Honolulu "School Shooting"

A young man was shot in the wrist at President Theodore Roosevelt High School in Honolulu on Tuesday morning, prompting a lockdown. The media is reporting every - and I mean every - incident of any kind of school violence nowadays as if it is a "school shooting." 

As you can see from these accounts, this is not a routine "school shooting," but an event in which a police officer shot a young person - maybe not even a student.

An official who answered the phone at Roosevelt said the school was locked down.
About a half-dozen parents, including Carolyn Richardson, gathered outside the school after word of the shooting spread.
“This is really freaking me out,” Richardson told The Associated Press.
Richardson said she learned about it around 9 a.m. through a text from her son, CarDarow, a sophomore.
Her son told her he heard shots had been fired at the school, but that he was OK. She then used her cellphone to video chat with her son. “I told him, I gotta hear your voice,” Richardson said.
Other parents outside the school also texted and talked on their phones to their children. Source.

Law enforcement sources tell Hawaii News Now the incident began when a Honolulu Police Officer was attempting to pick up a runaway. The runaway then allegedly stabbed the police officer and the officer fired back.
Paramedics confirm that at approximately 8:30 a.m., a 17-year-old male suffered an apparent gunshot wound to the wrist on the school's campus. He was reportedly taken to an area hospital in serious condition. The report from Honolulu paramedics did not confirm if the injured person was a student. The police officer's condition is not immediately known. Source.

Self-Immolation + More School Incidents

Colorado. A cafeteria. A school. Violence. We have heard this all before.

The wave of recent school violence situations continued on Monday, January 27th. The epidemic of shootings has not gone unnoticed by the media. See the Los Angeles Times, "5 Days of School Shootings, Lockdowns, Scares Jolt U.S. Campus."

Now, for today...

Colorado ~ Self-Immolation

A 16-year-old boy (identified as Vince Nett, above, from Facebook) set himself on Monday in the cafeteria at a suburban Denver high school. Westminster Police Department spokeswoman Cheri Spottke said the boy didn't make any threats before starting the fire at about 7:15 a.m. at Standley Lake High School. A custodian was able to use a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze before it could spread. Several other students were in the cafeteria at the time, but none were injured. There are fire-related injuries over 80% of the body of the suicidal boy.

Two self-immolation attempts took place on Friday, October 4, 2013 (see here). One was on the Washington D.C. mall (with a resulting fatality) and the other in downtown Houston, Texas (with a survivor).

Monday's incident was the latest to affect a Denver-area school in recent weeks.

On Thursday, Columbine High School, where two gunmen killed 13 people in 1999, went on high security alert after receiving a series of threatening phone calls. The alert applied to a half-dozen other schools in the area, in the same school district as Standley Lake, but was lifted the same day.

On December 13, 2013, student gunman Karl Pierson, 17, fatally shot Claire Davis, a 17-year-old classmate at Arapahoe High School in Centennial before killing himself in the school's library.

Westminster, Colorado, was home to 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway, who was abducted on her way to school and killed in 2012. Austin Sigg, who was 17 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to a life sentence plus 86 years. Jessica's disappearance put Westminster and neighboring Denver suburbs on edge as police, aided by an army of volunteers, searched for her and then her killer.

Iowa ~ Lockdown

Police were called to a Des Moines school and it was placed on lockdown Monday. Officers were at Lincoln RAILS Academy at 1000 Porter Avenue, which is just off Southwest 9th Street. Des Moines Schools officials said the lockdown ended about 12:15 p.m. It started less than an hour before that.

"This was due to a report we received from a parent indicating their student may have posed a threat to the school and our students," said a statement from the district.

District officials said officers and staff "thoroughly searched the school building. It was confirmed that the student had not been on campus today, and there was to be no threat to our school or students."

Illinois ~ Shooting

Carbondale Police say one juvenile is in custody following a shooting Monday at Carbondale Community High School’s Rebound school. Carbondale Community High School's Rebound program locates on North Oakland Avenue.

The Rebound program is located at the old high school campus on North Oakland Avenue. Police responded to the school around noon after a report of gun shots. One adult male was taken to Memorial Hospital of Carbondale. Police say they are still looking for another suspect.

Carbondale Community High School officials placed the main campus on East Walnut Street on lock-down for a period of time this afternoon. A school official said the lock down was a safety precaution but would not confirm if the action was related to the shooting at Rebound. An investigation continues. Carbondale Community High School’s Rebound program provides alternative education for students 16-years and older who need to complete their secondary education.

Georgia ~ Fatal shooting

Perhaps marginally related to school violence, but grouped as such by the media, a fatal shooting also took place in Georgia.

The Phoenix High School (its logo above) is located at 501 West Pike Street, Lawrenceville, Georgia.

One person was dead and two others were injured in a shooting near a suburban Atlanta high school Monday afternoon, police and school officials told NBC News. Phoenix High School in Lawrenceville, about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta, was in "soft lockdown" as investigators tried to determine whether any students were involved.
The shooting occurred partly in the roadway and partly in the parking lot at an address about 200 yards across a street from the school, which is on the busy main highway through Lawrenceville.

Tecumseh Name Game Surfaces In Mass Shootings

After the release of my 2004 Simon and Schuster book, The Copycat Effect, I was ridiculed by mainstream media for pointing to rising data that was clearly indicating a reinforcement of a probable violent future.

Today, mass shootings, school shootings, and related forms of violence are routine in America.

This weekend, mass media stories are appearing noting that in the first 14 days of 2014, there have been seven school shootings, an average of one every other day. A simplistic and perhaps slightly inaccurate summary, but the stat is remarkably close to the truth, if we restrict the timeframe to the first 14 school days of the year.

Based upon a survey of small media markets about various forms of mass shootings, it appears that the frequency of these events may be higher than that quick media statistic would lead us to believe.

Here's what I've seen in the news:

January 9:

Jackson, Madison County, Tennessee ~

A 17-year-old student was wounded Thursday in a shooting at a Jackson high school, and another student was taken into custody, police said.
The 17-year-old was shot once in the left thigh outside of Liberty Technology Magnet High School and was taken by ambulance to Jackson-Madison County General Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. The shooting occurred at the front of the school at 2:21 p.m., a few minutes after dismissal time. Officials said the suspect left campus in a car. He was taken into custody about 30 minutes after the shooting.
Police took a 16-year-old Liberty student into custody at his grandmother's house on Cotton Grove Road in east Madison County.
The names of the victim and the suspect have not been released.


January 13:

Wesley Chapel, Pasco County, Florida ~

Not a school shooting, but a movie theater shooting made the news on this Monday. Curtis Reeves, Jr., 71, a retired Tampa Police Captain was arrested and held without bail for shooting a man and his wife after an apparent argument over texting while at a Wesley Chapel, Florida, movie theater.
At the Monday afternoon showing of the film Lone Survivor, Reeves and his wife were sitting behind another couple, Chad and Nicole Oulson, watching the previews, when Reeves became agitated with Chad for texting before the movie began.
At the Wesley Chapel-January 13th screening of Lone Survivor an argument broke out between the couples, popcorn was thrown, after which Reeves reportedly left the theater, came back, took out a gun and fired at Oulson and his wife. Officials said Nicole tried to block the bullet, resulting in a gunshot wound to her hand, before Chad was struck. And killed.

January 14:

Roswell, Chaves County, New Mexico ~

Tuesday, a Berrendo Middle School student opened fire in his gym with a shotgun and critically wounded two students in Roswell, New Mexico.

The injured were a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy who were "simply sitting in their gym waiting to go to class," New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said. The shooting occurred shortly before class was to begin at Berrendo Middle School.
The Eastern New Mexico Medical Center confirmed it treated two patients, who were then air lifted to the University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, located about 175 miles from the middle school.
A spokesperson for UMC said the boy, who the governor said was 12, is out of surgery and is listed in critical condition. The girl, 13, is also being treated at the hospital and is listed in serious condition, according to the spokesperson. A school staff member suffered a minor injury and declined treatment.

The 12-year-old suspect was named as Mason Campbell.

January 15:

West Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania ~

A 17-year-old boy was arrested for bringing a loaded handgun to a West Philadelphia charter school.

St. Louis, Missouri ~
A hidden-camera TV news story on security at St. Louis schools led to a Thursday afternoon lockdown at Kirkwood High and a flurry of complaints by angry parents.
A KSDK-TV reporter visited four elementary schools and the St. Louis County high school without identifying himself as a journalist. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Kirkwood students and teachers were huddled in classrooms with the lights off for about 40 minutes Thursday after a man came into the school and asked to speak with security, then left.
The station defended its reporting in a statement broadcast Thursday night before its news report on school security lapses. The statement noted that the lockdown didn't happen until one hour after the reporter left Kirkwood High.

Elkhart, Elkhart County, Indiana ~

In Elkhart, Indiana, Shawn Walter Bair, 22, killed an employee, Krystle Dikes, and a shopper, Rachelle Godfread, at the Martin's Super Market on January 15th, Wednesday night.

Although apparently a name of German or Germanic origin, the etymology of Elkhart's name is disputed. One source claims that the origin of the city's name was the Shawnee Indian Chief Elkhart, cousin of the famous Chief Tecumseh, and the father of Princess Mishawaka, the namesake of neighboring Mishawaka, Indiana.

January 17:

Albany, Dougherty County, Georgia ~

A student was shot near Albany High School, Albany, Georgia. Albany Police said the 16 year old student was shot in the arm. Officers said the victim was walking along Tift Avenue when it happened. Investigators said the student was shot with a small caliber weapon. The victim was taken to Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, but the injuries are not expected to be life-threatening.

Logan, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania ~

Two 15-year-old students were wounded Friday afternoon in what may have been an accidental shooting inside a charter high school in Logan, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia police said. One of the victims, a girl who was shot through the arm, was treated at and released from Einstein Medical Center, just blocks away from Delaware Valley Charter High School, where the shooting occurred. The second victim, her boyfriend, was struck by the same bullet, which lodged in his shoulder, police said. He remained at the hospital Friday night. The shooting took place just before 3:30 p.m. in the gym at Delaware Valley Charter High, 5201 Old York Rd., Philadelphia.

January 19-20:

Schulenburg, Fayette County, Texas:
Miguel Mejia-Ramos returned to his Queens, New York home on Sunday, January 19, and rifled through his wife's phone and Facebook account. He found an image of her with another man. He grabbed a knife from a butcher block and stood over his sleeping wife, Deisy Garcia, 21, and two daughters 2 and 1. He stabbed all of them to death. Mejia-Ramos fled in a white van, driving south to Texas. Authorities in Fayette County, Texas, say the suspect, who goes by at least one other name, was located Monday night, January 20th, after he turned on his cellphone. Authorities were able to track his location and arrest him at a vehicle roadblock on Interstate 10 in Schulenburg, Texas. The location is about 1,700 miles from New York.

January 20:

Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania ~
A school shooting, happening near the athletic center of Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, left one student in the hospital. The shooting put the campus on lockdown Monday night. The student was shot in the side while sitting in a car. The suspect remains on the run.

January 20-22:

Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina:
A 19-year-old man wanted for questioning in Fayetteville's first two homicides of 2014 turned himself in Wednesday evening.
Family members surrounded Albert Lamont Jackson, 19, of 3521 Seawell St. in Fayetteville, as he surrendered to police. Jackson was wanted for questioning in the murders of Manuel Sampeur, 25, and Pamela Ann Coe, 40, who were both found dead inside a residence at the Cambridge Arms Apartments on Monday.
Jackson, who had active warrants for assault with a deadly weapon, simple assault and communication of threats, was transported to the Cumberland County Detention Center.
The 19-year-old was the second person wanted in connection with the double homicide. Rashawn Javonte Hill, 17, was arrested Tuesday night after firing a shotgun at police.
Authorities arrived at 3611 Pickerel St. at about 11 p.m. to speak with Hill about the killings. As Fayetteville police and Cumberland County deputies entered the home, they heard a shotgun being racked from a rear bedroom. Hill then fired a single round as authorities walked down the hallway, police said. A Fayetteville police detective fired one shot at Hill. No one was hit.
Officers immediately retreated from the home and established a perimeter to ensure Hill did not escape. Hill was taken into custody without incident after authorities convinced him to surrender.

January 21: 

West Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana ~

One student was killed in a shooting on Tuesday, January 21, 2014, on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Police said the victim was a male senior and also a teaching assistant.

Purdue University Police Chief John Cox said Cody Mark Cousins, 23, of Centerville, Ohio, and Warsaw, Indiana, was being held in the Tippecanoe County Jail in Lafayette, on a preliminary charge of murder.
Cousins is accused of shooting 21-year-old Andrew F. Boldt of West Bend, Wisconsin, in the basement of the electrical engineering building around noon.
The suspect was apprehended moments after the shooting as he ran outside and was caught by West Lafayette, Indiana, police.

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Thus ended the third Fayette incident in three days. See the Fayette Factor, noted before, here. But intriguingly, another name in the background that keeps popping up in 2014 is Tecumseh.

Fayette county, Indiana, is best known for The Battle of Tippecanoe, which was fought on November 7, 1811, between United States forces led by Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and Native American warriors associated with the Shawnee leader Tecumseh.

For more on the "Curse of Tippecanoe," see here.

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Turlock, Stanislaus County, California ~

A man was shot near Turlock, California's Wakefield Elementary School Tuesday afternoon, putting the school on temporary lockdown as police searched for a fleeing suspect. According to Turlock Police Sgt. Steven Webb, the incident occurred at approximately 4:13 p.m., when persons in a late 1990s or early 2000s Honda started to argue with three other individuals near the intersection of South Avenue and Spruce Street – just across the street from Wakefield Elementary School.

The media placed this event in their list of 2014 "school shootings," but it does not really seem to fit there.

January 22:

Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma ~

Located south of Tecumseh Road, the University of Oklahoma resumed campus operations after a shooting scare.
There was no evidence of shots fired and no injuries after university officials reported a possible shooting just before noon central time on Wednesday.
"Shooting on campus. Avoid Gould Hall. Seek immediate shelter in place," the university tweeted.
The shelter in place order was lifted shortly afterward.

Gorham, Cumberland County, Maine ~

A University of Southern Maine student allegedly caused a four-hour police standoff at one of the school’s two remaining off-campus fraternity houses in Gorham, Maine. The entire downtown area was shutdown.

Alan-Michael Santos, 23, of Winchester, Massachusetts, was arrested and held on $15,000 bail at Cumberland County Jail in Portland after his arrest late Wednesday night.
Earlier, before the standoff, one of Santos's fraternity brothers had gone in to check on him and was met with a gun. Then other students started evacuating the house, and the standoff with law enforcement began. It lasted over four hours. Police executed a search warrant Thursday morning at the Sigma Nu fraternity at 24 School Street and seized two handguns that they believe belonged to Santos. They did not recover any other guns in the building.

January 23:

Littleton, Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties, Colorado ~

Police were investigating a threat made at Columbine High School in Colorado on Thursday. A lockout was lifted for seven Jefferson County schools in Colorado after a threat was made Thursday at Columbine High School. Jefferson County Public School officials that the lockdown was lifted after about a three hour lockout. During that time, no one was allowed in or out of school buildings in the area.

January 24:

Orangeburg, Orangeburg County, South Carolina ~

A student was shot and killed Friday at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Those on campus at the 3,200-student historically black university about 40 miles south of Columbia, S.C., have been told to shelter in place. The shooting took place in a dormitory. Campus officials know who fired the shots, said Sonya Bennett, a university spokeswoman, but the name of the accused shooter has not been released. Authorities were searching for the suspect.

The victim who was killed was a SCSU football player, Brandon A. Robinson, 20.

Orangeburg's first church was erected prior to 1763 in the center of the village and was destroyed during the Revolutionary War. A subsequent church building was used as a smallpox hospital by General William Tecumseh Sherman during the Civil War. General W. Tecumseh Sherman is noted for his burning of Atlanta, utilizing the "Army of the Cumberland."

A few hours after I wrote the above, the following occurred:

January 25:

Columbia, Howard County, Maryland

On Saturday reports of an active shooter at a shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland became bulletins on the news. The shooter, Darion Marcus Aguilar of College Park, Maryland, arrived at the mall shortly after 10 a.m. on Saturday armed with a Mossburg 12-gauge shotgun and used it to kill two people at a store on the upper level of the Mall of Columbia before killing himself. Police identified the dead employees as Brianna Benlolo, 21, of College Park, Maryland, and Tyler Johnson, 25, of Ellicott City and/or Mount Airy, Maryland. Both worked at Zumiez. Both worked at Zumiez, a shop that caters to skaters, where the shootings took place. 
"We have no known relationship between the victims and our shooter," Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon said at a news conference late Sunday.The body of the suspected shooter (who reportedly took his own life) was found near a shotgun on the floor of Zumiez. A large amount of ammunition was found near the body, and leading investigators to suspect that he might be carrying explosives.

The meaning and origin of the surname Aguilar is linked to the eagle. The name is found in Latin America as Aguilar meaning "sharp-eyed" as an eagle, to Spain where Aguilar means "the eagle." Linguistically Aguilar is related to aquila, a Roman name and the Black Eagle was the devise used on the Roman Legions' banners. Aguilar thus is a habitational name from any of numerous places called Aguilar, from Latin aquilare "haunt of eagles," a derivative of aquila "eagle."

Zumiez is a leading retailer for lifestyle brands centering on action sports such as skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX, and motocross.

The name Zumiez breaks down to have this complex meaning: Z is for zest, your zeal for life. Uis for uncanny, the way you know what to do. Mis for mighty, your inner strength. Iis for intense, your zest of living. Eis for extra, those little things you do! Zis for zip, the quickness in your step!

For more on the Columbus-Columbia-Columbine linkages, see here.

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Tecumseh (March 1768 – October 5, 1813), the Shawnee leader and hero, is from the name, Tekoomsē, meaning "Shooting Star" or "Panther Across The Sky." When he was still young, his father Puckshinwa was "brutally murdered" by white frontiersmen who had crossed onto Indian land in violation of a recent treaty, at the Battle of Point Pleasant (West Virginia) during Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774. Tecumseh resolved to become a warrior like his father and to be "a fire spreading over the hill and valley, consuming the race of dark souls."

"Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart...Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and in the service of your people." ~ Tecumseh

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There were 28 school shootings in all of 2013, following the Sandy Hook shooting.

Here's the listing again:

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What some positive folks said about The Copycat Effect, ten years ago:

Dr. Steven Stack, sociologist, Center for Suicide Research: "The media are still largely in a state of denial on how their coverage of death contributes to the violence and destructiveness in our society -- but Coleman's book should wake them up!"

Benjamin Radford, author of Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us: "Coleman raises troubling questions about the media's hidden role in perpetuating the very crimes and tragedies they sensationalize."

Tess Gerritsen, M.D., author of The Sinner, The Last to Die, and others: "A fascinating and frightening look at the bizarre outer limits of human behavior."

Kenn Thomas, author of Popular Alienation and Popular Paranoia: "This is urgent reading."

Publishers Weekly: "A convincing case."

Elkhart Makes 3 in 3

Authorities in Elkhart, Indiana say Shawn Walter Bair, 22, killed an employee and a shopper in a supermarket on January 15th, Wednesday night.

Krystle Dikes [left] had just started working as a stocker at Martin's Super Market [3900 E Bristol St] in Elkhart, Ind., though her real passion was caring for children and the 20-year-old continued to take babysitting jobs.
Rachelle Godfread, 44, had recently moved from southern Indiana to Elkhart, where she was closer to her son who played basketball at the South Bend campus of Indiana University.
On Wednesday night, the two were about 12 aisles apart in the supermarket when Shawn Walter Bair, 22, walked in and began firing. Both died before police shot Bair dead, not far from Godfread's body, according to Indiana State Police.
Bair also fired at another store worker but missed, and briefly took the store manager hostage before police confronted him. Chicago Tribune.

Above is a previous photo of Bair after he was arrested by Elkhart County Sheriff's Department in 2010.

Bair had a history of legal troubles that included a felony theft conviction from Martin's Super Market. He also had a history of drug problems. Three years ago, he was convicted for felony drug possession and sentenced to prison. He was reportedly able to avoid that sentence by going for treatment at the Oak Lawn Psychiatric Hospital.
Police also said his Faceboook page had pictures and references to serial killers. ABC News

"Elk" is a name we have met before, in the realm of mass shooters (e.g. Elk Grove, Illinois), just as we sometimes encounter "Oak" (e.g. Oak Creek massacre).

Bair has its origins in the Germanic "Bär." The original spelling of the German name "Bär" (meaning a beast) is now standardized as "Baer" in Germany and Switzerland. The established Bär families had a coat of arms with a bear carrying three sheaves.

The most common American spelling was "Bear" before the War of 1812. From then until just following the Civil War, the name continued to be spelled "Bear." At that time, some of the families changed the spelling of their surname to "Bair." Source.

The Elkhart event was the third mass shooting in three straight days.

Shootings occurred when a Reeves killed a man in a movie theater and a boy shot up a Roswell school, before the Elkhart killings (see here and here.) 

T. Peter Park sends in the note that Elkhart is the birthplace of Ambrose Bierce.

Roswell Shooter Identified: He's A Mason

News about the name of the suspected shooter in the Roswell school shooting event has been announced.

The 12-year-old boy is named Mason Campbell.

One of his victims is Kendall (or Kendal) Sanders, 13.

Mason = a stone worker ~ alternatively, a member of the Freemasons.

Campbell = primarily a Scottish family name of Gaelic origins, although a small number of branches have origins from anglicisation of various Irish family names. In Scotland, the name itself derives from two Scottish Gaelic words. "Cam" and "Béal" meaning "Crooked mouth" or "wry-mouthed," originally a nickname which over time became used as a surname.

Kendall = "Valley of the River Kent."

Sanders = a patronymic surname derived from the given name "Sander," a medieval form of "Alexander." Alexander comes from the Greek name "Alexandros," meaning "defender of men" from the Greek alexein "to defend, help" and aner"man."

School shootings are a fact of life in the educational system in the USA, during the 21st century.

Here is a snapshot of 2013:

UFO Name Game Hits Shootings

In The Eighth Tower, a dark work, John A. Keel, as the publisher notes, pulls no punches, and probes the ultimate question: "Are we pawns in a celestial game?" 

Monday was the 13th of January. A day like any other day, but one in which the Fortean name game picked to play its game.

First up, Roswell. The Roswell Incident took place in the U.S. in 1947, when allegedly an unidentified flying object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The name "Roswell" has become famous or infamous in association with UFOs, and Roswell today even has a museum dedicated to ufology.

On January 14th, Tuesday, a middle school student opened fire in his gym with a shotgun and critically wounded two students in Roswell, New Mexico.

The injured were a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy who were "simply sitting in their gym waiting to go to class," New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said. The shooting occurred shortly before class was to begin at Berrendo Middle School.

The Eastern New Mexico Medical Center confirmed it treated two patients, who were then air lifted to the University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, located about 175 miles from the middle school.

("The Lubbock Lights were an unusual formation of lights seen over the city of Lubbock, Texas, from August–September 1951. The Lubbock Lights incident received national publicity and is regarded as one of the first great UFO cases in the United States," notes Wikipedia. That is, perhaps, after the "Roswell Incident.")

A spokesperson for UMC said the boy, who the governor said was 12, is out of surgery and is listed in critical condition. The girl, 13, is also being treated at the hospital and is listed in serious condition, according to the spokesperson. A school staff member suffered a minor injury and declined treatment.

The names of the shooting victims or the shooter have not yet released.

After the shooting, here's how the Chicago Tribune described the town where it occurred:

Roswell, a city of 48,000 people in southeastern New Mexico, is best known for its association with UFO lore because of the 1947 crash at a nearby site of an object UFO proponents believe was an alien ship. The U.S. military says materials recovered near the site were from an experimental surveillance craft.

Earlier, on January 13th, a familiar surname in UFO circles - Reeves - became the focus of another shooting.

Curtis Reeves, Jr., 71, (shown above) a retired Tampa Police Captain was arrested and held without bail for shooting a man and his wife after an apparent argument over texting while at a Wesley Chapel, Florida, movie theater (Cobb Theater's Grove 16 & CineBistro).

At the Monday afternoon showing of the film Lone Survivor, Reeves and his wife were sitting behind another couple, Chad and Nicole Oulson, watching the previews, when Reeves became agitated with Chad for texting before the movie began.

Lone Survivor is set during the War in Afghanistan, the film dramatizes the failed United States Navy SEALs mission Operation Red Wings, in which a four-man SEAL reconnaissance team was tasked to track Taliban leader Ahmad Shah. was principally filmed in New Mexico, working 42 days there. Filming first took place at the Sangre de Cristo ("Blood of Christ") Mountains of the Santa Fe National Forest. Then the production moved to Chilili, New Mexico for two weeks of filming, and finally to the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

At the Wesley Chapel-January 13th screening of Lone Survivor an argument broke out between the couples, popcorn was thrown, after which Reeves reportedly left the theater, came back, took out a gun and fired at Oulson and his wife (shown from their Facebook page). Officials said Nicole tried to block the bullet, resulting in a gunshot wound to her hand, before Chad was struck. And killed.

The Tampa Police Department issued a statement on Reeves Monday evening:

Curtis Reeves Jr. retired from the Tampa Police Department on 9/30/93 as a Captain. He was instrumental in establishing the department's first Tactical Response Team. We are not aware of any contact with the department since his departure more than 20 years ago.

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John A. Keel once raised the question of name selectivity in his writings: "Hundreds of thousands of phenomenal events have been described in newspapers, magazines and books, and hundreds of thousands of witnesses have been named in print. When dealing with such a large body of evidence – or population – certain laws of probability should surface. We might expect that more Smiths would see UFOs than anyone else, simply because there are more Smiths around. But, in actuality, the name Smith rarely appears in a UFO report."

What Keel found was that unusual names were the point of convergence for the phenomena. He saw McDaniel, Reeves/Reaves, Maddox, Heflin, Allen, Hill, and others, as being selected for UFO and related experiences, as I first pointed out in my "Name Game" chapter in 1983, in Mysterious America.

Perhaps it was merely a coincidence that on January 13th, the postal service delivered my copy of the new edition of John A. Keel's 1975 book, The Eighth Tower: On Ultraterrestrials and the Superspectrum. Anomalist Books, in conjunction with Keel's relatives, republished this book. Keel's first book, Jadoo, and his introspective ufological book, Operation Trojan Horse, where the author tackles the games of names and dates of the "Cosmic Joker," have all been reprinted by Anomalist Books, with newly added material.

Reeves. Roswell. Keel. 

Norfolk Helicopter Crashes

Last weekend, as I reported here, several aircraft mishaps occurred. Now comes news of two more that does not allow us to ignore their synchromystic overlaps.

On Tuesday, January 7, 2014, a US Navy helicopter crashed (pictured above) in Cley Next the Sea, in Norfolk, United Kingdom, during a training mission. The helicopter was identified as a US Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk, which are modified versions of the more famous Black Hawks. They are combat helicopters used for search-and-rescue missions. To train, the pilots fly low and fast, usually just hundreds of feet from the ground.

The deceased Airmen were identified as Capt. Sean M. Ruane, Capt. Christopher S. Stover, Tech. Sgt. Dale E. Mathews and Staff Sgt. Afton M. Ponce.

Then on Wednesday, January 8, the U.S. Navy confirmed the crash of another helicopter (like the one above), that went down 18 nautical miles (33km) east of Norfolk, Virginia. The cause of the crash is not yet known.

In that crash, two people died after their MH-53E Sea Dragon went down. Two other crew remain hospitalized. On Thursday, the Coast Guard called off the search to find the missing fifth crew member.

The two crew members who died in the crash have been identified as 25-year-old Petty Officer Brian Andrew Collins of Truckee, California and 29-year-old Lt. J. Wesley Van Dorn of Greensboro, North Carolina. The missing man was identified as 39-year-old Lt. Sean Christopher Snyder from Santee, California.

The downed helicopter was assigned to Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 14 (HM-14), the commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic said in a statement.

Norfolk, Virginia, is an important hub for the US military, and is home to Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval complex in the world.

Speaking of the Norfolk, Virginia crash, the BBC News noted, "In a bizarre coincidence, the incident came a day after another US military helicopter crashed in the county of Norfolk, England."

The name "Norfolk" derives from terms which meant "the northern people." This name is referenced to the Scandinavian invaders, i.e. Norse-folk; another is that the name literally meant "folk from the north" and was used to differentiate between them and the "folk from the south," as was possibly true in the case of people living in the counties we now know as Norfolk and Suffolk.

Norfolk is first mentioned in Anglo-Saxon wills dating from 1043–5 and later as Norðfolc in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (written in 1075) and as Nordfolc in the Domesday Book.

Sources, 1, 2, 3.

h/t Mark Edmondson.

(N.D.: I was born in Norfolk, Virginia, which was one of the reasons I was picked to be a coauthor of Weird Virginia, by the editors of that series.)

The I-81 Killer

There is a new highway killer on the loose.

Timothy "Atsi" Davison is the first victim of the I-81 Killer in 2014.

He was killed on this stretch of I-81 in Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, January 7, 2014, northbound vehicles on Interstate 81 pass the site in the median where Timothy Davison of Poland, Maine, was shot to death in a random act of violence early on Saturday, January 4, in south-central Pennsylvania near the Maryland state line. Davison had called 911 in Maryland and again when he crossed into Pennsylvania to say that he was being pursued and shot at by someone in a small, dark-colored pickup truck. Davison was on his way home from visiting his sister in Orlando, Fla., when he was shot. (Photo: Jenn Fitch/The Herald-Mail)

(Davison shared the same name as his father, so "Atsi" became his nickname from his middle name Austin.)

Timothy Davison, 28, was traveling north on Interstate 81 when he called 911 to report a small pickup truck was chasing and firing gunshots at him.

The driver then rammed Davison's vehicle, forcing him into the median. After Davison's vehicle became disabled, the driver approached and fired several rounds that struck Davison.

State police say he died from his wounds at York Hospital.

Police are hunting for a small-type pickup truck with side-panel damage, similar to a Ford Ranger.

The fact is the Davison shooting was not isolated.

In the statement, which Pennsylvania authorities distributed after canceling a planned press conference Tuesday morning, the task force said it is investigating a possible connection between Davison’s killing and a shooting eight hours earlier about 30 miles away in Monaghan Township, Pennsylvania.
The victim, who was not injured, told police that the driver of a black Nissan pickup truck fired at him.
“While there are many similarities between the two, conclusive evidence definitively connecting the two has yet to be established,” the statement said. “Both investigations will be treated as being related until conclusive evidence proves otherwise.”
The statement announced the formation of a task force to investigate the shootings, including Pennsylvania and Maryland state police, the Carroll Township Police Department and the FBI. Source.

The on-site investigation was visible via the traffic cam pointed at that section of I-81. Was any video available to authorities from 2 am the previous morning that was able to show any of the shooting incident in the dark?

The incident occurred as Davison was on I-81, as he drove from near Hagerstown, Maryland, north into Pennsylvania, just north of I-70. The exact location was three miles over the Pennsylvania border in Antrim Township, Franklin County.

It is worthy of noting that Maryland's I-70 crosses South Mountain, which passes through Greenbrier State Park. At the top of the mountain, the Interstate passes under US 40 and the Appalachian Trail and enters Frederick County, Maryland (which is SE of Franklin County, Pennyslvania). I-70 has a pair of rest areas on the east side of the mountain, one per direction. The westbound rest area is where the Beltway snipers, John Allen Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, were apprehended by police in October 2002.

Interstate 81 largely traces the paths created down the length of the Appalachian Mountains by migrating animals, American Indians, and early settlers. It also follows a major corridor for troop movements during the Civil War. These trails and roadways gradually evolved into U.S. Route 11. Interstate 81 parallels much of the older Route 11.

I-81 is the longest odd-numbered (and therefore the longest north-south) Interstate highway in which the number does not end with a 5, and the third longest Interstate highway in which the number does not end with a 0 or 5 after I-94 and I-64. Being mostly rural, it is heavily used as a trucking corridor, often as a bypass of the busier Interstate 95 to the east.

Interstate 81 passes through the state of Maryland at one of its narrowest points, passing through the "Hub City" of Hagerstown where it intersects with a large number of other routes. Being that this stretch is only 12.08 miles (19.44 km), this is the shortest stretch of I-81 among the states that it traverses. Interstate 81 forms a major north–south corridor through the state of Pennsylvania.

Now I-81 has a killer associated with it.

The history of highway snipers goes way back. I reported (in Mysterious America) on the The Blue Phantom of Route 66, a person in a blue car who first appeared in May 1952, around Joliet, Illinois, shooting at other cars driving along Rt. 66. The shootings continued up and down Rt. 66 (with some on the nearby Rt. 54), throughout June, from East St. Louis to Decatur. No one was ever arrested.

On the Sunday morning of April 25, 1965, 16-year-old Michael Andrew Clark opened fire on cars traveling along Highway 101 just south of Orcutt, California, from a nearby hilltop. Three people were killed and ten were wounded before Clark took his own life by suicide, upon the arrival of the police.

Since 1999, at least 10 men have been convicted in seven separate highway sniper cases in which at least 15 people have been killed.

The Beltway sniper attacks in 2002 killed 10, injured three and paralyzed the Washington, DC area for weeks. 

The 2003 West Virginia sniper attacks were a series of sniper-style shootings that took place over the course of several days in August 2003, leaving three people dead in West Virginia. In July 2012, Shawn Lester, who had been indicted for all three murders in 2011, pleaded guilty to the second degree murder of one of the victims.

 
In 2003, in Ohio, a gunman, Charles McCoy, Jr., shot 24 motorists along I-270, killing one (62-year-old Gail Knisley, killed on November 25, 2003) before he arrested in Las Vegas on March 17, 2004. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and hoped the shootings would stop the coverage of Michael Jackson.

In southeast Michigan, in 2012, at least 24 motorists were hit.

Is Interstate 81 to be added to this highway sniper history?

++++

According to WVEC, there has been another 2 am shooting on a Middle Atlantic interstate highway:

VIRGINIA BEACH-Va. State Police is investigating a reported shooting along I-264 West in Va. Beach.
Spokeswoman Sgt. Michelle Anaya says troopers were alerted to the situation at 2:33 a.m.
Posted on January 10, 2014 at 9:40 AM
Update 2:27 p.m.: Va. State Police told WVEC.com that a man driving a car was shot this morning.
Sgt. Anaya says he was taken to Sentara Va. Beach General for treatment of non-life threatening injures. She couldn't confirm his age, whether anyone was in the car with him or where along I-264 the shooting occurred.
I-264 West was closed between Parks Avenue and First Colonial Road in Virginia Beach for nearly an hour as State police searched for clues.
Sgt. Anaya did state that investigators have determined a car pulled over near Witchduck Road was not involved.

Sources 1, 2, 3, 4.

Human Body Parts Fall From Sky During Weekend of Aircraft Mishaps

After a weekend of varied aircraft accidents, human body parts fell from the sky in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, January 5, 2014. 

Human body parts fell from the sky in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Sunday, with police saying they could be the remains of someone trapped in an aircraft's undercarriage bay.
"Police received a telephone call at 2:30 am from a witness reporting the fall of human remains at an intersection in Mushrefa neighbourhood" in the Red Sea city, spokesman Nawaf bin Naser al-Bouq said in a statement.
Initial indications were that the remains "fell from a plane's landing gear," said Bouq, adding that investigations were ongoing.
The report came after a Saudi Arabian Airlines jet [file photo above] made an emergency landing in the city of Medina in the west of the kingdom, injuring 29 people on Sunday. Source.

Airplane crashes come in clusters. This appears to be one such weekend. 

Aspen, John F. Kennedy, Medina, Jeddah, Major Deegan, Cardiff, Buckhannon, and Catalina-Avalon. 

Who is playing this name game?

Sunday, January 5, 2014
(1)

One dead, at least two survivors in a fiery small plane crash at Colorado's Aspen Airport, according to the Sheriff's Office. Actor and comedian Kevin Nealon (pictured) was live-tweeting the Aspen plane crash. (Nealon was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Kathleen M., née Kimball, and Emmett F. Nealon, an aircraft company executive.)

Singer LeAnn Rimes tweeted: "So sad! Horrible plane crash we just saw happen at the Aspen airport."

LeAnn Rimes performing a free concert for the airmen at Ramstein Air Base, Germany on September 23, 2004.

(2)

Around 9:30 am, a plane (shown above) skidded off the runway and into the snow Sunday morning at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

There were no injuries.

The plane was Delta Connection 4100. The FAA says the plane made a safe landing, but as it was exiting the runway onto a taxiway at about 8 a.m., it slid into a snowbank.

35 people were on board the flight.

Arrivals and departures at JFK were halted at 8:30 due to the icy conditions created by freezing rain.

Flights resumed after 10 a.m. on two of the airport's four runways.

(3)

Twenty-nine people injured as Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 767 makes emergency landing in Medina, Saudi Arabia. The 767-300ER aircraft was arriving from the Iranian city of Mashhad with 315 people on board.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

(4)

Three injuries were reported in connection with a small plane landing on an Bronx expressway. A small plane landed on the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx Saturday afternoon after apparently suffering an engine malfunction, officials said.

The plane, which took off in Danbury, Connecticutt, landed near East 233rd Street. The three people on board had taken a tour of the Statue of Liberty and were heading home.

(5)

A pilot and a passenger were rescued after a small plane crashed in the ocean near Catalina Island Saturday. The crash occurred around 1:15 p.m. about eight miles northeast of Catalina, near Avalon, California. The plane, a single-engine Texas Sport Cub, experienced engine failure before going into the water.
The plane is registered to David P. Prizio (above, on left, with his plane) of Tustin and was powered by an amateur-built Jabiru 3300 experimental class engine, according to online FAA records. Pilot Dave Prizio and a passenger were both rescued from the water by the recreational vessel, Napper Island and a Catalina Express ferry vessel, the Starship Express, assisted in relaying the mayday call, according to US Coast Guard Los Angeles.

(6)

On Saturday night, outside of Buckhannon, West Virginia, authorities were called to the scene of a small plane crash in Upshur County Saturday night. It happened just after 5:30 p.m. on Brushy Fork Road outside of Buckhannon.

The Upshur County Sheriff's Department said James Meadows, 30, of Hendersonville, Tennessee was flying a Cirrus SR 22 aircraft to Pennsylvania when he heard a bang and his engine failed.

The plane came down and struck a truck driven by Billy King, 42, that was passing by on Brushy Fork Road. The plane ended up on Brushy Fork Road between Jenkins Ford and Buckhannon Toyota.

(7)

A flight from Geneva to Cardiff was forced to make an emergency landing in Paris after suffering "a minor technical fault." A passenger on Flybe's BE1832 flight on Saturday told BBC Wales it was a rough landing but the crew remained calm. Firefighters rushed to the Bombardier DHC-8-400 aircraft on the runway at Paris Orly Airport, and dowsed it in water using hoses.

January 6, 2014

Another small plane crash, with two fatalities, was reported off Addis Road east of Boyne City, Michigan, at about 7 am, on Monday. See here.