering firm's transportation group, but his supervisors said his performance was not up to their standards, and when he did not improve, he was fired. The company did not hear from him again.

Rodriguez told detectives that the company had fired him without cause. He told them he was unemployed for a year and a half before getting a job at Subway, where he worked until recently.

He told them the shop could not give him enough hours, and he later filed for unemployment. He expected to get a check recently but when it did not arrive he blamed Reynolds, Smith & Hills, thinking it was harming his efforts to qualify, police said.