Decatur Again: School Shooting Season Begins

Decatur, Georgia, was in the news a week ago. A school shooting nearly became deadly, and, I speculate because of the publicity about it, a workplace shooting occurred over the weekend.

Mass shootings follow a known pattern - another form of school, business-related, or mass violence usually comes within days of a well-publicized event - then more routinely another shooting happens in a week, two weeks, a month, and a year. It doesn't always take place with such regularity, but it often does.

The other predictor of future shootings is the copycat effect that comes into play after an end of the school year outburst. It feels like a Newtown bounce this fall may happen; I hope not but such a possibility is worthy of being on our radar.

Awareness is a key. People protecting others in schools, colleges, malls, churches, workplaces, and similar locations need to be alert. We are entering a dangerous "red zone" time of year. 

The Rebirth of Pan (1st edition, Firebird Press, 1983)

Mysterious America (1st edition cover, Faber & Faber, 1983)

Decatur again. Yes. We are use to Decatur in the weird news. Jim Brandon pointed out "Decatur" as a "power name" in his The Rebirth of Pan in 1983, and I wrote about it as part of the "Name Game" in Mysterious America, also first in 1983.

First described as "Atlanta-area," the "almost deadly" school shooting happening last Tuesday, August 20, 2013, occurred at Decatur, Georgia's Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy. The elementary school was named for the second AfricanAmerican astronaut, who died aboard the Challenger, the space shuttle that exploded after takeoff on January 28, 1986.

Michael Brandon Hill, 20, opened fire in the school, using an AK-47, to six bullets in the floor of the office. But as he was calmed down by school bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff, who spoke to Hill while on the phone with the 911 operator. She talked him into surrendering, and the publicity was heightened when President Obama called her a "hero."

Investigator T.L. Wortham of the DeKalb County Sheriff Department's Fugitive Unit told the media that as officers were apprehending the suspect, Hill said, "I'm sorry, I'm off my meds." Several weapons were seized, Wortham said.

Hill took a photo of himself (a "selfie") with an AK 47-style rifle and packed up nearly 500 rounds of ammunition — enough to shoot more than half the school's students - police later said.

After the Decatur incident, another shooting - with six shot - occurred on Saturday, August 25, 2013, in Lake Butler, Florida. The alleged shooter, Hubert Allen Jr., 72, was reported dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a “complete shooting rampage” at Pritchett Trucking. The owner of Pritchett Trucking and the farm, Rolling Oaks, Marvin Pritchett, 80, was first killed. Allen then drove to a local bar where he shot and killed Romando Gonzales Delgado, 28, and then killed himself. The gunman was identified as the step-grandfather of Buffalo Bills running back C.J. Spiller.

Decatur, Georgia, has had its brushes with infamy in the recent past.

In June 5, 2012, a fight lead to a stabbing Decatur’s Columbia High School. Two days later, on Thursday, June 7, 2012, a gun was brought to the DeKalb County school after stabbing incident. And then on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012, loaded guns were seized at two area high schools.

Mark David Chapman, the assassin of Beatle John Lennon, attended Decatur, Georgia's Columbia High School from 1971-1975. (His high school photograph is at top.)

Decatur, Illinois's old Transfer Station use to be located near Lincoln Square, named after the assassinated Illinois president.

My old hometown’s name, Decatur, (of Decatur, Illinois) has a Fortean mystique and synchromysticism about it that has created all kinds of mojo.

Several locations are named "Decatur" across the United States of America.

Such sites are named after the War of 1812′s Navy hero, Stephen Decatur, who fought against the Barbary pirates. Decatur at one time conducted tests in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey in 1804, and fired on the Jersey Devil. The records say that Stephen Decatur identified the winged creature as a “devil” – pale in color, with leathery bat-like wings. Decatur perforated one of the thing’s wings with a fired cannonball, but it seemed unfazed, which disturbed everybody who was there at the time. It flew off.

The word decatur (French in origin) is loosely translated as “dweller at the sign of the cat,” and Native Americans who lived in the area that is now Central Illinois had numerous stories of encounters with large dark predatory cats, which are still sighted in the area to this very day.

Stephen Decatur, a Masonic figure of some noteworthiness, is responsible, as well, for the Stephen Decatur House in Washington D.C., which is located on Lafayette Square.

Should we be surprised if an outburst of new violence occurs in the wake of the copycat effect recoil from Newtown? Will it "pick" a location with a "power name"?

How can the next wave be prevented? Certainly, ignoring the patterns of the past is not wise.

Dakota

The Dakota is located at 72nd Street and Central Park West in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and was completed in 1882. This building was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh and stands 110 feet tall with 10 floors.

The Dakota is infamous for two major events in its history, the filming of the movie Rosemary's Baby, and the assassination of John Lennon.

Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, produced by William Castle, and based on the bestselling 1967 novel by Ira Levin. The cast includes Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Maurice Evans, Sidney Blackmer, and Charles Grodin.

(See more about Castle's twilight language links to Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis-Brown House, here.)

Farrow plays a pregnant woman who fears that her husband may have made a pact with their eccentric neighbours, believing he may have promised them the child to be used as a human sacrifice in their occultic rituals in exchange for success in his acting career.

"As the credits roll, the film [Rosemary's Baby] begins with a panoramic aerial view of north-east New York, taken from the roof of The Majestic apartment building across the street from the Dakota.... We finally come to settle on a very low angle view of the beautiful Dakota at 72nd St & Central Park West (called The Bramford in the film)," writes Scout in Scouting New York.

The film's fictional Bramford is portrayed as a Gothic, 19th century New York City apartment building with a history of unsavory tenants and mysterious events.

The actual Dakota houses and has housed many famous entertainers throughout the years. One entertainer, famous musician and peace activist, John Lennon was shot four times in the entrance hallway to the Dakota and died on that very spot on December 8, 1980.

This pewter replica stands 3 inches tall and is finished with a brown stain. This replica building is available from InFocus Tech, here.

The replica of the Dakota. As with the Ennis House replica, if you end up ordering the Dakota, do mention "Loren Coleman" in the comments section. Thank you.

Coincidence 27

Late in November 2008, Showtime TV began screening the recent movie, Chapter 27. I suppose it is being shown now because its broadcast is tied to the anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon on December 8th. Timing is everything.

The movie has many intriguing moments.

First some background. Chapter 27 is an independent film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman, starring Jared Leto and Lindsay Lohan. It was written and directed by J. P. Schaefer. Although it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007, it did not make it to a release in theaters in the USA until March 2008. It came and went quickly, as they say, because it was a box office failure. It retains its "made for television" docudrama feel, and so, perhaps, it is more fitting I saw it on cable.

The film's title refers to Mark David Chapman's alleged obsession with J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye. The title implies that Chapman's killing of Lennon was a continuation of the book, which only has 26 chapters, and which Chapman was carrying (as his "statement") when he shot Lennon. Chapman appears to have attempted to model (copycat) his life after the novel's anti-hero Holden Caulfield.

According to the December 2007 issue of the British music magazine Mojo and the Spanish language newsweekly Proceso, the film's title was further inspired by Chapter 27 of Robert Rosen's book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon. Rosen's book examines the numerological meaning of 27, “the triple 9,” a number of profound importance to John Lennon. Lennon was deeply interested in numerology, particularly via Cheiro’s Book of Numbers, and by the number nine and all its multiples.

Since the movie focussed just on the three days that Mark David Chapman spent in New York City, leading up to Lennon's murder, many significant items in Chapman's life were left out of the film. These included

1) that when young, Chapman fantasized about having God-like power over a group of imaginary "Little People";

2) he worked for the YMCA;

3) he visited Lebanon;

4) he once met and shook hands with President Gerald Ford;

5) he worked in Georgia as a security guard;

6) he traveled extensively, visiting such places as Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Delhi, Israel, Geneva, London, Paris, and Dublin;

7) Chapman got a job as a security guard in Hawaii; and finally,

8) while in Hawaii, he told his "Little People" he intended to go to New York and kill John Lennon and they begged him not to, saying "Please, think of your wife. Please, Mr. President. Think of your mother. Think of yourself." Chapman says he told them his mind was made up, and that their reaction was silence. (Was Chapman's "Little People" the menehune?)



Also, we are shown throughout the movie that Chapman was obsessed by The Wizard of Oz, but not that he thought of himself as "Dorothy Gale."

In Chapter 27, I find the key focal point of the film is an involved sequence about coincidences, shortly after Chapman is made aware that Lennon's new album is called Double Fantasy. (See Todd Campbell's new blog posting on "Double Deception.")



In this scene, Chapman is seen making the links that included,

1) the Dakota Building, where Lennon resided, was the site where the movie Rosemary's Baby was filmed;

2) that Roman Polanski was the screenwriter and director of Rosemary's Baby;

3) that it was Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, who was murdered by Charles Manson and his Family;



4) that the killings were based on Manson's notion of "Helter Skelter," and

5) that Manson based his scenario on John Lennon's song, Helter Skelter.

Did any of this happen? Or is it movie fiction?

Or, perhaps, is this film placing into popular culture the overt dots that can be connected in what happened at the Dakota on December 8, 1980?

Forthcoming showings of Chapter 27 will occur on

Showtime Next, November 28, 2008, at 9:40 AM ET/PT
Showtime Next, November 28, 2008, at 6:30 PM ET/PT
The Movie Channel, December 7, 2008, at 8:00 PM ET/PT
TMC Xtra, December 14, 2008, at 11:15 AM ET/PT