EXCLUSIVE — West Palm Beach mom of Orlando shooting victim: “It’s high time for this country to change!”

Late Thursday, West Palm Beach nursing assistant Icilda Cole called her son to firm up their Thanksgiving plans. Otis "Nickalous" Beckford and girlfriend Daneicka Coley (Courtesy Orlando Sentinel) Otis Beckford , 26, promised the 44-year-old woman he’d bring his girlfriend and their 7-month-old daughter, Danielle , to his grandmother’s home in Palm Bay for turkey and ham. Cole said he looked forward to the four-generation gathering at her mother’s house. “Now, he won’t be there,” Cole said, repeating Beckford’s nickname, Nickalous . “Such a shame! I had two children. Otis and my daughter. I have one left. I never thought something like this would happen to him.” Beckford was killed by a crazed gunman Friday at the offices of the engineering firm RS&H, downtown Orlando. Beckford, a Royal Palm Beach High School graduate who left West Palm Beach two years ago after being laid off, did architectural work of the firm. He had given himself a few more months to pile up money before going to college to finish his bachelor’s degree, Cole said. “He wanted to be an architect,” Cole said by telephone from Orlando, where she’s claiming the body. “He loved that job but he couldn’t find any in West Palm Beach.” Was she worried to see Otis leave? “No,” she said. “I never feared that something would happen to him. He was a very good person, quiet too, and he got along with everyone. He wasn’t the type to be in trouble. And then, he was an adult. What

could I do?” Shortly before noon Friday, a former employee who’d been fired by the firm, Jason Rodriguez , burst into the RS&H office, pulled a handgun from a holster under his shirt and fired at Beckford. Beckford stood by the reception area, Orlando cops said. Rodriguez, 40, a draftsman, shot five other people, injuring them all, before vanishing. Authorities caught up with Rodriguez at his mother’s home two and a half hours later. After he graduated from high school, Cole told me, Beckford worked odd jobs before he attended classes at the New England Institute of Technology in West Palm Beach. “He worked for a small engineering firm in West Palm, but he was laid off,” said mom. “He searched everywhere for a job. There was nothing for him here. He really didn’t want to leave, but he had to. “You know what,” said the soft-spoken Cole, who brought her son into the United States from Jamaica when he was 15, “every time you turn on the news these days, there’s another shooting like this one. It’s high time for this country to change many things, including how it deals with all the crazy people out there.” Cole said Beckford will be buried in West Palm Beach. Related links: Slain worker was well-liked family man Lawyer: office shooting suspect mentally ill Photos from Orlando shooting

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EXCLUSIVE — West Palm Beach mom of Orlando shooting victim: “It’s high time for this country to change!”

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