Michigan: Berrien County Courthouse Shooting

There has been reports of an active shooter situation in the Berrien County Courthouse in St. Joseph, Michigan, on July 11, 2016.

Details surrounding the shooting, which happened around 2:30 p.m. at the courthouse on Port Street in downtown St. Joseph, have not been released.

On Monday afternoon, July 11, 2016, some of the breaking news is reaching the public via tweets.

Shooter identified as Larry Darnell Gordon, 44 or 45 (pictured). Publishing of gunman's photograph appears to confuse racial profiling trends. 

Intriguing how the tinting of Gordon's Caucasian image in photo #3 above as "FIRST PHOTO: @ABC7Chicago #ITeam picture of #BerrienCountyCourthouse shooter Larry Darnell Gordon, 45" actually makes him appear AfricanAmerican or biracial.

A Pope Kills Three

Three are dead in a courthouse shooting in the Philippines. Above is a photograph of the shooter's gun found at the scene.

The official Philippines News Agency (PNA) has reported that a gunman identified as John Pope "went berserk" at the courthouse in the city of Cebu, Philippines, on Tuesday, January 22, 2013.

John Pope, a Canadian national, entered the Palace of Justice at about 8:10 a.m. clad in jogging pants, long white shirt and with a body bag.
He was body-frisked and his bag was inspected.
Pope went directly to MTC Branch 6 as he has a scheduled hearing for malicious mischief case.
According to Prosecutor Noel A. Cellona, Pope greeted him when they met at the stair near the court room.
Cellona noticed nothing unusual in Pope.
Before the start of the hearing, Cellona heard two successive gun bursts.
He saw the complainant Dr. Rene F. Rafols and private prosecutor Juvian Achas lying dead on the ground.
After shooting the victims, Pope went out of the court room and proceeded to MTC Branch 1 opposite the building about 50 meters away.
While walking towards the lobby of MTC Branch 1, Pope met Prosecutor Ma. Theresa C. Casino, the public prosecutor handling his grave threat case.
Casino was point blank shot and was hit in her neck. She was immediately rushed to the hospital and is now in critical condition.
Pope was found dead at the stair of the ground floor with gun shot at the head.
He allegedly shot himself, according to PNP SOCO-7.
Recovered from Pope is a 6-shot 357 revolver with four bullets spent. He was declared dead and his body was brought by the PNP SOCO-7 in Cebu City. (PNA)

Facing a criminal case in the courts, the gunman fatally shot the complainant in the case, who was a doctor, and the doctor's lawyer. The gunman also took his own life.

The scene at the courthouse on January 22, 2013.

According to the website of the City of Cebu, the name Cebu came from the word “Sebu,” meaning "animal fat."

The Supreme Court has now tightened security measures on all courts nationwide following the incident in the Palace Hall of Justice in Cebu where three people were killed including a lawyer, doctor and the gunman.

Other violence has swept through the Philippines in recent gun violence. Earlier this month, a gunman went from house to house in a town near the capital, Manila, killing at least 9 people. On New Year's Eve, a 7-year-old girl died after being shot in the head amid celebratory gunfire.

The country's Firearms and Explosives Office says there were 1.2 million registered firearms in the Philippines as of last year. Also, the office estimates there were 600,000 unlicensed firearms in circulation nationwide.

American John Popes

The name Pope is from the Latin: papa; from Greek: πάππας (pappas), a child's word for father. The familiar terms "Pop" and "Pops" for "father" are derivatives.
The name of the Cebu courthouse shooter, Canadian John Pope, is one that has a prosaic sound in America, in relationship to the military and spying, in reality and in fiction. This appears to be related to the founding nature of the Pope family in US History.

Some insights into the linkages of a Kentuckian named John Pope (February 1770 – July 12, 1845), U.S. politician, senator for Kentucky (served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Eleventh Congress), and governor of Arkansas Territory, gives a notion of the Pope power family. 

Pope practiced law in Washington, Shelby, and Fayette County, Kentucky. This John Pope was married to the sister-in-law of President John Quincy Adams. He was also the brother of Nathaniel Pope, a prominent figure in early Illinois Territory, and the uncle to both John Pope, Union General in the Civil War and Daniel Pope Cook, another prominent politician in the early history of the state of Illinois.

The Kentucky's John Pope's uncle was John Pope (March 16, 1822 – September 23, 1892), who was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War. He had a brief but successful career in the Western Theater, but he is best known for his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) in the East.

Another John Pope (December 17, 1798 – January 14, 1876) was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, Pope was appointed midshipman from Maine, May 30, 1816. Prior to the Civil War, he served in the Mediterranean, West Indian, Brazil, African and East India Squadrons.

From July 1 to October 24, 1861, he was attached to the Gulf Squadron commanding Richmond. He participated in the search for CSS Sumter in the West Indies while on his way to join the Gulf Blockading Squadron, assisted in the blockade of the passes of the Mississippi River and took part in the engagement with Confederate States’ vessels at the Head of Passes October 12, 1861. He died January 14, 1876, in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Fictional John Popes

John Pope is a fictional astronaut character in James A. Michener's 1985 novel Space. One of the main figures in the book is this John Pope. Small town Pope is swept from naval warfare in the Pacific, through air combat in the Korean War and his test pilot life at "Pax River," to his astronaut selection and training.

Another character in this book, according to this summary, is "a highly intelligent but cynical cult leader calling himself Leopold Strabismus who exploits first the UFO craze and then an anti-scientific creationist agenda to increase his fortune...The novel closes with Pope retired from NASA and a respected professor of astronomy, his wife Penny in the Senate, and [aeronautical engineer Stanley] Mott consulting on 'Grand Tour' unmanned missions to the outer solar system. The two men finally attending a NASA workshop discussing the possibility of extraterrestrial life, at which Strabismus privately drops the creationist/fundamentalist persona he has adopted and joins in the intellectual debate on the inevitability of life elsewhere in the Universe."

Also in 1985, in the fiction movie Agent On Ice, the lead character, ex-agent John Pope (Tom Ormeny) was unwittingly involved in a deadly conspiracy, and in the film, the Mafia, the police, and the C.I.A. all want him.

A Real Pope Spy

The name "Pope" is one that some remember from CIA flights over 50 years ago in Asia.

Allen Pope, 1960, Indonesia, shot down flying a B-26 bomber in Indonesia in May 1958, flying for the CIA in support of Indonesian rebels and against the Government of Indonesia. Sentenced to death, the US brokered his release, but he spent four years in an Indonesian jail. Source.

Vegas Shooting ~ Wicks Id'ed

Authorities say a gunman shot dead in a gunbattle after killing a courthouse security guard and wounding a federal marshal in Las Vegas had a "lengthy" criminal history in Tennessee and California.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Kevin Favreau said on January 5th that 66-year-old Johnny Lee Wicks faced murder charges in Memphis, Tenn., in the mid-1970s, and sex assault charges in Sacramento, Calif., in the late 1980s.

Records show Wicks lost a federal lawsuit last year challenging a cut in his Social Security benefits after moving from California to Las Vegas.

The FBI and local police say Wicks torched his apartment and walked three miles to the courthouse before opening fire Monday morning, killing 72-year-old security officer Stanley Cooper.

Officials say the wounded marshal has been released from the hospital.


EARLIER///
An as-yet unidentified gunman, wearing a black trenchcoat, opened fire in the lobby of a federal building in downtown Las Vegas on Monday, January 4, 2010, killing one court officer and wounding a second before he was shot to death. (Earlier reports that two FBI agents were shot are being denied.)

The gunfire erupted moments after 8 a.m. at the start of the work week and lasted for several minutes. Shots echoed around tall buildings in the area, more than a mile north of the Las Vegas Strip. An Associated Press reporter on the eighth floor of a high-rise building within sight of the building heard more than 20 shots during the sustained barrage of gunfire.

The U.S. Marshals Service says the victims included a deputy U.S. marshal and a court security officer. The 48-year-old deputy marshal was hospitalized, and the 65-year-old security officer died.

FBI Special Agent Joseph Dickey said the gunman died across the street shortly after the shootout. The man's identity and motive were not immediately known.

Authorities believe the shooter acted alone, Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Roxanna Lea Irwin said.

The building was evacuated, police and news helicopters circled overhead, and Las Vegas police cordoned off the area for several blocks. A 16-story state and local courthouse two blocks away was locked down as a precaution.

After police arrived, paramedics wheeled at least two people out and down a ramp to ambulances.

Dickey called the building evacuation "standard procedure" in such an incident, and said it was "for the safety of everybody in the place."

Las Vegas police spokeswoman Barbara Morgan said the shooter had been shot in the head.

"It looks like he went in there and just started unloading," Morgan said.

The Lloyd D. George U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building is named for a longtime senior federal judge who still hears cases. It has federal courts and offices for federal officials including U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign. Neither were in the building at the time, authorities said.

Irwin said she saw shotgun casings on the floor of the federal building lobby.