Showing posts with label Ft. Hood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ft. Hood. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

In The Wake Of Fort Hood

There has been some foolish news articles in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting deaths discussing Islam, ignoring the underlying similar nature of that shooting to "rampage killings" and not understanding that in its wake copycats would naturally occur.

Indeed, people should open their eyes and look, yes, merely look, at the faces of the victims and the shooters to find some overlaps that are striking in those killed and the killers. Lost in all of the talk of the Fort Hood alleged shooter's Muslim background is the fact that he targeted mental health professionals in the group he fired upon. Did the Fort Hood shooter aim at some who most reflected parts of himself that he hated ~ even down to shooting at bald or short-haired men and mental health personnel?


The Fort Hood victims.


The Fort Hood shooter.


The Orlando killer.


The New York Hostage Taker.

Note the similar facial features, and overall appearance of these men. The suicidal "rampage" individual tends to identify with one another in a cycle on many levels, including visually.

We need only let the facts be recorded and the unfolding history of such events speak to the reality of behavior contagion occurring.

On Friday, November 6, the day after the Guy Fawkes Day shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, authorities in Orlando, Florida, said a debt-ridden man Jason Rodriguez, 40, who believed his former employer was interfering with his unemployment benefits was blamed for a workplace shooting. Rodriguez was fired by the engineering firm of Reynolds, Smith and Hills two years ago. Otis Beckford, 26, was the lone fatality in the shooting, and five were wounded.

Then on Tuesday, a standoff began around 7:45 a.m. Eastern Time and was over by about 10 a.m. at an upstate New York middle school. A former student Christopher Craft Sr., 42, got into the Stissing Mountain Middle School just after classes began Tuesday morning carrying a hidden disassembled shotgun. He allegedly put the weapon together in bathroom before holding Principal Bob Hess hostage for more than an hour.

Craft had two sons who had attended the school, but school officials said neither was currently enrolled. Craft has a son in the military and is allegedly upset with the government. Police say Craft and his hostage were contained to one room in the school, located about 90 miles north of New York City.

Later on Tuesday, November 10, police report that two have died in a suburban Portland, Oregon office park shooting. The two people were killed and two others wounded in a shooting at a Tualatin office park. The shooting at a drug-testing facility was reported at 11:48 a.m. Pacific Time Tuesday. Police said the suspect is not at large but there are no additional details.

KATU-TV reported a witness describing one woman wearing something that looked like a lab coat with blood coming from what appeared to be multiple gunshot wounds.

Do you happen to think that the Portland, Oregon shooter will be revealed to be a middle-aged male with close-cropped or no hair?

Update: This one appears to be a domestic murder-suicide brought to work. The shooting took place at Legacy Metro Lab in Tualatin, Oregon. It has been confirmed that two people are deceased, one of which included the adult male shooter who died from what appears to be a self inflicted gun shot wound. The other deceased was an adult female employee of the business. Robert James Beiser, 39, shot and killed his estranged wife Teresa Marie Beiser, 36, and then himself. The wounded are a 20-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man.

Further Update: Vail, Colorado ~ A man was killed and three others were injured in a shooting Saturday night, November 7, 2009, at the Sandbar in West Vail, Police Chief Dwight Henninger said. Witnesses said a man was being removed from the Sandbar by staff when he began firing a gun. Richard “Rossi” Moreau, 63, a Vail resident, was taken into custody as the suspect in the shooting, Henninger said. The man who died was from Carbondale, and the ages of the three other victims, all male, were 25, 29 and 63, police said.


Suspect Richard Moreau appears to fit the physical profile of the shooters during this rampage cycle. What is the twilight language being transmitted in the mere broadcasting of the Ft. Hood killer's image?

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Fort Hood Shootings

Breaking: Alleged Fort Hood lone gunman -- U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- is alive and in custody, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone.

And so while the news also was that there were two suspects in custody, another still on the run, and another dead, by Thursday evening, the military said "one shooter, still alive" and the earlier report of a dead law enforcement officer is wrong too. It's a female and she is still alive too.


Updated earlier.

Remember, remember the 5th of November: Today is Guy Fawkes Day!

The dead suspect has been identified as a mental health professional, Army psychiatrist Major Malik Nadal Hasan, who had voiced objections to being deployed to the Mideast. It is not known if Hasan was Muslim.

Hasan was born in Virginia and got a bachelor's degree in biochemistry at Virginia Tech, where he was a member of the ROTC, in 1997. He received his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine in 2001.

He completed a residency in psychiatry at Walter Reed in 2007 and a fellowship in disaster and preventive psychiatry, also at Walter Reed, this year. He also did his internship there.

Ten years after Hasan's graduation, Virginia Tech was the scene of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a senior English major, killed 32 people and wounded dozens of others in two attacks before killing himself.

Fort Hood, located just 60 miles north from Austin, is the largest U.S. military installation in the world, and has suffered the greatest number of casualities of all American bases in the war on Iraq.

The base is a 340 sq. mile facility located in Killeen, Texas (Bell County) and is home to the 1st Cavalry Division, which was one of the first groups of soldiers deployed to Iraq.

On October 16, 1991, George Hennard murdered 23 people and then died by suicide in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen (known as Luby's Massacre).

Earlier///

Latest figures are that 12 are dead (including one shooter), 31 wounded, one of the dead includes a civil law enforcement officer; one shooter was said to be a "major" with an "Arab-sounding name." Two other suspects are in custody.

Earlier///Earlier///

Breaking news out of Ft. Hood, Texas, is that upwards of 9 soldiers have been killed and about 30 others were injured by one, two, or three uniformed individuals shooting at post personnel.

One uniformed suspect (an "officer") was in custody, another "cornered" suspect may have also been arrested, and rumors of a third shooter are being heard.

Other locations on or near Ft. Hood are also reporting gunfire.

President Obama addressed these events at 5 pm Eastern.

===
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy)
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
And what should we do with him? Burn him!