50 Years Ago: Charles Whitman Climbed The Texas Tower

No multiple sniping incidents impacted the United States like the one committed by Charles Whitman, who was born [June 24] in Lake Worth, Florida in 1941. Early on the morning of August 1, 1966, Whitman killed his mother in her apartment and his wife at their home. At about 11:30 A.M., Whitman then climbed up to reach the University of Texas Tower (elevation of 231 feet), bringing along six guns, a shotgun, ammunition, a footlocker, knives, food, and water. On his way up, he clubbed the receptionist (who died later) on the 28th floor, and he killed two persons and wounded two others who were coming up the stairs from the twenty-seventh floor. From the observation deck of the tower, Whitman then opened fire on persons crossing the UT campus and on side streets, further killing 10 people and wounding 31 more (one of whom died a week later). For 96 minutes, he held the campus hostage. Finally, at 1:24 P.M., after several attempts, police and a deputized private citizen Allan Crum reached the observation deck, where police officers Ramiro Martinez and Houston McCoy shot and killed Whitman. Altogether, seventeen persons were killed, including Whitman, and thirty-one were wounded in what is still regarded as one of the worst sniper events in modern American history.*

Little known today is that this event encouraged police departments across the USA to develop what came to be Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams, as Gary M. Lavergne points out in his excellent reference work on this subject, A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders. The tower itself became a site of tragedy remembered and deaths produced. A series of suicides from the Tower, along with the horror of Whitman’s act, convinced the University of Texas Board of Regents to close the observation deck of the Tower in 1975. Not until 1998 was a vote taken to reopen the Tower, but only after the introduction of metal detectors, and the building of protective fencing around the deck to discourage suicidal jumpers. With those changes in place, Whitman’s sniper nest was reopened to the public in 1999.

The cultural influence of the Whitman event lives on in our culture to such an extent that it colors how we look at any sniper event….From songs to movies, there are hints of Charles Whitman all around us. Singer Harry Chapin wrote a long 1970s folktune Sniper, and Texan Kinky Friedman's facetious The Ballad of Charles Whitman carried on the tradition. Kurt Russell starred in The Deadly Tower (1975), later renamed Sniper, which was set at the Louisiana State Capitol because Texas officials would not allow its use by the filmmakers. References to Whitman continue in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, Rick Linklater’s Slacker, and even in Ron Howard’s Parenthood. Whitman is even credited with having an impact on the works of writer Stephen King and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, as both have admitted. As the D.C. sniper horror unfolded, one lone sniper, Charles Whitman was brought up, over and over again, from such diverse publications as the Workers World to the Right Wing News, from New Age tracts to less than mainstream Internet sites, demonstrating the widespread nature of this person’s story was having on the D.C. snipers tale. ~ The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow’s Headlines by Loren Coleman (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004).

* The number was raised to 17, officially, years later. David Gunby, 58, was shot in the lower back. He died of his wounds in 2001; the coroner ruled his death a homicide.

 Charles Whitman as a Marine.

Schoolboy Q's SUV Targeted At Red Rocks Shootings

UPDATE: ScHoolboy Q was briefly detained following a shooting in the parking lot of Red Rocks Amphitheater after his Colorado show with Nas last night. The shooter was firing at his SUV.

Police, looking like they had stepped from a military action movie, are shown searching a parking lot at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, after a shooting the night of June 19, 2004. Apparently, the shooting was an attempt on ScHoolboy Q. (Photo: Glen Ross)

Rapper Schoolboy Q was inside of the vehicle that a gunman opened fire on late Thursday outside of Red Rocks Amphitheater, injuring three other people, authorities said Friday.

Earlier...

The uniforms of the responding officers to the Red Rock incident appeared to denote this as a SWAT-worthy reaction. SWAT (acronym for "Special Weapons And Tactics") is a commonly used proper name for law enforcement units, which use military-style light weapons and specialized tactics in high-risk operations that fall outside of the capabilities of regular, uniformed police.

It was August 1, 1966, a tragic event occurred in Austin, Texas. A man named Charles Joseph Whitman, a honor student, used a high-powered rifle to randomly kill over a dozen people and wounded over thirty more from the University of Texas Clock Tower Building in Austin. This incident is best known as the Texas Tower Sniper and is credited as being the sparking event for "The Birth of SWAT." Source

The Jefferson County (Colorado) Sheriff's Office investigated a triple shooting late Thursday night that happened following a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Three victims (all alive) were found in a Chevy Suburban stopped by police at 7th Avenue and Kalamath Street at about 11 p.m. Red Rocks was shut down afterwards, with no one being allowed in or out of the park.

Police put this man (which turns out to be ScHoolboy Q) in handcuffs during an investigation into the shooting that occurred at Red Rocks Amphitheater Thursday night. No arrests, said The Denver Post, (the photograph above shows Q being detained, apparently) have been made in the shooting. (Credit: Karl Gehring, The Denver Post) 

Nas

Schoolboy Q

Flying Lotus

The Red Rocks concert, noted the Denver media, featured Nas, Schoolboy Q and Flying Lotus.

Jefferson County Sheriff's officers, Denver Police, the Lakewood and Morrison Police Departments and the Colorado State Patrol were searching the cars of all concertgoers. Almost two hours after the conclusion of the concert, there were still many people on the scene.

Red Rocks Amphitheatre is a rock structure near Morrison, Colorado, 10 miles west of Denver, where concerts are given in the open-air amphitheatre. There is a large, tilted, disc-shaped rock behind the stage, a huge vertical rock angled outwards from stage right, several large outcrops angled outwards from stage left and a seating area for up to 9,450 people in between. The amphitheatre is owned and operated by the City and County of Denver, Colorado and is located in Red Rocks Park, part of the Denver Mountain Parks system.

Originally the place was known as the "Garden of the Angels" (1870s-1906), and then as "Garden of the Titans" during the Walker years (1906–1928). The park, however, had always been known by the folk name of "Red Rocks", which became its formal name when Denver acquired it in 1928. The amphitheatre's rocks are named "Creation Rock" on the north, "Ship Rock" on the south, and "Stage Rock" to the east. Red Rocks Amphitheatre was designed by Denver architect Burnham Hoyt.