UT/PA Shootings

Monday night, February 12, 2007, in Salt Lake City, Utah, at about 6:45 PM Mountain Time (8:45 PM Eastern), and at the Navy Yard, Philadelphia, at 8:30 PM Eastern, two mass shootings occurred.

The Utah event involved a 18-year-old gunman wearing a trenchcoat who opened fire on shoppers at the Trolley Square shopping mall, killing five and wounding four others before police fatally shot him, was armed with several rounds of ammunition and was carrying two guns. Detectives were trying to figure out what sparked the young man's rampage.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, an armed man opened fire during a company board meeting inside a commercial building at the Navy Yard, killing three men and critically wounding a fourth before turning the gun on himself. It happened during a meeting of the board of directors of a company called Watson International. The board was meeting at 5131 S. 11th St. in a structure known as Building 79, a former Navy procurement office that, like many of the warehouse-type buildings at the former Navy base and shipyard, is now home to private businesses.

Police have identified the three men who were fatally shot during a company board meeting last night inside a commercial building at the Navy Yard.

They are:

* Mark Norris, 46, of Piles Grove, N.J.; president and CEO of Zigzag Net, the building's primary occupant.
* Robert Norris, 41, of Newark, Del., vice president of business development for Watson International, the company having the meeting.
* James Reif, 42, of Endicott, N.Y.

Building 79's primary occupant is Zigzag Net Inc., a Web site development company involved in advertising. It was unclear last night what the relationship was between Zigzag and Watson International, but officials indicated that they might have been business partners.

It is too early to determine if a copycat effect will occur, as several factors have to be figured into such an equation such as the forthcoming Valentine's Day superstorm hitting the East Coast and the continuing and overwhelming media attention to the recent sudden death of Anne Nicole Smith.

I have written elsewhere of how "Watson" appears to be a hot twilight language name.