Showing posts with label Workplace Violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Workplace Violence. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

UPS Shooter Identified


Just before 9:30 am, on Tuesday, September 23, 2014, a United Parcel Service employee fired on Monday, returned to his place of employment to kill two supervisors and himself. The UPS customer service center and warehouse is at 4601 Inglenook Lane, Inglenook, near Birmingham, Alabama.

After the "active shooter" call was received, officers arrived and entered the building. They soon discovered three dead people inside the business. "It appears it was the shooter still wearing his UPS uniform and two other employees,'' Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper said.


"We are deeply saddened by today's events and offer our condolences to the families and employees impacted by today's tragedy. Chief Roper and the BPD have our full support as we investigate and get answers for all involved," said Birmingham Mayor William Bell (pictured). (More on the Bell syncs of late, see "The Bell Tolls....")


The shooter is a 45-year-old white married father, identified late in the day as Joe Tesney. He is said to be from the Argo area. You may recall, in Greek mythology, the Argo (in Greek: Ἀργώ, meaning "swift") was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcos to retrieve the Golden Fleece. It was named after its builder, Argus. For more about the links found with the name Argo, see "Argo, Aurora, and AARGAU."

This is the second shooting at a delivery company facility this year. In April 2014, a 19-year-old FedEx Corp. package handler opened fire at a ground facility in Kennesaw, Georgia, injuring six people and leaving one in critical condition. The alleged shooter, identified by police as Geddy L. Kramer of Acworth, Georgia, died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. See more at "Rambo-Style Shooter Goes Postal at FedEx," and "Aurora Name Game & FedEx."

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Rambo-Style Shooter Goes Postal at FedEx






The name Kennesaw is derived from the Cherokee Indian word gah-nee-sah meaning cemetery or burial ground. The name hit home on April 29, 2014.

At least six victims have been taken to a hospital after a shooting this morning at a FedEx facility in Kennesaw, Georgia, Cobb County police say. The shooting happened at a Fed-Ex facility at 1675 Airport Road in Kennesaw.

Multiple law enforcement agencies are on the scene of the suspected workplace shooting.

Officials from WellStar Kennestone Hospital say they've received six patients from the shooting, hospital spokesman Tyler Pearson said. One of the six was in surgery, he said. Injuries range from minor to serious. Kennestone is a Level II Trauma Center.

A witness stated the FedEx 19-year-old shooter, dressed all in black, had an assault rifle, a knife and bullets strapped across his chest, "like Rambo."

Rambo is a film series based on the David Morrell novel First Blood and starring Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo, a troubled Vietnam War veteran and former Green Beret who is skilled in many aspects of survival, weaponry, hand to hand combat and guerrilla warfare. The series consists of the films First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), and Rambo (2008).
FedEx is "aware of the situation," company spokesman Scott Fielder said when asked about reports of a shooting.

Officials say the lone suspected gunman was found dead, likely from a self-inflicted gun shot wound. The gunman is described as a "package handler," an employee of the facility.

The gunman has been identified as Geddy Kramer. Kramer was a 2013 graduate of North Cobb High School.
Kennesaw is about 30 miles northwest of Atlanta.
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On Friday, March 28, 2014, a FedEx employee, a 48-year-old female, making deliveries was shot and wounded in Chicago. The company confirmed the victim is an employee. Police say the Friday night shooting occurred in the Oakland neighborhood on the city's South Side.
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While "going postal," as a phrase, has come into usage, due to the workplace violence incidents at the United States Postal Services, there appears to be more silence regarding any kind of similar phenomenon occurring at FedEx centers and workplaces. Before this one.

But buried deep in workplace violence documents, there are hints of a greater problem.

The following incident of April 7, 1994, is mentioned in a workplace violence white paper:
"A Federal Express pilot took a claw hammer and attacked three others in the cockpit, forcing one of them to put the fully loaded DC-10 cargo plane through a series of violent rolls and nose dive that brought the whole crew back bleeding....The case of Auburn R. Calloway, on the other hand, who attacked three of his fellow Federal Express pilots, was unpredictable. Calloway had organized his Neighborhood Watch Program and was an ex-Navy pilot. However, he was scheduled to appear the next day before a disciplinary hearing at Federal Express to face charges that he had lied about his military and work experience."


WORKPLACE VIOLENCE

FedEx has zero tolerance for workplace violence and has established clear standards of behavior in our policies. Conflicts must always be resolved in a peaceful, professional and respectful manner. The FedEx Workplace Violence Prevention Program helps to provide team members and vendors with a safe and secure work environment. Our mission is to increase awareness of developing situations and other indicators of workplace violence. Unauthorized firearms or weapons are strictly prohibited on company-leased or -owned property and in buildings, aircraft or vehicles. Possession of firearms or weapons on company property may be grounds for immediate dismissal.

All FedEx employees are responsible for reporting potential or actual situations of workplace violence either through a special web-based reporting system, contacting a member of FedEx Management, Security or Human Resources, or calling the FedEx Alert Line in their respective countries.

All reported instances of workplace violence are investigated by a Workplace Violence Response Team, which is a group established to help maintain a safe and secure workplace. The team is made up of members from the following areas: Security, Legal, Human Resources, Benefits, Safety, Contract Relations and the Employee Assistance Program. When the Response Team receives a report of potential workplace violence, they properly investigate and make a recommendation of action to be taken.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

"My ELF Weapon"



Navy Yards shooter Aaron Alexis appears to have had an "elf" in mind when he killed a dozen people this week. But the man-without-a-middle-name was probably not talking about "little people." He carved the phrase "My ELF weapon" into his shotgun, thought people were sending vibrations into his body, and heard voices.

Was "Decatur" in his background? Aaron Alexis damaged furnishings inside a near-Decatur, Georgia, nightclub on Chamblee-Tucker Road near Interstate 285 at 1:10 a.m. on August 10, 2008, according to a disorderly conduct citation from DeKalb County police. It was probably the El Noa Noa, which is very near I-285 at 4298 Chamblee Tucker Rd, Tucker, Georgia, but it could have been El Tucanazo, at 2816 Chamblee Tucker Rd, Atlanta, Georgia.

The report says Alexis began using profanity repeatedly outside the nightspot after he was thrown out. The citation says he wouldn’t stop swearing, despite being told several times. The name of the club was not in the police report.

Mysteries are being revealed the more that is learned about Aaron Alexis. Alexis apparently carved two phrases into the stock of his shotgun before going on his shooting spree: "Better off this way" and "My ELF weapon." Officials told The Washington Post that they didn't know what either phrase meant.





But could one phrase relate to what many assassination theorists and ufologists have been talking about for years? ELF could stand for "extremely low frequency," which refers to electromagnetic fields with low frequencies, like those carried in power lines and household appliances.



It is well-documented that the U. S. Navy has used extremely low frequencies in a program with the Air Force called the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), an ionospheric research program often cited by theorists as a tool used by the government to trigger natural, unnatural, and human events.

On August 6-7, 2013, according to the Los Angeles Times, Alexis told police in Rhode Island that three people were following him and using "some sort of microwave machine" to send vibrations through the ceiling and into his body, keeping him from sleeping. He also claimed that voices were speaking to him through "the walls, floor, and ceiling."

He reportedly sought mental health treatment twice at Virginia hospitals since that incident took place. The Navy and his employer claim they had no idea that Alexis was experiencing mental health problems.

Aaron Alexis used a Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun in the Navy Yard killing spree, which he bought for $540 at a gun store in Newington, Virginia. He allegedly walked into the Navy Yard facility with the shotgun in parts and assembled it in a fourth-floor bathroom.

He tried to buy a handgun at that same store, but was denied because he had an out-of-state ID, according to the Associated Press. He also tested out an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in the store's firing range but didn't end up buying it, a lawyer for the store claimed.




Was Aaron Alexis (AA=11) focused on 9/11? What was his middle name? Was "Aaron Alexis" his invention? Following the shootings, research showed that when Alexis was arrested in Seattle in 2004 for shooting out the tires on an individual's vehicle, he informed Seattle law enforcement officers that he was present during "the tragic events of September 11, 2001." His father told police that Alexis suffered from PTSD and that he had helped rescue people from the attack site.

NBC News confirms that Aaron Alexis was "working as a clerical worker at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, located near the World Trade Center, and that he had told multiple other people that he was suffering from what he saw during 9/11."
One does not have to be a Weatherman to know which way the elfin winds blow, my friends.
Various sources include herehereherehere, and here.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Shooting At Cherokee





A workplace shooting at a St. Louis, Missouri, business on Thursday, June 13, 2013, left four people dead. It appears to be a murder-suicide, a police official said.

The owner of AK Home Health Care is believed to be the gunman, and the victims were his employees.
After a review of evidence, including a surveillance video, officers determined there had been an argument in the office of the business, Capt. Michael Sack told reporters.
"Shortly thereafter, gunshots are shown penetrating a wall inside of the business," police said in a statement.
It was unclear whether the "brief" dispute carried over from another day, Sack said.
A semiautomatic handgun was recovered. No other people were injured.

The shooting occurred at the Cherokee Place Business Incubator, apparently named after Cherokee Street where the business was located. All those dead were Somalis. 
After receiving a call at about 1:30 p.m., police rushed to the building, which houses several businesses.
Police have identified the shooter as Ahmed Dirir, a 59-year-old businessman. He killed three employees before turning the gun on himself. St. Louis police said in a news release that 44-year-old Khadra Muse of Olivette; 29-year-old Seaeed Abdulla of St. Louis; and 54-year-old Bernice Solomon-Redd of East St. Louis were killed by Dirir in the shooting at AK Home Health Care LLC, just south of the downtown area.
St. Louis Police Capt. Michael Sack has said the gunman was the owner or co-owner of the nursing services provider, and that the victims were his employees.


Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Kronospan: Swiss Workplace Shooting [Updated]




Update: A fourth person has died. Victor Berisha, 42, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, has been identified as the Kronospan shooter. He had been with Kronospan for ten years. The weapon used in the attack has been identified as a Sphinx AT 380 handgun, a compact pistol produced by a Swiss company.

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Central Switzerland is the latest location of a mass shooting in a canteen. Reports of several people being killed at their Swiss Kronospan workplace on Wednesday, February 27, 2013, are crossing the wires.



Cronus [Kronos] Devouring His Children by Francisco de Goya (1746-1828). 



Greek Pan.

Police in Lucerne canton (state) said in a statement that the shooting occurred shortly after 9 a.m. on the 27th instant at the premises of Kronospan, a wood-processing company in the small town of Menznau, west of Lucerne. They said there were “several dead and several seriously injured people” and that rescue services were deployed and the scene sealed off. They did not elaborate.

The local Neue Luzerner Zeitung newspaper cited a witness as saying that the shooter opened fire in the company canteen. Swiss news website 20min.ch, citing a reporter at the site, said police confirmed three deaths — including the assailant — and said seven people were injured, some of them seriously. Some say five have been killed.

However, police in Lucerne, the local administrative center, said they didn’t yet have figures. No identity or motive for the shooter was given.


Kronospan workers at the Menznau location.

According to the local town council, Kronospan has some 450 employees.Menznau is a municipality in the district of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. Menznau is first mentioned in 1185 as Menzenowa.

Kronos is a Titan, the father of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera.

Pan is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs. Pan also is linked to panic, behavior contagion, and the copycat effect.

Kronospan is the world’s largest manufacturer of wood panel products and laminate flooring. Kronospan began in 1897 when their first sawmill was founded in Austria. Their Oxford, Alabama plant is the company’s first in the United States, and sits on a 460 acre site in Calhoun County, Alabama.

February 27th is the 80th anniversary of 1933's Reichstag fire, in which Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was set on fire (which was blamed on Communists by the Nazis, but probably set by Nazis).


In 2001, Friedrich Leibacher walked into the canton’s parliament in Zug armed with an assault rifle, shotgun, pistol, and homemade police vest. He killed 14 people before commiting suicide in an incident that was dubbed the “Zug massacre.”

See also, Cafeteria Carnage.

Thanks to InvInk for heads up.




Friday, September 28, 2012

Season of Suicides: Of Phoenix, Fox and Paradoxes


On September 27, 2001, the Zug massacre "happened." In Zug, Switzerland, Friedrich Leibacher shot 18 citizens, killing 14 and then took his own life. Eleven years later, during the same week, things didn't look much better on the evening news.



Phoenix. 
Fox. 
Suicides.
Signs. 
Balaclava.
Lewis.
Scientology.
Anarchy.
Aurora.
James Holmes.
James Holmes.
Phoenix.



The live Fox News broadcast of the suicidal end of a car chase on September 28, 2012, perhaps was to be expected. In an autumn of atrocities following a summer of the gun, should we have seen this coming?


TVNewser carried the beginning of this news at 3:48 PM, with these words:
A man committed suicide live on Fox News a few minutes ago. FNC had been carrying a car chase in the Phoenix area and when the suspect pulled over, he ran down a dirt road, then stopped, put a gun to his head, and fell to the ground. No other national networks were carrying the chase.



Wall-to-wall coverage of car chases in California, for years, with some mainstreaming of them nationally, has always toyed with the possible tragic end of the scenarios. Car chases are a result of the copycat effect, and the danger is that televised suicide copycats could follow too.

The last two days have been especially violent, bizarre, and suicidal/parasuicidal.

On September 27, 2012, at the Stillwater (Oklahoma) Junior High School, there was the suicide of Cade Poulos, who had dressed like Two Face/Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight and the Batman comics. 

Then in the afternoon, at 4:35 PM Thursday, at Accent Signage Systems in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, an employee who was fired a few hours earlier, killed 5 [revised] people and then took his own life.
July 2012 photo shows Andrew Engeldinger. Photo: Bill Klotz.

Andrew J. Engeldinger ( = Warrior Angel Striker), 36, killed the company’s owner Reuven Rahamim, Accent’s Director of Operations John Souter, production manager Eric Rivers, and two others whose identities have not been released. Three others were hospitalized, two critically. (Update on September 29th: Death toll has risen to six; one other individual was identified, Keith Basinski, a UPS driver.)
The company is revolutionary, and the founder Reuven Rahamim (above) actually was profiled as the "Mad Scientist of Signs."

Earlier on Thursday September 27, 2012, a tragedy visited New Fairfield, Connecticut: 
A small Connecticut town was sent reeling in grief and confusion Friday after a popular fifth-grade teacher shot and killed a knife-wielding prowler in a black ski mask, only to discover it was his 15-year-old son.
No immediate charges were brought against the father, Jeffrey Giuliano, in the slaying of his son, Tyler, who was gunned down in his aunt’s driveway next door to his own home around 1 a.m. Thursday.
“It’s something out of a Hollywood script,” said John Hodge, the first selectman, or top elected official, in the town of nearly 14,000 people about 50 miles from New York city. He said he couldn’t recall another killing in his eight years on the job. (See rest of article here.)
Thursday's and Friday's incidents followed the bizarre falling (suicidal) death of Sons of Anarchy star Johnny Lewis:
Johnny Lewis' gruesome demise left many questions unanswered when the Sons of Anarchy star plummeted to his death Wednesday after allegedly killing his 81-year-old landlady.
But as more information continues to surface about Lewis—his criminal past, his custody battle over his young daughter—one particular revelation sheds an intriguing light on the troubled star: his deep ties to Scientology.
A Church of Scientology source exclusively tells E! News that the actor's father, Michael Lewis, was a high-level Scientologist and that the star was "born into the church."
Johnny Lewis, July 2010. Photo: Jerry Avenaim.


Jonathan Kendrick "Johnny" Lewis (October 29, 1983 – September 26, 2012), also credited as Johnny K. Lewis, was an American actor, best known for playing Kip "Half-Sack" Epps in the first two seasons of the FX original series Sons of Anarchy. Lewis also appeared in supporting roles in the films Underclassman, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and The Runaways. Lewis jumped from a roof into the driveway at a home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, California.


We began in Phoenix (and are reminded of the "flashlight bombs" in May in Phoenix too); we shall end in Phoenix, with a developing news story:
Most of the people who saw a masked teenager wearing a sheet and armed with a grenade launcher told authorities they assumed the weapon was a fake as he pointed it at passing cars in northwest Phoenix, according to 911 calls released Thursday [September 27, 2012].
All of the callers calmly told 911 operators that a "small man" or a "kid" was pointing what looked like a bazooka, torpedo, rocket launcher, grenade launcher or a "long gun with a point at the end" at passing cars on July 28.
"I assume it's a fake. I hope so," one man told a 911 operator. "I think you guys should check it out."
"I don't know if it's real or not, but it's kind of bizarre," another male caller said. "He's wearing a dress with a torpedo on his shoulder and pointing it left and right."
"He had it pointed at me," another man said. "I got kind of freaked out."
A Phoenix man has been accused of filming his 16-year-old nephew to see how fast police would react to a mock terrorist act.
Michael D. Turley, 39, was arrested Monday [September 24, 2012], nearly two months after the bizarre film was posted to Google Inc.'s YouTube site.
In the film, the narrator whom police identified as Turley, said he wanted to see how long it took authorities to respond. The introduction to the video mentions the July 20 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., that killed 12.
"Given this event, I wanted to run a little test here in Phoenix, Arizona," Turley said on the film in a disguised voice. "I want to find out how safe I really am, and I want to know the response time of the Phoenix police department."
The police response took just over three minutes from the first call, and a helicopter and SWAT team was dispatched as backup, according to Phoenix police spokesman James Holmes.
The YouTube clip showed the teen marching back and forth at an intersection with the camouflage-colored rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder. He was wearing a light-blue bedsheet and black head covering with black pants and black sneakers. The 911 callers' descriptions varied, with some saying it was a shawl, gown or dress.
"It looks like there's another kid with him videotaping him," one man told the operator. "They probably think it's funny. It's not really funny."
The first officer found Turley and the teen standing in Turley's driveway. The officer calmly told the boy to put down the weapon and Turley to put down the camera. Holmes said Turley told the officer they were just filming a movie, and the officer took down their names and left. (See rest of article, here).

Colorado = red. Aurora = dawn. Suspect shooter James Eagan (= fiery) Holmes.
Arizona = arid zone, small oak. Phoenix = fire bird. Police spokesman James Holmes.
Amazing.


The Phoenix has long been presented as a symbol of rebirth, immortality, and renewal. Is it also a symbol of the copycat effect, repeating patterns, and behavior contagion?
It has a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young Phoenix or Phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again.... The Phoenix's ability to be reborn from its own ashes implies that it is immortal, though in some stories the new Phoenix is merely the offspring of the older one....In the course of the colonization of Northern America a number of cities have received the name of Phoenix or have been associated with its symbolism. Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, was so named as it was built on the ruins of the Hohokam civilization that had existed on the site centuries before. The Phoenix became the official symbol of Atlanta, Georgia in 1888 because it was "reborn" from the ashes after it was burned down in the American Civil War. ~ Wikipedia

Two other cities that use the Phoenix as their symbol: Detroit, Michigan and Portland, Maine (where I have lived since 1983).

Locations associated with the "Phoenix" symbolism are said to have had "new dawns" (auroras) occur after terrible fires destroyed large parts of their cities.

Thanks DJ, SM, MB, AWG, AM, CS, and others.