June 24: A "Hot" Date in 2015?

What is that firestorm coming?

Looking at the event-filled and politically-heated days leading up to the summer of 2015, I must predict that it appears something "hot" is going to happen on June 24th. Maybe even beginning on its eve, June 23rd?

Not sure if it is a fire, a ufologist's death, an assassination, another church shooting, a form of mass violence or what, but something is in the air.

This will mark yet another anniversary of the beginning of the era of "flying saucers" - 68 years, to be sure. But more than UFOs have happened on past June 24ths.

June 24th is St. John’s Day. 

The modern era of "flying saucers" did begin with Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting on this date. Unidentified flying objects seen flying at supersonic speeds between his plane and Mt. Rainier, Washington. Arnold reported that nine discs flew off towards Mt. Adams, in the distance.

Some previous events on this day include:

Knights Templars displayed “Mysterious Head” at Poitiers (1308). Founding of the Order of the Garter (1348). A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance (1374) caused people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations, and jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapsed from exhaustion. John Cabot discovered North America (1497). Lucrezia Borgia (1439) died. Samuel de Champlain discovered (1603) the mouth of the Saint John River, in New Brunswick, Canada. Galileo released (1633). “Woman of the Wilderness” utopian community arrived in America (1694). “Woman of the Wilderness” angelic visions (1701). Grand Lodge of Freemasons inaugurated (1717) in London. Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed (1812) the Neman River beginning the invasion of Russia. Ambrose Bierce born (1842). Red rain, Italy (1877). Ice fall, Ft. Lyon, Colorado (1877). Fall of jelly-like mass, Eton (1911). Fred Hoyle born (1915).

Pieces of a meteor, estimated to have weighed 450 metric tons when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded, landed (1938) near Chicora, Pennsylvania.

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June 24ths have often had a "fiery" theme.

Arthur Brown ("Fire," 1942 or 1944, both are reported) is born. Jeff Beck (Yardbirds, 1944), Charlie Whitney (Family, 1944), and Chris Wood (Traffic, 1944), all born. Colin Blunstone (The Zombies, 1945) born. Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac, 1947) born.

Filmstock fire killed seventeen people, Brussels (1947). Movie theaters evaluated during huge fire, Perth Amboy, New Jersey (1947). United Airlines plane struck by lightning over Cleveland. Ohio (1947). Invasion of grasshoppers battled with flame-throwers, Guatemala/El Salvador (1947). Woman attacked and killed by bees or wasps, Seattle (1947).

More births of future musicians. Patrick Moraz (Yes, 1948), John Illsley (Dire Straits, 1949), Astro (UB40, 1957), Dennis Danell (Social Distortion, 1961), Curt Smith (Tears for Fears, 1961), and Richard Z. Kruspe (Rammstein, 1967) were all born on June 24ths.

Bizarre aerial sightings near Daggett, California (1950) and on Iwo Jima (1953). The Angora Fire (2007) started near South Lake Tahoe, California, destroying over 200 structures in its first 48 hours.

On June 24, 1908, Grover Cleveland, the 22nd & 24th US President (1885-89, 93-97), died at the age of 71. On June 30, 1908, the Tunguska event, a large aerial explosion of unknown origins, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, Russia, occurred. The UFO wave of 1909 in New Zealand followed sightings in the Southland in June 1908.

The topic of the death of ufologists is a modern but old one in the field.

In 1971, UFO author Otto Binder claimed that at least 137 UFO investigators had died under mysterious circumstances during the 1960s. Binder's 1971 Saga article, "Liquidation of the UFO Investigators," summarized his findings.

Additionally, tied to a specific date, Otto Binder (1911-1975), as well as John Keel (1930-2009), noticed a number of “seemingly coincidental deaths in the UFO field on 24 June.” 

These included the following:

June 24, 1964, Frank Scully, author of one of the first crashed-saucer books;

June 24, 1967, both British UFO contactees Arthur Bryant and Richard Church; and

June 24, 1969, Willy Ley, the rocket scientist and Fortean author.

Furthermore, on June 23, 1967, Frank Edwards, popular UFO author and radio personality in the 1950s, died a few hours before Bryant. James Moseley stunned the delegates assembled for the 1967 Congress of Scientific Ufologists at New York City’s Hotel Commodore on June 24th, with the news of the sudden death of Frank Edwards.

I have continued to track June 24th UFO-related deaths since Binder's time.

One person's June 24th death I found seems to have been underreported. That individual is Robert Charroux, the best-known pen-name of Robert Joseph Grugeau (born April 7, 1909). He died June 24, 1978. Charroux was a French author known for his ancient astronaut theories and writings on other Fortean subjects.

Charroux's books include: Treasures Of The World (1967); The Mysterious Unknown(1972); Forgotten Worlds: Scientific Secrets of The Ancients and Their Warning For Our Time (1973); The Mysterious Past (1974); Legacy Of The Gods (1974); The Mysteries Of The Andes (1977); Masters Of The World: Groundbreaking New Revelations About The Ancient Astronauts (1979); and One Hundred Thousand Years Of Man’s Unknown History (1981).

Still others have died on June 24th since then.

An early advocate of flying saucer research, Jackie Gleason, died June 24, 1987.

June 24, 2006 saw the death of renegade publisher Lyle Stuart, who published anomalist writer Frank Edwards’ Fortean book, in 1959, Stranger than Science, a paperbook full of information on ufology and other unexplained accounts.

On June 24, 2013, former rocket scientist, computer scientist, and author of After the Internet: Alien Intelligence (2000), James Martin, 79, was found floating dead in the waters off Agar's Island. Dr. Martin bought Agar’s Island in 1977 and made his home in Bermuda. The multi-millionaire kept a relatively low profile in Bermuda.

Alan Myers was a member of Devo, seen here on their Freedom of Choice album cover.

On June 24, 2013, the most prominent drummer (1976-1987) of the band Devo, Alan Myers, died of stomach cancer in Los Angeles. Devo played punk, art rock, post-punk and new wave music, and performed stage shows that mingled kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor, and mordantly satirical social commentary. Devo recorded at their own UFO Studios.

Alan Myers

Mystery deaths are thus often associated with St. John's Day.

The day is named after John the Baptist, in celebration of his birth date. The feast day of his birth (June 24) became celebrated more solemnly than that marking his martyrdom by beheading (August 29). This is unusual but then "strange" and June 24th go hand and hand.

Other facts about the day's events respect the wonder of the 24th of June.

Bonfires and burning of witches are associated with the day.

Throughout Europe, and via the United Kingdom, St. John's Day's symbolism spread to the USA. In the UK, and especially, Scotland, bonfires are a key. Should we be surprised to find it so in North America too?

St. John’s Day (”Jaanipäev”) is a major traditional holiday in Estonia, celebrated by singing around bonfires, in Estonian communities in the United States and Canada as well as in Estonia itself. The glow-worm, because it usually starts appearing around St. John’s Day, is called Jaaniuss – "St. John’s Worm" – in Estonian.

In France, the Fête de la Saint-Jean (Feast of St John), traditionally celebrated with bonfires (le feu de la Saint-Jean) that are reminiscent of Midsummer's pagan rituals, is a catholic festivity in celebration of Saint John the Baptist. It takes place on June 24, on Midsummer day (St. John's day). In certain French towns, a tall bonfire is built by the inhabitants in order to be lit on St. John's Day. In medieval times, this festival was celebrated with cat-burning rituals.

Of course, there will be no cat burnings during most American or other worldwide celebrations. But a bonfire might be in order. Fire in the sky is a major underlying theme of this day.

St. John's Eve and St. John's Day are powerful, in the minds of humans.

The iPhone 4 was first placed for sale on June 24, 2010.

Some people even create their own special events to be specifically associated with the day...

Monroeville is located near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Happy Birthday to Arthur Brown on June 24.

Now for a few cryptid events...

Photo archive: Strange Ark

Two Inuits killed a huge, yellow-furred bear at Rendezvous Lake, Barren Ground, Canada, on June 24, 1864. The bear was similar to Arctodus simus, which died out in the Pleistocene. Naturalist Robert MacFarlane acquired the bear’s skin and skull, and shipped the remains to the Smithsonian Institution, where they were placed in storage and soon forgotten. Eventually, Dr. Clinton Hart Merriam uncovered the remains, and in 1918, he described the specimen as a new species and genus, calling it the “patriarchal bear,” with the scientific name Vetularctos inopinatus. Today, it is often recognized as a new species, Ursus inopinatus. Later thoughts have called into question the uniqueness of this species. (For more, see Matt Bille's contribution.)

On other June 24th, locals have had Bigfoot sightings, in Logan and Union counties, Ohio (1980). A Chupacabras was encountered outside a disco, at Maria Elena, Argentina (2000). Moose hunters saw a Bigfoot, near Fort Simpson, NWT, Canada (2002). A mysterious fire erupted in Mothman country, in a Gallipolis, Ohio resident’s car on a bridge from Ohio to Point Pleasant, West Virginia (2003). Massive unusual aerial phenomena (winged weirdies?) were viewed at Xalapa, Mexico (2005). “Aren’t You Chupacabra to See Me?” aired for the first time on Cartoon Network (2005). Nestle used Bigfoot-costumed marchers to launch Kit Kat Limited Edition – Cappuccino at the Giant Mahkota Parade, Malacca, and Jusco Tebrau City, Johor (2005).

What will happen in 2015?

Please see also

Are You Still Alive? UFO Deaths, Revisited

Ufologist Stanton Friedman Suffers Heart Attack

Ufologist Dale Rettig Dies

Tom Benson, 3rd UFO Researcher To Die In A Week

Fortean Biographer Colin Bennett Has Died

Rocky Wood, Expert on Kaikoura UFOs & Stephen King, Dies

Chariots of the Gods Screenwriter John Fasano, Dies

Ten Predictions: Ten Hits

Zamora Dies

There's A Storm Coming: Dylann Storm Roof

Dylann Storm Roof is the alleged killer of nine people on the evening of June 17, 2015, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. He was captured the morning after the attack in Shelby, North Carolina, at a traffic stop on Route 74.

Dylann Storm Roof? Is that his real (birth) name?

"There's a storm coming...," of course, from The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Colorado's Aurora, "red dawn," and James Holmes come to mind.

There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us. - The Dark Knight Rises

What more does the moniker tell us? The simple explanations run in these directions.

Dylan: This is a Welsh name linked to the Celtic word for "sea." Also, it can be read as "Sea God" = Neptune, Poseidon. And there we go with the Trident, again.

Giant Neptune and his Trident on Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Storm: An occurrence of bad weather in which there is a lot of rain, snow, and often strong winds.

Roof: 

This unusual and interesting name derives ultimately from the Old Germanic personal name "Hrodwulf", which is composed of the elements "hrod", meaning "renown" and "wulf", wolf. In Old Norse the contracted form was "Hrolfr", in Old Danish and Old Swedish "Rolf", and these personal names reached England first through their popularity with Scandinavian settlers before the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Normans thereafter introduced their own form of the name, generally found as "Rou" or "Roul" and often Latinized as "Rollo". There are more than twenty variants of the modern surname, ranging from "Rolf", "Rolfe", "Rolph" and "Roalfe" to "Rofe", "Roff", "Roffe", "Roof", "Rulf" and "Rule". Source.

But the middle and surname, Storm Roof, suggests a neo-Nazi bent.

T. Peter Park has noted, via an email communique:

"Storm Roof" sounds like an attempted Anglicization of "Sturmruf," German for "Storm-Call." It recalls the original Nazi storm-troopers, the S.A. or "Sturmabteilung" ("Storm-Section"), and also the American white supremacist and neo-Nazi website "StormFront," as well as the line from the song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me!" from Cabaret, "But gather together to greet the storm--Tomorrow belongs to me!" All this, I suspect, suggests that "Dylan Storm Roof" (whatever his real name might turn out to be) is something more than just one more run-of-the-mill garden-variety Southern racist, but rather is "into" the far-right "hard stuff."

The Sturmabteilung symbol

Dylann Storm Roof appeared to hold some decidedly racist beliefs, and subscribed to displaying symbols reinforcing these stances. In a Facebook photo, Roof is seen frowning at the camera wearing a jacket with two flags: one representing Rhodesia and the other apartheid South Africa. Both were countries with white minority rule. (Rhodesia was in the country now known as Zimbabwe. After an international campaign against apartheid, South Africa began dismantling their policies in 1990.)

See more from Andrew W. Griffin, in this vein, here, "Roof Shooter: Alleged gunman in Charleston massacre nostalgic for apartheid era?"

The church Roof allegedly attacked is one of the United States' oldest black churches. The senior pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator, was among the nine people killed. In the immediate aftermath, police sought a white male, later identified as Dylann Storm Roof.

Select past June 17ths:

1462 – Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.
1497 – Battle of Deptford Bridge: Forces under King Henry VII defeat troops led by Michael An Gof.
1565 – Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.
1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Vienna, Virginia.
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign.
1876 – American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.
1877 – American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
1933 – Union Station massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.
1972 – Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.
1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

As noted, June 17 is the anniversary of when the Statue of Liberty came to the USA. "Liberty" is a goddess named for and representing the concept Liberty has existed in many cultures, including classical examples dating from the Roman Empire to those representing national symbols such as the American Columbia and its Statue of Liberty. Columbia has appeared before in mass shooting. One of the most obvious, of course, being Columbine, the name of the high school and today associated with the name of the massacre that happened there (Littleton, Colorado) on April 20, 1999. On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrated during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

Now, we find that Dylann Storm Roof has his quota of Columbia-linked names in his unfolding story:

In February 2015, [Dylann Roof] attracted attention at the Columbiana Centre, a shopping mall, when, dressed all in black, he asked store employees "out of the ordinary questions" such as how many people were working and what time they would be leaving, according to a police report.
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Roof’s current address is listed in public records as being in this rural speck of a town southeast of Columbia with an overwhelmingly black population.
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From school records, Mr. Roof appears to have moved back and forth as a child between Richland County, which includes Columbia and Eastover, and nearby Lexington County to the west. He attended ninth grade twice: at White Knoll High School in Lexington in the 2008-9 school year and, the next school year, at White Knoll until February 2010, when he transferred to Dreher High School in Columbia.
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Ms. Scott, who is black, said she was “scared to death” after hearing news reports that Mr. Roof wanted to kill black people. “My concern is that he’s saying he’s out to kill black people,” she said, unaware that he had been arrested. “We’re the closest ones to him.”
She added that her grandmother had called her Thursday morning and told her: “Get out of that bed. That boy was from Garners Ferry,” the name of the street where she and Mr. Roof lived. Source.

Roof was apprehended about 11 a.m. on June 18, 2015, after a motorist spotted his black Hyundai Elantra, which displays an apartheid “Confederate States of America” license plate on the front bumper, while driving near Shelby, North Carolina.

In an odd twist, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday, June 18, 2015, that Texas could refuse to offer specialty Confederate flag license plates that had been requested by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

[Debbie] Dills, driving from her home in south Gastonia into work, first spotted [Dylann] Roof on U.S. 74 near Sparrow Springs Road in Gastonia [North Carolina].
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“She called me when she was at the exit for Kings Mountain on Highway 74,” [her boss Todd] Frady said. “I called Shane Davis, then he called Shelby PD.”
According to Dills and Frady, Shelby Police Department had officers near the Shelby Ingles location on U.S. 74/West Dixon Boulevard and Polkville Road. Just 20 short minutes after Dills’ initial call to her boss, Shelby police pulled Roof over near Plato Lee Road.
After initially spotting Roof's car in south Gastonia, she said she followed Roof’s car to the Kings Mountain exit on Bypass 74, then exited to head to work at the florist shop. Something didn’t feel right to her, so she made a quick right turn onto Kings Street and headed back to the bypass and traveled west to attempt to catch up to Roof to provide more details.
She caught up with Roof’s Hyundai, again, near the Wal-Mart in Shelby and continued to follow him, while she stayed on the phone with Frady. She saw Shelby police begin to follow Roof at the Ingles on U.S. 74 and Polkville Road. She stayed behind, then knowing the situation was under control, she made a U-turn at Cleveland Funeral Services, but seemed to still want to see the process all the way through.
When she U-turned, again, she saw flashing blue lights and Shelby Police officers lining the side of West Dixon Boulevard with Roof pulled over and apprehended. Source.

All of this happened near and/or in Shelby.

Shelby, North Carolina?

Perhaps the late James Shelby Downard, Synchromysticism's Godfather, is having a little nod about that twilight language sidetrip?

And the names of the victims?

All of the victims were black, six women and three men. Eight died at the scene, while the ninth, Daniel Simmons, died in the hospital. They were all killed by gunshots fired at close range. A five-year-old child played death to stay alive. One other person was wounded, but survived. Three survived, in total. The fatalities were identified as:
Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, 54, a Bible study member, public library employee and sister of former North Carolina State Senator Malcom Graham
Susie Jackson, 87, a Bible study member
Ethel Lee Lance, 70, a 30-year church sexton
Depayne Middleton, 49, a Bible study member
Clementa C. Pinckney, 41, church pastor and South Carolina State Senator
Myra Thompson, 59, a Bible study member
Tywanza Sanders, 26, a Bible study member and 2014 college graduate from Allen University
Daniel Simmons, 74, a reverend at the church
Sharonda Singleton, 45, a reverend at the church and track coach for Goose Creek High School

Why would Roof pick the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church?

There is no doubt that if you wanted to hit at the heart of the black church in America, the location to attack would be "Mother Emanuel." Hillary Clinton was there shortly before the shootings. Jef Bush was scheduled to visit, but cancelled after the killings.

The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is located at 110 Calhoun Street, Charleston, South Carolina.

"Mother Emanuel" A.M.E. Church History

The history of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church reflects the development of religious institutions for African Americans in Charleston. Dating back to the fall of 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Richard Allen founded the Free African Society, adhering to the Doctrines of Methodism established by John Wesley. In 1816, black members of Charleston's Methodist Episcopal church withdrew over disputed burial ground, and under the leadership of Morris Brown. The Rev. Morris Brown organized a church of persons of color and sought to have it affiliated with Allen's church. Three churches arose under the Free African Society and were named the "Bethel Circuit". One of the Circuit churches was located in the suburbs of Ansonborough, Hampstead, and Cow Alley, now known as Philadelphia Alley in the French Quarters of Charleston. Emanuel's congregation grew out of the Hampstead Church, located at Reid and Hanover Streets.
In 1822 the church was investigated for its involvement with a planned slave revolt. Denmark Vesey, one of the church's founders, organized a major slave uprising in Charleston. Vesey was raised in slavery in the Virgin Islands among newly imported Africans. He was the personal servant of slavetrader Captain Joseph Vesey, who settled in Charleston in 1783. Beginning in December 1821, Vesey began to organize a slave rebellion, but authorities were informed of the plot before it could take place. The plot created mass hysteria throughout the Carolinas and the South. Brown, suspected but never convicted of knowledge of the plot, went north to Philadelphia where he eventually became the second bishop of the AME denomination.
During the Vesey controversy, the AME church was burned. Worship services continued after the church was rebuilt until 1834 when all black churches were outlawed. The congregation continued the tradition of the African church by worshipping underground until 1865 when it was formally reorganized, and the name Emanuel was adopted, meaning "God with us". The wooden two-story church that was built on the present site in 1872 was destroyed by the devastating earthquake of August 31, 1886. The present edifice was completed in 1891 under the pastorate of the Rev. L. Ruffin Nichols. The magnificent brick structure with encircling marble panels was restored, redecorated and stuccoed during the years of 1949-51 under the leadership of the Rev. Frank R. Veal. The bodies of the Rev. Nichols and his wife were exhumed and entomed in the base of the steeple so that they may forever be with the Emanuel that they helped to nurture. Source.

It is worthy of noting that Jim Brandon, an associate of James Shelby Downard, began writing me several months ago about the high frequency of people with the name Nichols (and related crypto-Nick forms) showing up as a significant name in some of these sync events.

Brandon wrote me in 2012, that he "wanted to add...to the Names of Power list – Nicholas and permutations (from Old Nick and Santa Claus up)...."

So, in the news of the last two days, here it develops that the Mother Emanuel serves as an actual tomb for the deceased Reverend Nichols and his wife.

Brandon and I were also talking about places to watch, and on November 14, 2014, he penned this:

Charleston, the war sparking point at pentagonal Ft Sumter, we also of course know as the starting place of the Scottish Rite, being on latitude 33 degrees.

The War Between the States, the Civil War, began in Charleston, lest we forget in the midst of all this wall-to-wall coverage of Dylann Roof. The Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, USA, of Albert Pike note, began there too.

Very War Between The States: Roommate Dalton Tyler quoted Dylann Storm Roof. “He was big into segregation and other stuff,” Tyler told ABC News. “He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”

Very Charlie Manson (Aquarius on television): Dylann Roof confessed to authorities to shooting and killing nine people this week at a historically black Charleston, South Carolina, church, two law enforcement officials said. One of the officials said that Roof, who is white, told investigators that he wanted to start a race war, reported CNN.

And more to come on another day....

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See also 

Fifty Church Shootings & Killings: 1999 - 2015

Elm Street: The Mason Road of JFK/King-Kill/33

Bane/Bain: Batman's Villain & Romney's Curse

Aurora: Synchromystic Wonderland

Ten Predictions: Ten Hits

Fifty Church Shootings & Killings: 1999 - 2015

June 17, 2015 - Charleston, South Carolina - On the evening of June 17, 2015, a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The church is one of the United States' oldest black churches. The senior pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator, was among the nine people killed. In the immediate aftermath, police sought a white male, later identified as Dylann Storm Roof. He was captured the morning after the attack in Shelby, North Carolina, at a traffic stop on Route 74.

May 24, 2015 - Hartford, Connecticut - The Rev. Dr. Augustus Sealy, 54, who leads the First Church of the Nazarene in Hartford, was shot outside the church. Sealy was placing flags in front of First Church of Nazarene there in honor of Memorial day when he was shot three times. He was shot twice in the right leg, and once in the left shoulder. The date was his fifth anniversary as the pastor.

December 4, 2014 - Bradenton, Florida – Manatee County Sheriff reported that Pastor Tripp Battle of Bayshore Baptist Church and Bayshore Baptist’s Nursery/Children’s director Amber Avalos were killed by the husband of suspected shooter Andy Avalos.

June 13, 2014 - Phoenix, Arizona - Two Priest were shot at Mother of Mercy church in Phoenix. Pastor Walker died at the scene and Pastor Joseph Terra was injured.

September 27, 2013 – Lake Charles, Louisiana – Woodrow Karey, 53, of Lake Charles, is accused of walking into a Calcasieu church, shooting and killing Pastor Ronald J. Harris Sr., as he was preaching during a revival.

September 18, 2013 - South Bend, Indiana - Police officials reported that a gunman wearing a mask entered a South Bend church Wednesday Evening and shot two bullets at a church member working inside. Sunday Kingdom Christian Center in South Bend. 

August 20, 2013 – Chicago, Illinois - Three men in a white vehicle fired gunshots at a group of people on the steps of the Uptown Baptist Church. Witnesses told police that one gunman fired as many as 20 shots from the vehicle. Three of the people who were shot were listed from stable to critical condition. One person shot was in critical condition and on life support, and was not expected to survive.

July 22, 2013 - Norwood, Missouri – Earnest J. Smith, 48, was arrested and faced five separate felony charges after Police say he fired two shots inside the Norwood First Baptist Church during Sunday morning services. Earnest Smith was held in the Wright County Jail on $250,000 cash only bond. Earnest Smith had made previous threats in the past to kill the pastor and members of the church. People attending the church at the time had tackled Smith and held him until deputies could arrive.

March 31, 2013 – Ashtabula, Ohio - On Easter Sunday during mass, Reshad Riddle entered Hiawatha Church of God in Christ screaming about God and Allah, with a gun in his hand according to witnesses. While parishioners were leaving the church, Reshad then shot his 52-year old father, Richard Riddle. Riddle was immediately arrested and taken into custody by police.  

January 12, 2013 – Flint, Michigan – Police authorities report that Steven E. Lawson, 28, was shot to death just outside the sanctuary of Full Gospel Christian Church on King Avenue near Home Avenue, while attending the funeral for Gerrell Tyler. No arrest have been made at the time of this posting.

December 25, 2012 – Oakland, California - Bullets were fired outside the East Oakland church during church services. Authorities reported that a 17-year-old male was struck outside the church, and inside, a 38-year-old woman was struck by a stray bullet while shielding her 7-year-old twins. Police reported that injuries were not life-threatening.

December 10, 2012 – Sunrise, Florida – A man shot what authorities believed to be his ex-girlfriend woman multiple times outside of Faith Center Church, before killing himself, according to authorities and witnesses. The shooting took place while hundreds of congregants were exiting the sanctuary just before 1 p.m.

December 3, 2012 – Coudersport, Pennyslvania – A man walked inside First United Presbyterian Church and shot his ex-wife as she sat in the church pew. According to officials, the man's ex-wife served as organist and choir director. Gregory Eldred, 52, of Coudersport, has been charged with first-degree murder, accused of twice shooting Darlene Sitler, 53.

November 5, 2012 – Los Angeles, California - One churchgoer was killed and another wounded while trying to stop a teenage girl from spray-painting graffiti on the side of the Principe de Paz (“Prince of Peace”) church located on the Beverly Boulevard in the Westlake district. Janeth Lopez, 22; Pedro Martinez, 24; and Ivy Navarrete, 31, were charged in the killing of Adres Ordonez, 25, who had been a churchgoer there since he was 10.

October 29, 2012 – Fort Worth, Texas - A paster was killed by an attacker who rammed a car into a church wall, chased the pastor and beat him with an electric guitar. Pastor Danny Kirk Sr., was the founding pastor of Greater Sweethome Missionary Baptist Church.  

October 31, 2012 – Atlanta, Georgia - Floyd Palmer walked into the chapel of World Changers Church International, during prayer services in the evening and shot Gregory McDowell as he led a prayer service. Palmer was charged with murder in McDowell’s shooting death.

September 6, 2012 – Pensacola, Florida - Escambia County Sheriff’s deputies received a call around 6 p.m. of a shooting. The victim was Pastor Laddie Pierce of West Pensacola Baptist Church. Pierce was shot during bible study, before their normal Wednesday service. Officials at the scene did not believe the injuries are life threatening. The 72-year-old man who shot the pastor of West Pensacola Baptist Church on Wednesday night did so because he thought the minister was cheating with his wife, according to an arrest report.

August 5, 2012 - Oak Creek, Wisconsin - Six Sikh temple members were killed when 40-year-old Army veteran Wade Michael Page opened fire in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, at their temple. Page killed himself as cops moved in.

June 7, 2012 – DeKalb County, Georgia - Two people were killed and two others were wounded during a shooting outside of a funeral at Victory for the World Church in DeKalb County.

May 3, 2012 – Ellicott City, Maryland – Rev. Mary-Marguerite Kohn, co-rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, and Brenda Brewington, were killed on May 3, 2012 by a homeless man, after he was apparently turned away from the church’s food bank. The homeless man identified by authorities as Douglas Jones, was found dead in the woods nearby the church by self inflected gun shot wounds.

April 22, 2012 – Aurora, Colorado – Police say the mother of Pastor De Lono Straham, Destiny Christian Center, was shot and killed in the afternoon at the end of the Sunday worship service. The Police say the shooting suspect and the pastor’s mother were shot and taken to a local hospital where they both died. The suspect was shot by an off-duty Denver Police officer who was a member of the church and is the pastor’s cousin. Police had no motive for the shooting.

February 14, 2012 – St. Petersburg, Florida – A pastor’s daughter was accidentally shot in the head in a Florida church and died. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says 20-year-old Hannah Kelley died in the hospital.

January 24, 2012 – Wentzville, Missouri – A man was unintentional shot after a fundraiser at St. Patrick Catholic Church. Police report that during the taking down of decorations while people were popping balloons there was a pop that was unrecognizable and members discovered that 23-year-old Aaron Dwan, was the victim of a gunshot wound. Aaron was rushed to the hospital where he was reported as in serious condition but stable condition. Police report that a “person of interest” went to the police where the police have determined that the shooting was not intentional. 

September 18, 2011 – Lakeland, Florida - Jeremiah Fogle, 57, was charged with murder and attempted murder after Sunday’s shootings at Greater Faith Christian Center Church. Pastor William Boss and associate pastor Carl Stewart were shot from behind, authorities said. Boss was shot in the head, and Stewart was shot three times in the back and ear.

December 24, 2010 – Chattanooga, Tennessee – Nine people were injured after a Christmas Eve party at Club Fathom, Mosaic’s outreach program for urban youth. The Christmas shooting stemmed from an argument inside the church during a party. Police have arrested two juveniles, one being a 15-year-old with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder, nine counts of aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy and reckless endangerment. 

November 16, 2010 – Oakland, California – At 11:45 am, a man attending a class at an East Oakland church was lured outside and shot to death on the sidewalk under a cross, church members said.

September 27, 2010 - Youngstown, Ohio - A church community haunted by the parking-lot shooting death of an 80-year-old member is mourning the killing of another elderly parishioner minutes after leaving church. Someone fired up to a dozen shots at Thomas Repchic, 75, as he drove from church with his 74-year-old wife, who was wounded but expected to recover. The couple had just left St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church, where Jacqueline Repchic works in the office on Saturdays. 

August 30, 2010 - Visalia, California - The fatal shooting of a lay bishop occurred at a Mormon church by a man who was killed in an ensuing confrontation with officers. Clay Sannar, a 42-year-old father of six boys, was doing administrative paperwork on Sunday between services when a man came in and asked for a leader of the congregation, said church official Ralph Jordan. The man was directed to Sannar and fatally shot him, said Colleen Mestas, the police chief in Visalia, southeast of Fresno in California’s Central Valley. Then, someone called police and identified himself as the gunman. When police arrived at the church, they confronted the man and exchanged gunfire, said Mestas. The gunman was shot multiple times and pronounced dead at nearby hospital.

February 14, 2010 - Richmond, California - Three hooded men walk into Gethsemane Church of God in Christ and opened fire and then fled the scene, as the singing of the choir was replaced by frightened screams. The two victims, a 14-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man, were hospitalized.

January 7, 2010 – Gaines Township, Michigan – Youth Pastor MarShon Peoples was shot in the head after he denied eight teens entry into the “Streams of Hope” party he was hosting because they smelled like alcohol and marijuana, according to Pastor Peoples. After teens refused to leave after repeatedly being asked by Pastor Peoples who then elected to contact the police. According to Pastor Peoples, that is when he was shot. Witnesses said that approximately 25 shots were fired but no else was hurt. Pastor People is recovering well after surgery to remove the bullet from his head. Pastor Peoples said that he harbors no hard feelings toward the young men who shot him.

March 8, 2009 - Maryville, Illinois - Suspect Terry Joe Sedlacek, 27, of Troy, walked into the First Baptist Church, and shot pastor Fred Winters dead, point blank. Several
church members were injured by a knife in the struggle to capture after the attack. The suspect also stabbed himself, but survived, when his gun jammed.

Feb. 18, 2009 - Garden Grove, California - A man walks into the internationally known Crystal Cathedral, hands a greeter a note, then kneels in front of a cross and shoots himself in the head, leaving him dead at the altar.

July 27, 2008 - Knoxville, Tennessee - A gunman opens fire in a church during a youth performance, killing two people and injuring seven. Motivated by a desire to kill liberals and Democrats, gunman Jim David Adkisson fired a shotgun at members of the congregation during a youth performance of a musical, Annie Jr.

December 9, 2007 - Arvada-Colorado Springs, Colorado - The 2007 Colorado YWAM and New Life shootings were a killing spree beginning in the early morning hours, when 24-year-old Matthew J. Murray opened fire at the Youth With A Mission training center in Arvada, Colorado, with a pistol, killing two and wounding two others before escaping. Later that afternoon, he attacked the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with a number of firearms, killing two more people and injuring three before being shot and wounded by a member of the church's congregation; he then died by suicide.

May 20, 2007 - Moscow, Idaho - A standoff between police and a suspect in the shootings of three people in a Presbyterian Church ended with three dead, including one police officer.

Aug. 12, 2007 - Neosho, Missouri - First Congregational Church - 3 killed - Eiken Elam Saimon shot and killed the pastor and two deacons and wounded five others.

Oct. 2, 2006 - Lancaster County, Pennsylvania - Attack by a gunman who killed five girls and then himself. While not at a church, this occurred at an Amish school targeted as a religious site.

May 21, 2006 - Baton Rouge, Louisiana - The Ministry of Jesus Christ Church - 4 killed - The four at the church who were shot were members of Erica Bell's family; she was abducted and murdered elsewhere; Bell's mother, church pastor Claudia Brown, was seriously wounded - Anthony Bell, 25, was the shooter.

Feb. 26, 2006 - Detroit, Michigan - Zion Hope Missionary Baptist Church - 2 killed + shooter - Kevin L. Collins, who reportedly went to the church looking for his girlfriend, later killed himself.

April 9, 2005 - College Park, Georgia - A 27-year-old airman died after being shot at a church, where he had once worked as a security guard.

March 12, 2005 - Brookfield, Wisconsin - Living Church of God - 7 killed + shooter - Terry Ratzmann opened fire on the congregation, killing seven and wounding four before taking his own life.

July 30, 2005 - College Park, Georgia - World Changers Church International - shooter killed - Air Force Staff Sgt. John Givens was shot five times by a police officer after charging the officer, following violent behavior.

Dec. 17, 2004, Garden Grove, Calif.: A veteran musician at the Crystal Cathedral shoots himself to death after a nine-hour standoff.

Oct. 5, 2003 - Atlanta, Georgia - Turner Monumental AME Church - 2 killed + shooter - Shelia Wilson walked into the church while preparations are being made for service and shot the pastor, her mother and then herself.

June 10, 2002 - Conception, Missouri - Benedictine monastery - 2 killed + shooter - Lloyd Robert Jeffress shot four monks in the monastery killing two and wounding two, before killing himself.

March 12, 2002 - Lynbrook, New York - Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church - 2 killed - Peter Troy, a former mental patient, opens fire during Mass, killing the priest and a parishioner. He later receives a life sentence.

May 18, 2001 - Hopkinsville, Kentucky - Greater Oak Missionary Baptist Church - 2 killed - Frederick Radford stood up in the middle of a revival service and began shooting at his estranged wife, Nicole Radford, killing her and a woman trying to help her.

Nov. 1, 2000, Kansas City: The wife of a minister fatally shoots her daughter and then herself.

Sept. 15, 1999 - Fort Worth, Texas - Wedgewood Baptist Church - 7 killed + shooter - Larry Gene Ashbrook shot dead seven people and injured a further seven at a concert by Christian rock group Forty Days in Fort Worth, Texas before killing himself.

April 15, 1999 - Salt Lake City, Utah - LDS Church Family History Library - 2 killed + shooter - Sergei Babarin, 70, with a history of mental illness, entered the library, killed two people and wounded four others before he was gunned down by police.

Fortean Biographer Colin Bennett Has Died

Colin Bennett was a British researcher known among Forteans and Ufologists for his insightful biographical works. I have just been alerted to his passing at the end of 2014, by editor Patrick Huyghe.

Bennett died on December 13, 2014, after suffering two diabetic strokes in December. He passed away at the Hospital of St. Cross, Rugby, Warwickshire, England. His funeral was held on January 14, 2015, at the Rainesbrook Crematorium. He is survived by his children Ceri and Andy, and his grandchildren Georgia, Madison, Olivia and Finn. He had lived on Portobello Road, London.

Colin Bennett was born on April 2, 1940, in Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest, within arrow-shot of the Sheriff of Nottingham's castle. He left school after studying science and mathematics, became a professional musician, then a mercenary soldier before winning a scholarship to read English at Balliol College, University of Oxford.

After leaving Oxford, he had several plays performed on the professional stage in London, including the Royal Court Theatre, before re-training as an electronics engineer. Bennett then ran his own electronics consultancy and printing firm. 

Bennett frequently was consulted on security, conspiracies, and computer hacking. 

Bennett had two novels published, early in his writing career. He also was the author of Looking for Orthon (Paraview Press), a biography of George Adamski. His next book was on the life work and ideas of Charles Fort, entitled Politics of the Imagination (Headpress). That book won the Anomalist Award for Best Biography, 2002. His third biography was An American Demonology (Headpress), the story of Captain Edward Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book in the early 1950s. This Project was the official United States Air Force investigation into the UFO phenomenon.

Bennett continued writing into the 2000s, online and elsewhere.

The following are some of his published books.

Practical Time Travel (Red Wheel Weiser, 1971)

Entertainment Bomb (New Futurist Books, 1996)

Looking for Orthon (Foreword by John Michell; Paraview Press, 2001)

Politics of the Imagination: The Life, Work and Ideas of Charles Fort (Foreword by John Keel; Headpress, 2002).

 An American Demonology: Flying Saucers Over the White House (with contributors Nick Pope and Jerome Clark; Headpress, 2005.)

Rumford Rogues: Tales from Consumer Life (Headpress, 2010)

Thor's Stone: Thurston School Shootings' Name Game

Thurston means "Thor's Stone." It is a name involved in school violence incidents since, at least, 1998. Today gives us another example.

2015 Incident

Emergency dispatchers confirmed reports of an active shooter, a 15- or 16-year-old boy, was armed with a handgun, on campus about 7:40 a.m., on Monday, April 27, 2015. In the Year of the Ram, school violence visited another Thurston.

A gunman at North Thurston High School, 600 Sleater Kinney Road NE, Lacey, Washington State, near Seattle, fired, at least, two shots in a common area, and then was tackled by staff members, according to the school district. No one was hurt.
The school is in lockdown. Lacey police said the gunman is in custody.

A parent shows the text message she got from her child at North Thurston High School in Lacey, Wash., April 27, 2015. (Photo: KING 5 News)

North Thurston High School, located in the North Thurston Public Schools District in Lacey, Washington, is a comprehensive high school, which first opened in 1955. North Thurston serves a portion of Lacey and northeast Thurston County. The school is accredited by the Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The principal is Tyler Roach.

This school has been a focus of concern in the past. According to the October 24, 2006, issue of the Mason County Daily News, a North Thurston School District teacher from Shelton, Washinton, was accused of bringing a gun onto school grounds and had to resign. The North Thurston School Board accepted the resignation of Mary Catherine Roe, a language arts teacher at Nisqually Middle School.

North Thurston High School is not to be confused with the Thurston High School shooting of Springfield, Oregon.

It will be recalled that on May 21, 1998, Kip Kinkel brought school violence to his fellow students at Thurston High School.

On that day, in Springfield, Oregon, two students were killed, and 22 others were wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kipland "Kip" Kinkel. His parents were later found dead at home. Kinkel had brought three weapons to the high school, a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 caliber handgun, and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol. 

Kinkel was convicted of shooting his parents, William, 59, and Faith, 57, in their Springfield home and, the next day, opening fire in the Thurston High School cafeteria, wounding 25 students and killing Mikael Nickolauson*, 17, and Ben Walker, 16.

Kinkel was sentenced to 112 years in prison in the Thurston shootings. His case was a precusor to the Columbine High School massacre of April 20, 1999.
My further investigations revealed that two other school shootings happened on that date in 1998.

From my book, The Copycat Effect, following my discussion of the Springfield, Oregon shooting, I wrote:

On the same day, May 21, 1998, 200 miles due north, at the end of the school day, Miles Fox, 15, a student of Onalaska High School, Onalaska, Washington, took a young woman hostage from his bus to his home, and died by suicide from a shot to his head. As the story aired on radio and television, Ricardo Martin, 15, shot himself with a .38 caliber pistol and died on the campus of Rialto High School, in Rialto, California.

The events happening earlier on May 21, in Springfield, Oregon, had been all over the radio, Internet, and news channels constantly, all day.

Thurston has had ripple effects through other school violence.

The Gresham, Oregon, Tuesday, April 10, 2011, school shooting was triggered by the shooter's viewing of the recent National Geographic Channel's The Final Report: Columbine.

The shooter Chad Antonio Escobedo had watched the Columbine documentary and decided April 7 that he would do a shooting at his school because he was angry. The incident took place at Springwater Trail High School in a Portland suburb. Coincidentally, the principal at Springwater — Larry Bentz — was principal at Thurston High School in Springfield, when the Kip Kinkel shooting occurred in 1998.

Thurston Name Game

The Thurston name game is strong in these school violence events. Thurston is an English-language surname. It appears to have originated from the Old Norse personal name Þórsteinn. This name is derived from the Old Norse elements Þórr ("Thor," the Scandinavian thunder god) and steinn ("stone," "rock").

As an aside, the name game kicks into high gear in a historical baseball-Hawaiian sidetrip, for Mr. Baseball writes:

Alexander Cartwright died on July 12, 1892, from blood poisoning from a boil on his neck. The Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown six months later on January 17, 1893. A group of Americans in Honolulu formed to request of President Benjamin Harrison that Hawaii be annexed to the United States. The president was in favor. The individual leading the cause for annexation was Lorrin Thurston. Coincidentally, Thurston had played baseball at Punahou School at the same time as Alexander III and Bruce Cartwright Sr.

Thurston, as a surname, is tied to powerful political and historical individuals in Hawaii, Oregon, Washington State, and elsewhere.

Howard Thurston (July 20, 1869 – April 13, 1936) was a stage magician from Columbus, Ohio, United States. He was the most famous magician of his time, and his traveling magic show was the biggest one of all; it was so large that it needed eight train cars to transport his road show.

In fiction, the character Francis Wayland Thurston was the narrator of The Call of Cthulhu.

Thor's Stone/Thurston

Thurstaston Hill is the location of Thor's Stone (shown), a large sandstone outcrop and a place of romantic legend. In the 19th century it was supposed that early Viking settlers may have held religious ceremonies here. A visit to the site by members of the British Archaeological Association in 1888 heard an account by Rev. A. E. P. Gray, rector of Wallasey, that the "Thor Stone" was also known in the locality as "Fair Maiden's Hall" and that children were "in the habit of coming once a year to dance around the stone". This part of Wirral was certainly part of a Norse colony centred on Thingwall in the 10th and 11th centuries. However, geologists and historians now think that the rock is a natural formation similar to a tor, arising from periglacial weathering of the sandstone, which was later exploited by quarrymen in the 18th and 19th centuries. Source.

As far as locations, several sites are named Thurston, and linked to people of that name:

Antarctica
Thurston Glacier, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica

(Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for Thomas R. Thurston, United States Antarctic Research Program meteorologist at Byrd Station in 1965.)
Thurston Island, off Ellsworth Land, Antarctica

(The island was discovered from the air by Rear Admiral Byrd on February 27, 1940, who named it for W. Harris Thurston, New York textile manufacturer, designer of the windproof "Byrd Cloth" and sponsor of Antarctic expeditions.)

United Kingdom
Thurston, Suffolk, England, a village

(Allegedly, a local name meaning "settlement.")

United States
Thurston County, Nebraska
Thurston, Nebraska, a village

(The county and village were named after the United States Senator John M. Thurston.)
Thurston, New York, a town

(The town is named after early landowner William Thurston.)
Thurston, Ohio, a village
Thurston, Oregon, several places

(The settlement was named for pioneer George H. Thurston, and Thurston post office was established in 1877.)

Thurston, Virginia, an unincorporated community
Thurston County, Washington

(It is named after Samuel R. Thurston, the Oregon Territory's first delegate to Congress.)

April 27

April 27, 1911: Manhattan, Kansas, During a school play rehearsal, a revolver was accidentally loaded by a boy who tried to shoot a bird with it the day before. When the girl was to use the firearm as written in the script, she picked it up, then laid it down saying she was afraid of the old thing. The Teacher, Miss Reedy then grabbed the gun and said there was no need for alarm and pointed it at the girl, Pearl Reedy, 18 years old, and squeezed the trigger. The bullet lodged near her heart fatally wounding her.

April 27, 1936: Lincoln, Nebraska, Prof. John Weller shot and wounded Prof. Harry Kurz in a corridor of the University of Nebraska, apparently because of his impending dismissal at the end of the semester. After shooting Kurz Weller tried to escape, but was surrounded by police on the campus, whereupon he killed himself with a shot in the chest.

April 27, 1966: Bay Shore, New York, Teacher John S. Lane, 48, was shot and fatally wounded when he tried to stop 16-year-old student James Arthur Frampton, who was walking through the halls of Bay Shore Senior High School with a shotgun, searching for some boys with whom he had an argument earlier that day. Lane died of his wounds on June 13, 1966.

The Future

With the fatal crossbow incident in Spain on the Columbine anniversary, a school violence threat in Columbia, South Columbia, also on April 20th, and now this event, should we watch out during May 2015, for other school incidents?

Past school violence events have shown that the suicidal-homicidal rampage-styled shooters often focus on in-school cafeterias, for example, at Aarhus University, Denmark (1994), Thurston High School, Oregon (1998), Montreal, Ecole Polytechnique, Montreal (1998), Columbine High School, Colorado (1999), Red Lion Area Junior High School, Pennsylvania (2003), and Dawson College, Montreal (2006).

__________

*In terms of the name game, Bill Grimstad has been alerting his correspondents to an especially active "power name" in recent years: Nicholas. Please see the scholarly discussion of this name, here.

Columbine Copycats Continue: Teacher's Crossbow Death in Barcelona

There has been a fatal death in a school in Spain. We should not be surprised it happened today, April 20, 2015.

Someone has posted the top photo at the Joan Fuster School website. It is a screen capture from a past season of Game of Thrones, in which crossbows become important story elements, involved in various significant deaths.

A 13-year-old Spanish boy armed with a crossbow and a machete killed a substitute teacher and injured four people at his school, the Joan Fuster School in the La Sagrera neighborhood of Barcelona, Spain.

La Sagrera, according to my research associate Red Pill Junkie, is from the word sagrera, which translates as the hallowed space around consecrated chapels, inside which cellars and store rooms were built to keep wine and cereals.

Therefore, I must observe, in terms of the name game, this is a "cereal"/"serial" killing, of sorts.

There is an occult nose-thumbing at the bottom of many of these twilight language cereal murders, such as Jack the Ripper - poking fun at the investigators and the public because so many don't get the black comedy at the heart of it. It's a feeling of superiority magnified exponentially. ~ Michael Hoffman III, Cereal Murder and the Group Mind, 2000.

The Joan Fuster School is named after Joan Fuster i Ortells (November 23, 1922 – June 21, 1992), who was a Spanish writer. He is considered a major writer in Catalan language, and his work contributed to reinvigorate left-wing, pro-Catalan nationalism in Valencia during the Spanish transition to democracy. In his influential political essay Nosaltres, els valencians (1962) he coined the term Països Catalans (Catalan Countries) to refer to the Catalan-speaking territories, for which he claimed independent statehood from Spain. Intriguingly, datewise, on September 11, 1981, two bombs exploded in his house, damaging heavily his library and archive. Nobody was prosecuted, but it is widely believed that it was the anti-Catalan far right's response to Fuster's political and cultural position.

In the school attack today, a substitute teacher shot was dead from the use of a crossbow. Four others were injured, including two female teachers.

The Spanish Teachers' Union says this is the first ever case of a pupil carrying out fatal attack on teacher in Spain.

Due to the legal system in Spain, the student cannot be charged for attack as he is under the criminal age of responsibility in Spain. Police have detained a 13-year-old after a teacher was shot dead with a crossbow and several others injured in a Barcelona secondary school.

"A male teacher was killed shortly after 9am this morning at the Joan Fuster secondary school in Barcelona," a police spokesman told The Local.

The weapon used in the attack was widely reported to be a crossbow, but there was no official confirmation from police.

The male teacher, thought to have been working as a social sciences substitute, was killed after being shot with a crossbow by a 13-year-old pupil, who was also armed with a dagger (or a machete, in some reports).

She confirmed that four others had been injured. "Two female teachers and two pupils suffered injuries and three of them are recovering well in hospital," the spokesman for the Catalan police force told The Local.

A report in the Vanguardia said he was obsessed with the military and had a collection of weapons at home. A fellow pupil told the Catalan newspaper that his classmate had said he wanted to kill all the teachers at the school and was known to draw up blacklists.

According to reports in Spanish media, the male pupil arrived late at school, at around 9:15 a.m.

The teacher who was killed reportedly came running from the next door class room when he heard screams.

Spanish media are reporting that the pupil fired at a female teacher who opened the door to him, as well as her daughter, who was one of his fellow pupils.

Hearing screams, a teacher from a neighboring classroom came running to help and was fatally shot in the chest.

The teacher "left to see what was happening and that was when the young man attacked him," one student, who requested anonymity, told AFP.

Moments later the suspect went into the teacher's own classroom, attacked a girl and went back into the hallway with a knife in his hand.

Terrified students closed the classroom door and barricaded it with furniture.

Apparently, the Spanish media are publishing graphic imagery, such as above.

In 2012, a man was arrested for reportedly planning to plant bombs around a university in Palma de Mallorca. The man had written in an online blog and personal diary of his admiration for the 1999 Columbine killers in Colorado.

The Joan Fuster attack was carried out on the 16th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in the US, when two students murdered 12 students and one teacher.

The attack on Monday morning also immediately sparked comparisons to the fictional story, We Need to Talk about Kevin, in which dysfunctional teenager Kevin carried out a crossbow massacre at his high school gym.

The 2003 novel by Lionel Shriver was turned into a movie in 2011 starring Tilda Swinton.

Spain has had three previous well-known cases of crossbow attacks, according to El Pais.

In 2009, a German man who was reportedly mentally ill became obsessed with Spanish actress Sara Casanovas. The man found Casanovas at a Madrid theatre, fired the crossbow aimed at her, but she was able to dodge the shot and stage technicians restrained him until police arrived.

The Barcelona area was the site of a similar crossbow crime in 1994 when 20-year-old Andrés Rabadán, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, killed his own father before turning himself in.

In 1986, a man and his brother-in-law were charged for killing a man, who was allegedly extorting one of the perpetrators, by beating him with a baseball bat, stabbing him in the arm with a crossbow arrow and shooting him with a shotgun.

This may be one of the most dangerous copycat times of the year.

April 19th is the anniversary of the deaths occurring at the end of the Waco events and the Oklahoma City bombing. It is an older anniversary of the Revolutionary War, of militia deaths, and other violent incidents - Patriots' Day, celebrated in Massachusetts and Maine. 

The Boston Marathon Bombing took place two years ago - in 2013. This race happens on Patriots' Day.

Patriots' Day (sometimes incorrectly punctuated Patriot's Day or Patriots Day) is a civic holiday commemorating the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War. It is observed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and State of Maine (once part of Massachusetts), and is a public school observance day in Wisconsin. Observances and re-enactments of these first battles of the American Revolution occur annually at Lexington Green in Lexington, Massachusetts, (around 6 am) and The Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts (around 9 am). In the morning, a mounted re-enactor with State Police escort retraces Paul Revere's ride, calling out warnings the whole way.

In 2013, the race ended very badly, with the bombing.

Let's also revisit April 19th for 1993 and 1995, for a moment.

The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located nine miles east-northeast of Waco, Texas. An exchange of gunfire resulted in the deaths of four agents and six followers of David Koresh. A subsequent 51-day siege by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ended on April 19th when fire destroyed the compound. Seventy-six people (24 of them British nationals) died in the fire, including more than 20 children, two pregnant women, and Koresh himself.

The Oklahoma City bombing was the bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, when American militia movement sympathizer Timothy McVeigh allegedly detonated a truck filled with explosives parked in front of the building. McVeigh's co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, had assisted in the bomb preparation. Their motive allegedly was to avenge the government's handling of the Waco siege and Ruby Ridge incidents. (Intriguingly, Rebirth of Pan author Jim Brandon has pointed out to me that "Nichols" and its variations are on his "names of power" list to watch.)

Then Columbine happened on April 20, 1999.

On April 20, 1999, two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, carried out a deadly shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado killing 12 students and a teacher, and wounding 24 others before dying by suicide.

This is a danger zone time of year for school violence. Columbine haunts the world of school violence. Just in 1999, over 500 copycat threats and incidents occurred in North America.

Let's not forget that Columbine happened on Hitler's birthday too.

Then on April 26, 2002, on Rudolf Hess's birthday, Robert Steinhäuser, killed 16 people plus himself at his Erfurt, Germany high school. He had files on his computer, which contained information about the Columbine Massacre. Steinhäuser had outdone the Columbine total (which may have been one of his goals).

Adolf Hitler, it will be recalled, died by his own hand, ten days after his birthday, on April 30, 1945, exactly 70 years ago, in 2015.

The Virginia Tech shooting (also known as the Virginia Tech massacre) was a school shooting that took place on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech, shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others in two separate attacks (another six people were injured escaping from classroom windows), approximately two hours apart, before dying by suicide. Cho noted the Columbine killers in his writings. There is no doubt it was a copycat.

In Cho Seung-Hui's twisted and tortured mind, the Columbine killers were martyrs on a par with Jesus Christ. And the world had forced him to join their ranks. Friendless by choice, he accepted Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as his brothers, and dreamed that his violent acts would bear "children." ~ "Cho idolized Columbine killers," Denver Post, April 18, 2007.

Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui plagiarized other school shooting psychos in a twisted show of one-upmanship. He used the Internet to research and learn from infamous school killers, including Columbine's Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold..."Cho was an empty vessel and he poured himself full from images off the Internet...," said Loren Coleman, an expert on school shootings and the author of The Copycat Effect. "There's a psychological process that these shooters appear to be competing for - the high body count." ~ "Sick homages from a student of psychos," N.Y. Post, April 22, 2007.

I have been warning about this "Red Danger Zone" time for years. Now the Grim Reaper has struck in Spain.

Murder and suicide are two sides of the same coin played out in going postal, workplace violence, shooting spree, and school shooting incidents, which are impacted by the copycat effect. Watch for any of those this week too.

Being forewarned and aware is half the battle. Vulnerable, suicidal, homicidal youth need help and attention, long before it gets to the stage where they feel there's no turning back. Keep talking, take care, get people help, and remain alert, with your guard up.

A few bloggers may wish to demean the predictive insights of known patterns, but ridicule does not overwhelm the reality of history. Killers do pick special dates.

And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time. And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us." ~ Magnolia, 1999.

The Wonderful Richard Dysart, 86, Has Passed Away

Richard Dysart died on April 5, 2015, at his home in Santa Monica, California, having just turned 86, on March 30. Born in Boston, Dysart grew up in Maine. After high school, he attended Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine, for one year, then served in the U.S. Air Force. He went to Emerson College in Boston to earn a master's degree in speech communications.

Dysart's connection to Maine led to my asking him if he would work with me on a project. I was the executive producer of a government-sponsored public service announcement on elder fire prevention, and I had to get a video made. The end result, There’s No Place Like Home - Straight Talk About Elders and Home Fires was taped in 1989, at the University of Southern Maine, Portland, and then shown around the country.

I befriended Dysart and his wife the artist Kathryn Jacobi, whom he brought to Maine with him. He stayed for a week in my family cabin in Rangeley, Maine, during the time we (director Dan Porter, our crew, and I) needed to film him. We kept in touch for a time, after he returned to what he called "The People's Republic of Santa Monica." A socially conscious political man, Dysart quietly lived his life there, until he also bought another place to relax in British Columbia.

I was interested in using Dysart in our Maine-based PSA because of his role as a sharp elder man in his then-current, award-winning series, L.A. Law. Dysart portrayed the crusty senior partner Leland McKenzie in the slick, long-running drama L.A. Law. L.A. Law was an American television legal drama series that ran for eight seasons on NBC from September 15, 1986 to May 19, 1994.

Long before L.A. Law, Richard Dysart was an accomplished actor. In 1979, he was featured in the film Being There, portraying a good-hearted physician. In 1980, he portrayed Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in the television film The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd. He voiced the kindly miner Uncle Pom in the Disney English-language version of Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 adventure classic, Castle in the Sky, and voiced the character of "Cogliostro" on Todd McFarlane's Spawn: The Animated Series, which aired on HBO.

Dysart also starred in movies such as The Last Days of Patton, The Day of the Locust, The Rumor Mill, Pale Rider, The Falcon and the Snowman, Prophecy, The Thing, Warning Sign, Hard Rain, Mask, An Enemy of the People, Wonderland, The Hospital, The Hindenburg, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, and Back to the Future Part III. Many horror movie fans loved Dysart especially in The Thing, a role that is vividly recalled by anyone that appreciates that film.

Dysart created the role of Coach in the original Broadway production of Jason Miller's Pulitzer Prize winning play, That Championship Season in 1973. He appeared in an episode of the 1976 CBS television series Sara. He appeared in several more roles.

Dysart came out of retirement for his last onscreen appearance, the L.A. Law reunion telefilm of 2002.

"They remain timely, with cases about points of law that are still current," he said of watching L.A. Law reruns in a 2002 interview with The Bangor Daily News. "[The show] was also one of the fathers of yuppiedom. It was very much of the times, and very Los Angeles. It holds up as well as any series I know."

Dysart and his wife Kathryn Jacobi were married from 1987 until the time of his death.

A good and kind man has left the stage.

Peace be with you, Richard.