The Watts/Watkins name game appears again and again. Today, I'll examine a specific recent event tied to this name, and detail what Jim Brandon and I have written about this moniker.
Three fatalities resulted and they were identified as 49-year-old Dannaer Fields, 54-year-old Bobby Clark and 31-year-old William Allen. The two surviving victims have not been identified.
Fields was found mortally wounded in a neighborhood yard about 1 a.m. Friday, Clark's body was found in a street about an hour later, and Allen's body was discovered in the yard of a funeral home about 8:30 a.m., the Associated Press reported.
Minutes after Fields was found, police found two men with gunshot wounds in another yard two blocks away. They were taken to hospitals in critical condition but were expected to survive, police said. One of those male victims described the shooter as being white.
The white suspect had been described as driving up in an old white pickup to pedestrians and asking for directions. Then as the victim walks away, this person opens fire.
Dr. Warren Blakney, who heads the local chapter of the NAACP, believes the shooter did group his prey together.
"We feel like he's targeting African Americans in this part of town. And I think some parts of law enforcement feel the same way," Blakney said Saturday.
But then, on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, at 1:47 am local time, two Caucasian men were arrested in connection with these Tulsa shootings, KOKI reported. The suspects have been identified by the Tulsa Police Department as 19-year-old Jake England and 32-year-old Alvin Watts. They were were arrested at a house just north of Tulsa.
Fox23 searched Facebook records, and discovered that last Thursday around 3pm, England posted, "Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a f****** n***** it's hard not to go off between that and s---- I'm gone in the head.
RIP
. Dad and s____ I
. Love and miss u
I think about both of u every second of the day"
A check of FOX23 archives shows a Carl England was shot and killed in April of 2010 at Comanche Park apartments. A person of interest was Pernell Jefferson, later arrested in connection with England's death.
A statement from the Tulsa Police Department said, "Within 24 hours of its formation, the task force 'Operation Random Shooter' has completed its mission. Our sympathy goes out to the families of the victims and we hope that our efforts can bring some resolution and closure to these heinous acts.We would like to thank everyone that assisted and more information will be forthcoming in a Sunday afternoon press conference."
According to The Tulsa World Crime Tracker, before these shootings, Tulsa had had 11 homicides since the beginning of the year.
Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr. said the shootings were unlike anything the city had seen, “certainly in modern history.”
Historically, Tulsa is an intriguing city. In the early 20th century, Tulsa was home to the "Black Wall Street," one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States at the time. Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Riot, one of the nation's costliest acts of racial violence and civil disorder. Sixteen hours of rioting on May 31 and June 1, 1921, resulted in over 800 people admitted to local hospitals with injuries, an estimated 10,000 left homeless, 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences destroyed by fire, and $1.8 million in property damage. An official report claimed that 23 black and 16 white citizens were reported killed, but other estimates suggest as many as 300, mostly blacks, died. Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful.
Tulsa is part of the Fortean "number game" too. In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the "Father of Route 66," began his campaign to create a road linking Chicago to California by establishing the U.S. Highway 66 Association in Tulsa, earning the city the nickname the "Birthplace of Route 66". Once completed, U.S. Route 66 took an important role in Tulsa's development as the city served as a popular rest stop for travelers, who were greeted by Route 66 icons such as the Meadow Gold Sign and the Blue Whale of Catoosa (pictured below).
Fields was found mortally wounded in a neighborhood yard about 1 a.m. Friday, Clark's body was found in a street about an hour later, and Allen's body was discovered in the yard of a funeral home about 8:30 a.m., the Associated Press reported.
Sites of the Friday's shootings in Tulsa.
Minutes after Fields was found, police found two men with gunshot wounds in another yard two blocks away. They were taken to hospitals in critical condition but were expected to survive, police said. One of those male victims described the shooter as being white.
The white suspect had been described as driving up in an old white pickup to pedestrians and asking for directions. Then as the victim walks away, this person opens fire.
Dr. Warren Blakney, who heads the local chapter of the NAACP, believes the shooter did group his prey together.
"We feel like he's targeting African Americans in this part of town. And I think some parts of law enforcement feel the same way," Blakney said Saturday.
Tulsa detectives speculated the shootings were the work of a "lone wolf" gunman and the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service were drafted into the investigation on a task force entitled "Operation Random Shooter."
Alvin Watts, from his Facebook profile page.
Fox23 searched Facebook records, and discovered that last Thursday around 3pm, England posted, "Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a f****** n***** it's hard not to go off between that and s---- I'm gone in the head.
RIP
. Dad and s____ I
. Love and miss u
I think about both of u every second of the day"
A check of FOX23 archives shows a Carl England was shot and killed in April of 2010 at Comanche Park apartments. A person of interest was Pernell Jefferson, later arrested in connection with England's death.
Jake England, left, and Alvin Watts. Photos Tulsa Police Department
A statement from the Tulsa Police Department said, "Within 24 hours of its formation, the task force 'Operation Random Shooter' has completed its mission. Our sympathy goes out to the families of the victims and we hope that our efforts can bring some resolution and closure to these heinous acts.We would like to thank everyone that assisted and more information will be forthcoming in a Sunday afternoon press conference."
According to The Tulsa World Crime Tracker, before these shootings, Tulsa had had 11 homicides since the beginning of the year.
Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr. said the shootings were unlike anything the city had seen, “certainly in modern history.”
Not surprisingly, Andrew Griffin's Oklahoma-based Red Dirt Report has been all over this news, and the other recent spree event in the Tulsa area.
It will be recalled that one month ago, on March 7, 2012, Tulsa was in the news with shootings at the courthouse. In that case, the suspect was arrested at the scene (above).
Tulsa is part of the Fortean "number game" too. In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the "Father of Route 66," began his campaign to create a road linking Chicago to California by establishing the U.S. Highway 66 Association in Tulsa, earning the city the nickname the "Birthplace of Route 66". Once completed, U.S. Route 66 took an important role in Tulsa's development as the city served as a popular rest stop for travelers, who were greeted by Route 66 icons such as the Meadow Gold Sign and the Blue Whale of Catoosa (pictured below).
Route 66 is one of those Fortean sites that I have noted are special, in time and space, which I discuss in various books, such as Mysterious America. Tulsa needs to be watched.
In this weekend's case, our awareness is especially keyed to the name "Watts." In earlier Fortean Times columns and then in my 1983 book, Mysterious America, after discussing the special weirdness surrounding the name "Watkins," I wrote: "Cryptologic or coincidence? Jim Brandon should be credited with calling attention to the name Watts/Watkins/Watson, and its entanglement with inexplicable things. Some other names involved in mysterious events pinpointed by Brandon are Bell, Mason, Parsons, Pike, Vernon, and Warren. The influence of such names as Mason, Pike, Warren, and Lafayette, for example, issues, in some cryptopolitical and occult way, from their ties to the Masonic tradition."
Those familiar with my writings know of my musings on "The Fayette Factor," which have been highlighted by Jeff Rense's site and Todd Campbell's site, Through the Looking Glass, as well as several others.
Back to Watts (the moniker of the Tulsa man arrested today), the tie-in here to the discoverer in England (the name of the other shooter suspect) of the "ley lines" being Alfred Watkins may be mildly significant as this case unfolds. These arrested men may have some kind of revenge-driven, racist insights that only they are aware of, just as Watkins saw on the landscape hidden clues to a deeper awareness. Racism and murder cannot be justified, please note, but the "name game" sometimes seems to go beyond coincidence when it is touched by tragedies and disasters.
Jim Brandon penned the following thoughts in his 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit: "If there are certain numbers entangled with certain phenomena, the same would have to be said of certain words. Likewise, these words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy. I have not yet found a name, or number, that seems to be favorable. Possibly this is because journalism and the other anecdotal reportage we must rely on in this barely respectable compiling of ours concentrate on the formidable, the uncanny, rather than on the mundane fortunate. Sometime, one should do a study on, say, winners of sweepstakes and Nobel Prizes.
"I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H.P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen's Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants, Crowley, Francis, Grafton, Grubb, Magee/McGee, Mason, McKinney, Montpelier, Parsons, Pike, Shelby, Vernon, Watson/Watt, Williams/Williamson. I have others on file, but these are the ones which I have accumulated the most instances."
Brandon goes on to tell the reader that his "candidate is the name Fayette and its variants Lafayette and Fayetteville," but the point is well-made for the harmonic, non-randomness of certain other names frequently turning up.
I was not surprised, therefore, to read about this Tulsa Terror today concluding with arrests, and to find there was a "Watts" in the mix.
++++
Temporal Note: On Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, Bubba Watson won the 2012 Masters Tournament at the Augusta Golf Course in a two hole playoff against South African Louis Oosthuizen. Gerry "Bubba" Watson (born November 5, 1978 in Bagdad, Florida) is an American professional golfer, and one of the few left-handed golfers on tour.
++++
For more on the Bell/Beall name game, click here.
4 comments:
Here's another - Dallas Watts , unfortunately beaten up.
Watts riots? and Dallas.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/kill-that-white-man-78-year-old-man-beaten-by-6-youths-in-alleged-racially-motivated-attack/
cheers
I think there was a gathering in Dallas in support of Trayvon Martin a few days ago, coincidentally enough.
cheers
In keeping with Mr. Brandon's thoughts regarding specific names, I googled L. Ron Hubbard, who's been in the news lately(Scientology). According to Wiki, his first name is Lafayette, pretty interesting, IMHO
Yes, Jim Brandon and I have pointed out often that the "L" in L. Ron Hubbard is "Lafayette." :-)
See more at the "Fayette Factor."
Post a Comment