http://www.northjersey.com/
Are N.J. schools secure?
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
By CAROLYN SALAZAR, DOUGLASS CROUSE and JASON TSAI
STAFF WRITERS
Tiny surveillance cameras are mounted outside high schools and middle schools from Little Ferry to Ringwood. Staff members in Wanaque carry swipe cards that record who enters and leaves the high school. In Paterson, students are randomly scanned with hand-held metal detectors.
Ever since the Columbine school shootings became synonymous with random violence, districts have spent considerable time and money trying to make their schools safe.
But in the wake of a deadly shooting Monday in Lancaster County, Pa., educators say there is a limit to what they can do.
"I do think you can go too far," said Al Guazzo, superintendent of Lakeland Regional High School in Passaic County.
"I don't want a chain-link fence with razor wire around our campus. If you make it like a prison and treat students like inmates, that's how they'll behave. If you put them in an adversarial environment, they'll respond adversarially."
Last year, districts in Bergen and Passaic counties received a quarter-million dollars in federal grants to buy security equipment for their schools. Some, like Little Ferry and Paramus, bought security cameras hooked up to their town police department. Others, like Hackensack, began closing some school entrances to limit the traffic into and out of buildings.
Police officers throughout North Jersey also began receiving more sophisticated training on how to properly respond to school shootings.
Some believe it takes more than fancy equipment to create a safe environment.
"I've been to a lot of workshops where they talk about metal detectors and all that stuff -- but all that does is provide a false sense of security," said Michael Kuchar, superintendent in Bergenfield. "The best way to prevent another Columbine is to know your kids, have anti-bullying programs [and] create an environment where you have mutual respect. There is certainly no silver bullet, but it really comes down to outreach and respect."
Of course, Kuchar pointed out, that wouldn't have stopped what happened Monday in Pennsylvania, where a 32-year-old milk truck driver carrying three guns and a grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
At least seven other victims were critically wounded, state police said.
Most of the victims had been shot execution-style after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
A 20-year-old grudge
Charles Carl Roberts IV was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" said one Pennsylvania police official, who declined to say what that grudge was.
Random acts of violence are as difficult to prevent as they are to predict, experts say.
On Sept. 13, a gunman killed a woman and injured others at Montreal's Dawson College before killing himself. Two weeks later, a drifter in Bailey, Colo., took six female high school students hostage, killing one and then himself. Last Friday, a 15-year-old former student fatally wounded his school principal in Wisconsin.
Although Monday's attack bore similarities to last week's Colorado shooting, experts said it was much too early to speculate whether the copycat phenomenon has taken root.
"Sometimes, it is the graphic media or other things that are blamed. First it was comic books, then video games, then Prozac," said Loren Coleman, author of The Copycat Effect. "But wall-to-wall media coverage spurs these things, as well."
Monday's shooting, Coleman said, is the latest in a recent string of similar attacks involving outsiders whose inner, suicidal intentions "are turned outwards as homicide."
Uniform training
In Bergen County, law enforcement officials have spent the past year training in how to respond to such incidents. Rather than having each municipality carry out its own security plan, the Bergen County Police Chiefs Association released a training guide last year that required all departments to follow the same procedures -- allowing officers in Mahwah, for instance, to know how to respond to a school shooting in Fairview.
The active-shooter program is now a requirement for new recruits, and many departments have required all their officers to go through the daylong course at the Bergen County Law & Public Safety Institute. This summer, dozens of police officers from across the county trained at a Ramsey school, where they learned how to breach classroom doors and look for shooters during a simulated exercise.
"Police have a limited amount of manpower, and they really don't have the time to wait for a SWAT team to show up," said New Milford Police Chief Frank Papapietro, who is chairman of the association's mutual aid committee. "So now if a shooting happens at a school, police officers have learned to at least isolate the shooter or neutralize him. They really can't wait for specialized teams any more."
Ramsey Police Chief Brian Gurney said the training programs have prepared local police officers better in how to deal with a shooting. But he said it is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that anyone -- police, educators or students -- can prevent something like this from happening anywhere.
"Who would have ever thought something like this would have happened in some little schoolhouse in Amish country? Really, who would have thought?" he said. "Nobody is safe. All you need is one deranged person who lashes out and tries to seek revenge."
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
What's Behind School Shootings?
Six school shootings in less than six weeks: experts comment on cluster
Canadian Press via Yahoo! Canada News Mon, 02 Oct 2006 3:58 PM PDT
By Anne-Marie Tobin
(CP) - It has an all-too-familiar ring to it: at least three girls were killed before a gunman turned his weapon on himself at a school, this time a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa.
The tragedy Monday brings to six the number of school shootings in the United States and Canada in recent weeks, and experts say it's not surprising that we're seeing a cluster.
Wade Deisman, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, has given the subject some thought - both in and out of class - since gunman Kimveer Gill stormed into Dawson College in Montreal on Sept. 13, killing Anastasia De Sousa, 18, and wounding 20 people.
He's not certain that copycatting is at play, but notes that as a general phenomenon, finding out about someone else's rampage can serve as an example.
"It erodes some of what might be previous cognitive barriers to doing something," Deisman said from Ottawa.
"Seeing somebody else do it makes it seem more ... alluring to do it, maybe more attractive to do it, to some of these people."
The first incident in this cluster occurred on Aug. 24, when Christopher Williams, 27, went to a school in Essex, Vt., looking for his ex-girlfriend, a teacher. He couldn't find her and fatally shot one teacher and wounded another. His ex-girlfriend's mother was also killed before he shot himself twice in the head.
Six days later, a 19-year-old in Hillsborough, N.C., killed his father, then opened fire at Orange High School, wounding two students before surrendering.
And last week, there were shootings in both Wisconsin and Colorado.
In Cazenovia, Wis., a principal was killed, and a 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
In Bailey, Colo., a 53-year-old gunman held six girls hostage in a school, and sexually assaulted them before killing a 16-year-old girl and then himself.
Deisman said there are "gateways" to unlawfulness that include falling into a peer group that teaches disrespect for the law, and a belief that the "system" is not fair.
He noted the anger and willingness to die that was revealed by Gill's writings on the Internet.
"Some people may identify - ugly reality, but it's true - they may identify with the feelings that the person expresses, especially if the suicide note is publicized afterward... that's straight up learning theory, modelling behaviour," Deisman said.
The last cluster of note occurred after the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., in April 1999, followed a week later by a school shooting in Taber, Alta.
Loren Coleman, author of The Copycat Effect, published in 2004, wrote his book after 25 years of research on suicide clusters and workplace rampages, which he says have evolved into school shooting situations.
"There's been a steady progression of school shootings since Columbine," he said Monday from Portland, Me., where he has taught at various universities, and is now a consultant on suicide prevention and school violence.
"In the month after Columbine occurred, there were 400 copycat incidents across the United States and Canada. Most of those were not fatal."
He said there was a major time-out after the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center and U.S. Pentagon were attacked. "If you look at how the copycat effect can actually be proven, intriguingly, after 9-11 until the end of the school year in 2002, you had no fatal school shootings because what was occurring was the media was paying attention to terrorism, to the coming war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan," he said.
Coleman said most people with stress in their lives might get help from a minister, parent, counsellor or a friend.
"There's a group of individuals that are violent, they're vulnerable, despondent, angry and they're trying to find what to do with these
feelings," he said.
"These individuals tend to go inward with their feelings. And homicide, as (pioneer psychologist Sigmund) Freud said, is really suicide turned outward. And we're certainly seeing that 100 per cent of these school shooters are suicidal, most of them either end their rampages in suicide or (are) being killed by police officers."
He and Deisman both say suicide prevention needs to be looked at by schools.
"A lot of them are expelled kids, a lot of them are individuals who didn't get treated right in school ... not properly identified for help," said Coleman.
"By knowing about the copycat effect, I think that people then can be on alert to actually decrease it by knowing it's there."
Unfortunately, he's seeing an increase in the body count. "That really scares me because there is a little bit of almost competition
that goes on within these school shooters in which they want to do the one that's even bigger than the last one. That's the part about this that really has me disturbed."
"We all just need to really be careful with our children, and watch out."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/02102006/2/world-six-school-shootings-six-weeks-experts-comment-cluster.html
Canadian Press via Yahoo! Canada News Mon, 02 Oct 2006 3:58 PM PDT
By Anne-Marie Tobin
(CP) - It has an all-too-familiar ring to it: at least three girls were killed before a gunman turned his weapon on himself at a school, this time a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa.
The tragedy Monday brings to six the number of school shootings in the United States and Canada in recent weeks, and experts say it's not surprising that we're seeing a cluster.
Wade Deisman, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, has given the subject some thought - both in and out of class - since gunman Kimveer Gill stormed into Dawson College in Montreal on Sept. 13, killing Anastasia De Sousa, 18, and wounding 20 people.
He's not certain that copycatting is at play, but notes that as a general phenomenon, finding out about someone else's rampage can serve as an example.
"It erodes some of what might be previous cognitive barriers to doing something," Deisman said from Ottawa.
"Seeing somebody else do it makes it seem more ... alluring to do it, maybe more attractive to do it, to some of these people."
The first incident in this cluster occurred on Aug. 24, when Christopher Williams, 27, went to a school in Essex, Vt., looking for his ex-girlfriend, a teacher. He couldn't find her and fatally shot one teacher and wounded another. His ex-girlfriend's mother was also killed before he shot himself twice in the head.
Six days later, a 19-year-old in Hillsborough, N.C., killed his father, then opened fire at Orange High School, wounding two students before surrendering.
And last week, there were shootings in both Wisconsin and Colorado.
In Cazenovia, Wis., a principal was killed, and a 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
In Bailey, Colo., a 53-year-old gunman held six girls hostage in a school, and sexually assaulted them before killing a 16-year-old girl and then himself.
Deisman said there are "gateways" to unlawfulness that include falling into a peer group that teaches disrespect for the law, and a belief that the "system" is not fair.
He noted the anger and willingness to die that was revealed by Gill's writings on the Internet.
"Some people may identify - ugly reality, but it's true - they may identify with the feelings that the person expresses, especially if the suicide note is publicized afterward... that's straight up learning theory, modelling behaviour," Deisman said.
The last cluster of note occurred after the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., in April 1999, followed a week later by a school shooting in Taber, Alta.
Loren Coleman, author of The Copycat Effect, published in 2004, wrote his book after 25 years of research on suicide clusters and workplace rampages, which he says have evolved into school shooting situations.
"There's been a steady progression of school shootings since Columbine," he said Monday from Portland, Me., where he has taught at various universities, and is now a consultant on suicide prevention and school violence.
"In the month after Columbine occurred, there were 400 copycat incidents across the United States and Canada. Most of those were not fatal."
He said there was a major time-out after the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center and U.S. Pentagon were attacked. "If you look at how the copycat effect can actually be proven, intriguingly, after 9-11 until the end of the school year in 2002, you had no fatal school shootings because what was occurring was the media was paying attention to terrorism, to the coming war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan," he said.
Coleman said most people with stress in their lives might get help from a minister, parent, counsellor or a friend.
"There's a group of individuals that are violent, they're vulnerable, despondent, angry and they're trying to find what to do with these
feelings," he said.
"These individuals tend to go inward with their feelings. And homicide, as (pioneer psychologist Sigmund) Freud said, is really suicide turned outward. And we're certainly seeing that 100 per cent of these school shooters are suicidal, most of them either end their rampages in suicide or (are) being killed by police officers."
He and Deisman both say suicide prevention needs to be looked at by schools.
"A lot of them are expelled kids, a lot of them are individuals who didn't get treated right in school ... not properly identified for help," said Coleman.
"By knowing about the copycat effect, I think that people then can be on alert to actually decrease it by knowing it's there."
Unfortunately, he's seeing an increase in the body count. "That really scares me because there is a little bit of almost competition
that goes on within these school shooters in which they want to do the one that's even bigger than the last one. That's the part about this that really has me disturbed."
"We all just need to really be careful with our children, and watch out."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/02102006/2/world-six-school-shootings-six-weeks-experts-comment-cluster.html
Monday, October 02, 2006
Amish School Shooting
[MSNBC reports the situation has ended with the shooter dead. Out of a school of 27 individuals, perhaps as many a dozen people were shot and several - at least five - have died.]
Police Surround One-Room Amish Schoolhouse
WGAL-TV
12:14 p.m. EDT October 2, 2006
Police have responded to reports of a hostage situation and multiple people shot in eastern Lancaster County at a one-room school. The scene is along the 4800 block of Mine Road near Paradise Township. News 8 reporter Anne Shannon said that the incident happened at a one-room Amish schoolhouse. She said the school is marked off with police tape. She counted 13 ambulances in the area. A helicopter was overhead and numerous fire companies were on the ground.
"This is definitely an enormous scene," Shannon said.
Lancaster General Hospital has called in all available personnel. They have been told to be prepared for a large number of patients.
John Lines of Lancaster General Hospital said so far they have received three "pediatric" patients. He did not say what their injuries were.
News 8 is stressing that the situation does not involve the Faith Mennonite School or Bart-Colerain Elementary, which are near the scene.
Police Surround One-Room Amish Schoolhouse
WGAL-TV
12:14 p.m. EDT October 2, 2006
Police have responded to reports of a hostage situation and multiple people shot in eastern Lancaster County at a one-room school. The scene is along the 4800 block of Mine Road near Paradise Township. News 8 reporter Anne Shannon said that the incident happened at a one-room Amish schoolhouse. She said the school is marked off with police tape. She counted 13 ambulances in the area. A helicopter was overhead and numerous fire companies were on the ground.
"This is definitely an enormous scene," Shannon said.
Lancaster General Hospital has called in all available personnel. They have been told to be prepared for a large number of patients.
John Lines of Lancaster General Hospital said so far they have received three "pediatric" patients. He did not say what their injuries were.
News 8 is stressing that the situation does not involve the Faith Mennonite School or Bart-Colerain Elementary, which are near the scene.
Trends, Fall 2006
I am a suicide prevention and school violence researcher and consultant, as well the author of Suicide Cluster (1987) and The Copycat Effect (2004). Unfortunately, it has been a busy two weeks for me, as besides giving prevention workshops that have touched on this matter, I was on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, on the night of the Dawson College shootings discussing the copycat effect I saw coming. The next several days I was interviewed by CTV and CBC, appearing on a Canadian television news program about the copycat effect. Of course, radio and television are avenues to present this material, but it does not allow for the fuller extension of insights through the written word of the online media.
Therefore, I want to share what I am seeing, what I project as forthcoming in the next month, October 2006. I've been saying most of this on radio interviews and in suicide trainings for weeks. No one seems to be listening, especially in the US media. Nevertheless, readers may wish to know about the patterns that are so obviously developing.
In talking about the copycat effect in media interviews, I've been noting a developing and coming wave of events for this autumn of 2006, due to the following facts...based on the trends and analyses I've written about in The Copycat Effect.
Here is what I am finding:
- most contemporary school shootings tend to occur primarily during two
periods of the school year - at the beginning (late Aug through October) and
near the the end of the academic year (March-April)...
- copycats follow a regular temporal pattern that repeats - these could be
after a primary media event in a day, a week, two weeks, a month, a year, ten
years - vulnerable humans have internal media clocks...
- copycats imitate the previous violent attacks, oftentimes down to specific
details as that mirror the previous specifics of the shooter, the victims, and the methods -
- "celebrity" events have a far-reaching impact and modeling effect - so, of
course, Columbine serves as a dark cloud over many school shootings.
One of the silliest things I have heard from cable news in the last several days during mid-September 2006, is that "these school shootings aren't like the other school shootings." This is short-sighted, and factually untrue.
Before the current model (post-1996) in which a member of the student body would go into their own school and kill fellow students, the pattern was one of outsiders - often adults - going into schools and killing students. In my book, I discuss some of the more infamous cases (on pages 166-167, and in a long list in my appendix, following page 263).
Every year is different, and a fresh view must be considered based upon observations that are right in front of our eyes. What I do at the beginning of a new school year is to see if there is an emerging pattern that will be the re-worked "copycat" model for the new school year. To me, it was and is obvious where we were going this year.
Specifically, here is the recent short history...a mix of outsiders invading school and students making plans:
Thursday, August 24, 2006 - Essex, Vermont - two dead (two teachers) - three wounded (two teachers, plus the shooter who turned the gun on himself) - the shooter was a male, all victims were female. Christopher Williams, 26, of Essex, attempted to kill his former girlfriend, first-grade schoolteacher Andrea Lambesis. The dead was Lambesis' mother, Linda, 57, the first victim, and veteran Essex Elementary School second-grade teacher Alicia Shanks, 56, of Essex, slain in her classroom at the school at about 2 p.m.
Wednesday, August 29, 2006 - Hillsborough, NC - one dead (father of teenage shooter) - two wounded (two students) - shooter showed up in a trench coat, with guns, pipe bombs, in a copycat of Columbine - Asked by police why he went to Orange High School, Alvaro Rafael Castillo, 19, responded: "Columbine. Remember Columbine."
Thursday, September 7, 2006 - Paris, France - A 19-year-old man was detained after opening fire with a shot-pistol at a school in Paris. There were no injuries. No other details available.
Friday, September 8, 2006 - Paris, France - A 16-year-old boy fired a shotgun inside a school in the southern outskirts of Paris, lightly injuring a teacher and a student, said police. No other details available.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - Montreal, Quebec - Based on the pattern I see behind this shooting, Quebec was a logical next location (near Vermont and French-linked). Kimveer Gill, the 25-year-old shooter, a self-described atheist Goth with an Indian Sikh heritage, wearing a trenchcoat, dark clothing, and a Mohawk haircut, came to Dawson College, fully armed. He
appeared to target what students call the "Jew Caf" and opened fire, killing Anastasia de Sousa, 18, and wounded 19 other students. Police fired upon him, and then Gill turned the gun on himself. Gill was obsessed by the Columbine massacre. He mentioned online being a fan of several computer games (e.g. Super Columbine Massacre) and movies (e.g. Natural Born Killers,
Matrix) with violent themes that have been played out in several school shootings.
Thursday, September 14, 2006 - Green Bay, Wisconsin - Matt Atkinson, a 17-year-old senior, told an associate principal at Green Bay East High School on the day after the Montreal college shooting that a Columbine-like plot was being planned by two teens. It was said to be a "suicide-by-cop" plot. Police arrested the boys and then found sawed-off shotguns, automatic
weapons, pistols, ammunition, several bombs, bomb-making materials, camouflage clothing, helmets, gas masks, and suicide notes. Brown County District Attorney John Zakowski said: "This was a Columbine waiting to happen."
Thursday, September 21, 2006 - Montgomery, Alabama - Former student Willie Beamon, 18, told a female student his plans to go Robert E. Lee High school to start shooting. The girl notified the police of what she had been told. Beamon was arrested at the Second Chance School he was attending after he had been expelled from Robert E Lee High School.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - Bailey, Colorado (39 miles from Columbine) - Duane R. Morrison, 54, (DOB 7-23-1953) walked into an English classroom at Platte Canyon High School, and took six young female students hostage. After releasing four hostages, one at a time, the students told the police that sexual assaults were occurring. As the situation neared a 4 pm
deadline and discussions broke down, a police SWAT team blew open the door to Room 206 with explosives. Morrison fired a handgun at entering SWAT officers, and then at 16-year old Emily Keyes, fatally wounding her. The gunman then killed himself. The last hostage was saved. (A suicide note from the shooter was found on September 28th.)
Friday, September 29, 2006 - Cazenovia, Wisconsin - A recently expelled special or alternative education student Eric Hainstock, 15, arrived at school at 8 am with a shotgun. A custodian, teacher, and students wrestled the shotgun away, but the student broke away and pulled out a revolver. Principal John Klang, 49, was then shot with a handgun, three times, once in the head. Klang later died at the hospital. The shooter is taken into custody. According to initial reports, the shooter said he was "picked on," but Wisconsin newspaper interviews on October 2, 2006, established that he was the student that most often bullied others.
Please note that the lone male "outsider shooter" is a common denominator here, as well as most of the victims being females or authority figures (teachers, administrators). Also, there exists a clear and concentrated repeating pattern of Wednesdays and/or Thursdays, since August 24th.
I would watch Wednesday, October 11 (four weeks exactly) through Friday, October 13 (the month-by-date), the anniversary period, which is a "month" from the Dawson College shootings. There will also be another dangerous "hot window" for a next wave of school shootings. A month from the Colorado-Wisconsin events of September 27-29, at the end of October, could be a time in which people must keep their guard up and on high alert.
In general, of course, we seem to now be in an unfortunate high copycat effect pattern, and it could be a deadly time for students in North America, as well as internationally, for several weeks, no matter what the day or date. (I wrote the first draft of this September 27, and had to revise it, too quickly, on September 29, after the Wisconsin incident. The landscape of school shootings is changing rapidly this fall.)
As the US Secret Service found in their study of school shootings, the vast majority, 80% of these shooters, are suicidal. Frankly, I think all of them are suicidal. Homicide, as Freud said, is suicide turned outward, and that's exactly the model that is being followed. Suicide is also homicide turned inward.
Expect more school shootings, unfortunately. Be alert, be prepared, be careful.
Therefore, I want to share what I am seeing, what I project as forthcoming in the next month, October 2006. I've been saying most of this on radio interviews and in suicide trainings for weeks. No one seems to be listening, especially in the US media. Nevertheless, readers may wish to know about the patterns that are so obviously developing.
In talking about the copycat effect in media interviews, I've been noting a developing and coming wave of events for this autumn of 2006, due to the following facts...based on the trends and analyses I've written about in The Copycat Effect.
Here is what I am finding:
- most contemporary school shootings tend to occur primarily during two
periods of the school year - at the beginning (late Aug through October) and
near the the end of the academic year (March-April)...
- copycats follow a regular temporal pattern that repeats - these could be
after a primary media event in a day, a week, two weeks, a month, a year, ten
years - vulnerable humans have internal media clocks...
- copycats imitate the previous violent attacks, oftentimes down to specific
details as that mirror the previous specifics of the shooter, the victims, and the methods -
- "celebrity" events have a far-reaching impact and modeling effect - so, of
course, Columbine serves as a dark cloud over many school shootings.
One of the silliest things I have heard from cable news in the last several days during mid-September 2006, is that "these school shootings aren't like the other school shootings." This is short-sighted, and factually untrue.
Before the current model (post-1996) in which a member of the student body would go into their own school and kill fellow students, the pattern was one of outsiders - often adults - going into schools and killing students. In my book, I discuss some of the more infamous cases (on pages 166-167, and in a long list in my appendix, following page 263).
Every year is different, and a fresh view must be considered based upon observations that are right in front of our eyes. What I do at the beginning of a new school year is to see if there is an emerging pattern that will be the re-worked "copycat" model for the new school year. To me, it was and is obvious where we were going this year.
Specifically, here is the recent short history...a mix of outsiders invading school and students making plans:
Thursday, August 24, 2006 - Essex, Vermont - two dead (two teachers) - three wounded (two teachers, plus the shooter who turned the gun on himself) - the shooter was a male, all victims were female. Christopher Williams, 26, of Essex, attempted to kill his former girlfriend, first-grade schoolteacher Andrea Lambesis. The dead was Lambesis' mother, Linda, 57, the first victim, and veteran Essex Elementary School second-grade teacher Alicia Shanks, 56, of Essex, slain in her classroom at the school at about 2 p.m.
Wednesday, August 29, 2006 - Hillsborough, NC - one dead (father of teenage shooter) - two wounded (two students) - shooter showed up in a trench coat, with guns, pipe bombs, in a copycat of Columbine - Asked by police why he went to Orange High School, Alvaro Rafael Castillo, 19, responded: "Columbine. Remember Columbine."
Thursday, September 7, 2006 - Paris, France - A 19-year-old man was detained after opening fire with a shot-pistol at a school in Paris. There were no injuries. No other details available.
Friday, September 8, 2006 - Paris, France - A 16-year-old boy fired a shotgun inside a school in the southern outskirts of Paris, lightly injuring a teacher and a student, said police. No other details available.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - Montreal, Quebec - Based on the pattern I see behind this shooting, Quebec was a logical next location (near Vermont and French-linked). Kimveer Gill, the 25-year-old shooter, a self-described atheist Goth with an Indian Sikh heritage, wearing a trenchcoat, dark clothing, and a Mohawk haircut, came to Dawson College, fully armed. He
appeared to target what students call the "Jew Caf" and opened fire, killing Anastasia de Sousa, 18, and wounded 19 other students. Police fired upon him, and then Gill turned the gun on himself. Gill was obsessed by the Columbine massacre. He mentioned online being a fan of several computer games (e.g. Super Columbine Massacre) and movies (e.g. Natural Born Killers,
Matrix) with violent themes that have been played out in several school shootings.
Thursday, September 14, 2006 - Green Bay, Wisconsin - Matt Atkinson, a 17-year-old senior, told an associate principal at Green Bay East High School on the day after the Montreal college shooting that a Columbine-like plot was being planned by two teens. It was said to be a "suicide-by-cop" plot. Police arrested the boys and then found sawed-off shotguns, automatic
weapons, pistols, ammunition, several bombs, bomb-making materials, camouflage clothing, helmets, gas masks, and suicide notes. Brown County District Attorney John Zakowski said: "This was a Columbine waiting to happen."
Thursday, September 21, 2006 - Montgomery, Alabama - Former student Willie Beamon, 18, told a female student his plans to go Robert E. Lee High school to start shooting. The girl notified the police of what she had been told. Beamon was arrested at the Second Chance School he was attending after he had been expelled from Robert E Lee High School.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - Bailey, Colorado (39 miles from Columbine) - Duane R. Morrison, 54, (DOB 7-23-1953) walked into an English classroom at Platte Canyon High School, and took six young female students hostage. After releasing four hostages, one at a time, the students told the police that sexual assaults were occurring. As the situation neared a 4 pm
deadline and discussions broke down, a police SWAT team blew open the door to Room 206 with explosives. Morrison fired a handgun at entering SWAT officers, and then at 16-year old Emily Keyes, fatally wounding her. The gunman then killed himself. The last hostage was saved. (A suicide note from the shooter was found on September 28th.)
Friday, September 29, 2006 - Cazenovia, Wisconsin - A recently expelled special or alternative education student Eric Hainstock, 15, arrived at school at 8 am with a shotgun. A custodian, teacher, and students wrestled the shotgun away, but the student broke away and pulled out a revolver. Principal John Klang, 49, was then shot with a handgun, three times, once in the head. Klang later died at the hospital. The shooter is taken into custody. According to initial reports, the shooter said he was "picked on," but Wisconsin newspaper interviews on October 2, 2006, established that he was the student that most often bullied others.
Please note that the lone male "outsider shooter" is a common denominator here, as well as most of the victims being females or authority figures (teachers, administrators). Also, there exists a clear and concentrated repeating pattern of Wednesdays and/or Thursdays, since August 24th.
I would watch Wednesday, October 11 (four weeks exactly) through Friday, October 13 (the month-by-date), the anniversary period, which is a "month" from the Dawson College shootings. There will also be another dangerous "hot window" for a next wave of school shootings. A month from the Colorado-Wisconsin events of September 27-29, at the end of October, could be a time in which people must keep their guard up and on high alert.
In general, of course, we seem to now be in an unfortunate high copycat effect pattern, and it could be a deadly time for students in North America, as well as internationally, for several weeks, no matter what the day or date. (I wrote the first draft of this September 27, and had to revise it, too quickly, on September 29, after the Wisconsin incident. The landscape of school shootings is changing rapidly this fall.)
As the US Secret Service found in their study of school shootings, the vast majority, 80% of these shooters, are suicidal. Frankly, I think all of them are suicidal. Homicide, as Freud said, is suicide turned outward, and that's exactly the model that is being followed. Suicide is also homicide turned inward.
Expect more school shootings, unfortunately. Be alert, be prepared, be careful.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Red Lake and Bigfoot
With all the interest in the new Ely Sasquatch Video, it seems like a good moment to mention the time-space links to Red Lake, Minnesota. Both locations are in northern Minnesota, just south of the Canadian border. Ely is 200 miles due east of Red Lake.
Yesterday, as the Ely Sasquatch Video was exploding onto the internet via such sites as Cryptomundo, Boing Boing, The Anomalist, and Coast to Coast AM, the day also marked the first anniversary of an infamous school shooting with strange ties to Bigfoot.
On March 21, 2005, Red Lake, Minnesota high school student Jeffrey James Weise (August 8, 1988 – March 21, 2005) killed a total of ten people. First he killed his grandfather and grandfather's wife, 32-year old Michelle Sigana, who was his grandfather's police force partner. Later he shot and killed seven people at Red Lake High School, including a teacher and a security guard. As many as 15 others were wounded in the school shooting. After briefly exchanging fire with police officers following the murders, Weise died by his own hand.
The incident began at home in the afternoon when Weise apparently shot his grandfather and Sigana. Weise then drove his grandfather's patrol vehicle to the high school, propelling it into the building at around 3:00 p.m. CST. Wearing a reservation-police-issued bulletproof vest, likely taken from the stolen reservation police patrol vehicle, Weise killed the third victim (the security guard) immediately upon arriving at the school.
When the police first arrived, Weise briefly opened fire on them before going into the school. Once in there, he was said to be "waving and smiling" as he shot students at random. An attempt to break into an English classroom was thwarted by a quick-thinking teacher who had taken the precaution to lock the door.
Media coverage of Jeff Weise after the shooting was intense. Weise left electronic footprints all across the internet, on websites such as nazi.org, offering, as Wikipedia noted, "an unusual level of public insight into his thoughts and the hardships in his life that led to his depression and fascination with dark imagery in the months and years prior to the shootings."
Besides being a neo-Nazi, liking Hitler, seeing white owls, having dreams about shooting, Weise also was interested in Bigfoot.
Needless to say, people interested in Bigfoot are not all killers, and all serial, mass, and rampage killers are not Bigfoot fans. But the overlap between the two in this case are worthy of our sociological attention. Such twilight language and coded messages exist all the more overtly in this World Wide Web age, and there's no reason to ignore them and not examine what we might discover. (In this vein, I investigate past school shootings and the twilight language in my 2004 book, The Copycat Effect.)
The simple fact is the Red Lake school shooter liked to talk about Bigfoot, and we have the records to explore how Bigfoot worked into his cosmos.
Jeff Weise would post as "Weise" at the Above Top Secret forum.
Here is "Weise" talking about Sasquatch among the Ojibwa, on 6-11-2004 (November 6th?):
Later on 11-11-2004 (November 11, 2004), responding to this quote (filled with incorrect info) from Brainiac: "Hi! The Bigfoot idea was recently found out to be made up, by the same guy that supposedly capture the creature on film in 1974. He said on his death bed that he made the whole thing up. The footage was real, but it was footage of a man in a gorilla costume... "
Weise rather appropriately writes:
Perhaps not coincidentally, on February 10, 2005, there were reports of tracks of Sasquatch being found on the Red Lake Reservation. Here are examples of two photographs (below) circulated on the web at the time. While initially they might look like bear prints, upon closer examination, more clearly defined Bigfoot-type toe prints are visible.
On March 21, 2005, the focus was on Red Lake, Minnesota and Jeff Weise's carnage, and the Red Lake Bigfoot track investigations faded into the background. On March 21, 2006, our attention is drawn back to Minnesota, and the new video of the Ely Sasquatch. What does it all mean? It remains to be seen.
Yesterday, as the Ely Sasquatch Video was exploding onto the internet via such sites as Cryptomundo, Boing Boing, The Anomalist, and Coast to Coast AM, the day also marked the first anniversary of an infamous school shooting with strange ties to Bigfoot.
On March 21, 2005, Red Lake, Minnesota high school student Jeffrey James Weise (August 8, 1988 – March 21, 2005) killed a total of ten people. First he killed his grandfather and grandfather's wife, 32-year old Michelle Sigana, who was his grandfather's police force partner. Later he shot and killed seven people at Red Lake High School, including a teacher and a security guard. As many as 15 others were wounded in the school shooting. After briefly exchanging fire with police officers following the murders, Weise died by his own hand.
The incident began at home in the afternoon when Weise apparently shot his grandfather and Sigana. Weise then drove his grandfather's patrol vehicle to the high school, propelling it into the building at around 3:00 p.m. CST. Wearing a reservation-police-issued bulletproof vest, likely taken from the stolen reservation police patrol vehicle, Weise killed the third victim (the security guard) immediately upon arriving at the school.
When the police first arrived, Weise briefly opened fire on them before going into the school. Once in there, he was said to be "waving and smiling" as he shot students at random. An attempt to break into an English classroom was thwarted by a quick-thinking teacher who had taken the precaution to lock the door.
Media coverage of Jeff Weise after the shooting was intense. Weise left electronic footprints all across the internet, on websites such as nazi.org, offering, as Wikipedia noted, "an unusual level of public insight into his thoughts and the hardships in his life that led to his depression and fascination with dark imagery in the months and years prior to the shootings."
Besides being a neo-Nazi, liking Hitler, seeing white owls, having dreams about shooting, Weise also was interested in Bigfoot.
Needless to say, people interested in Bigfoot are not all killers, and all serial, mass, and rampage killers are not Bigfoot fans. But the overlap between the two in this case are worthy of our sociological attention. Such twilight language and coded messages exist all the more overtly in this World Wide Web age, and there's no reason to ignore them and not examine what we might discover. (In this vein, I investigate past school shootings and the twilight language in my 2004 book, The Copycat Effect.)
The simple fact is the Red Lake school shooter liked to talk about Bigfoot, and we have the records to explore how Bigfoot worked into his cosmos.
Red Lake's Jeff Weise
Jeff Weise would post as "Weise" at the Above Top Secret forum.
Here is "Weise" talking about Sasquatch among the Ojibwa, on 6-11-2004 (November 6th?):
Almost everyone I know has a sasqautch story, almost everyone one has a person in their familly who's probably seem him. At least thats how it is where I live, (on a Reservation in Minnesota).
I've asked a few elders about bigfoot, and in my language (Ojibwe) we have a name for him. I forgot it, and barely could pronounce it, but he exists in our neck of the woods, at least I believe he does. I heard a story from my cousin (he works in Tribal Government), he told me that a guy he worked with was out in the forest alone on a fast. He was near a swampy area, and midway through his fast he saw Bigfoot walking through the swamp, reaching down into the water along the way and pulling up a certain type of weed and slinging it over his shoulder.
The weed from the swamp he was pulling out was supposedly some kind of herbal medicine used by Native medicine men.
And to feed some of you peoples interest in the possibility of a sasquatch and alien connection? The lake I live by (Red Lake) is one heck of a big lake, and if you sit out at the beach on a clear summer night you'll see lights over the lake. Everyone says they're UFO's, I believe that too. There was a UFO sighting in broad daylight a few years back, it was over the lake, people said it looked like a metal disc. Anyway, alot of people were reporting power outages and cars stalling on them around the exact same time.
I love living in this lively place...
Later on 11-11-2004 (November 11, 2004), responding to this quote (filled with incorrect info) from Brainiac: "Hi! The Bigfoot idea was recently found out to be made up, by the same guy that supposedly capture the creature on film in 1974. He said on his death bed that he made the whole thing up. The footage was real, but it was footage of a man in a gorilla costume... "
Weise rather appropriately writes:
Lol, sorry, but that just wont fly in my part of the woods.
We've actually seen him, in the "flesh," not just a video. The stories of bigfoot, as previously stated, have been around for hundreds of years, not just since the Patterson film.
Perhaps not coincidentally, on February 10, 2005, there were reports of tracks of Sasquatch being found on the Red Lake Reservation. Here are examples of two photographs (below) circulated on the web at the time. While initially they might look like bear prints, upon closer examination, more clearly defined Bigfoot-type toe prints are visible.
On March 21, 2005, the focus was on Red Lake, Minnesota and Jeff Weise's carnage, and the Red Lake Bigfoot track investigations faded into the background. On March 21, 2006, our attention is drawn back to Minnesota, and the new video of the Ely Sasquatch. What does it all mean? It remains to be seen.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Red Lake + One Year
Today is the first anniversary of the Red Lake, Minnesota, school shootings.
For a Minnesota-based article about the aftermath, see today's Duluth Superior.
For a Minnesota-based article about the aftermath, see today's Duluth Superior.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Deadly Car Chase Ends Near Pismo Beach Denny's
http://www.lompocrecord.com/articles/2006/03/19/news/news04.txt
Lompoc Record, CA
March 19, 2006
Arroyo Grande officer likely ended deadly Highway 101 chase
By Mark Baylis/Staff Writer
An Arroyo Grande police officer has been placed on paid administrative
leave, unofficially credited with fatally shooting an armed suspect and
ending Friday's wild police chase that included two carjackings, three
hostages and several shootouts with police.
Officer Albert L. Beattie, 32, a nine-year veteran of the department, was
placed on paid administrative leave until the shooting investigation of
Friday's fracas on Highway 101 is complete. The investigation and
administrative leave are standard procedure in deadly force incidents, said
Chief Tony Aeilts.
Authorities are awaiting the results of a Santa Barbara County Sheriff's
Department autopsy to determine if Beattie shot the suspect or whether he
died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The dead man's name hasn't been
released.
Beattie was the only officer who fired at the suspect, according to Aeilts.
“He was the only one that was in a position to fire at that time,” Aeilts
said.
The 110-mile, high-speed chase Friday started between Templeton and
Atascadero and led to one suspect being arrested in Pismo Beach and the
second suspect shot dead near El Capitan State Beach.
In between the suspects shot at officers and two vehicles were hijacked at
gunpoint, officials said. One vehicle contained three hostages carjacked in
Pismo Beach and taken south of the Gaviota tunnel before the Jeep ran out of
gas and the kidnapper abandoned them to carjack a furniture van.
The suspect was then killed during a gun battle with Beattie and four other
undercover officers along Highway 101.
Beattie belongs to a interagency drug task force that works under the
Department of Justice. He encountered the suspect while returning from Santa
Barbara to serve unrelated search warrants for the task force, police said
Saturday.
While details from the final shootout remain murky, the Santa Barbara
Sheriff's Department believe the suspect may have tried to carjack the
narcotics officers, unaware that they were plainclothes cops, said Sheriff's
Sgt. Erik Raney.
Chief Aeilts said the suspect drove his vehicle towards Beattie and the four
other narcotics officers and fired his weapon at them while they were
coincidentally assisting an unrelated motorist on the side of Highway 101.
An autopsy on the killed suspect is scheduled for Monday.
Arroyo Grande Police didn't immediately know the date of the last
officer-involved shooting, but a veteran officer said there hadn't been one
during his 20-year tenure.
It's unknown how long Beattie will be on leave until the investigation is
complete, but Aeilts said the officer was dealing well with the stress of
the shooting.
“He's in good spirits and doing as well as anybody could, given the
circumstances,” Aeilts said.
Officials have not released the killed suspect's name, age or hometown. It
is believed he had a criminal history, after he told a hostage negotiator
over a cell phone that “he didn't want to go back to prison” during the
southbound chase, according to a sheriff's dispatch.
A Paso Robles officer suffered minor injuries during the final shootout near
El Capitan State Beach, Paso Robles Police confirmed Saturday.
Officer Roger Degnan was one of the undercover narcotics officers that the
suspect fired at. The officer was struck in the neck by either a projectile
or a windshield glass fragment shattered by a bullet.
He was treated at the scene and did not require hospitalization. No other
officers or civilians were reported injured.
Officers arrested the other suspect in Pismo Beach Friday after the duo's
minivan hit a spike strip and blew its tires. Police nabbed Bay Area
resident Nicandro Sanchez, 30, in a restaurant parking lot on Five Cities
Drive - coincidentally a block away from the Denny's restaurant where last
week's triple-homicide took place.
Sanchez is being held on $500,000 bail at San Luis Obispo County Jail on
suspicion of criminal conspiracy, attempted murder, being under the
influence of a controlled substance, being a felon in possession of a
weapon, carrying a concealed weapon, receiving known stolen property and a
parole hold.
The fracas closed Highway 101 between Highway 1 and western Goleta all
afternoon, until all lanes were reopened by 6:30 p.m.
Hundreds of drivers were stranded directly in front of the crime scene
throughout the whole ordeal, unable to take a detour. A mile's worth of
drivers, seeking to head south, waited five hours before they could move.
Together they sat in the roadway, talked on cell phones and stared at the
helicopters flying over the crime scene.
Highway 154 was the only detour between the North County and South Coast. It
remained bumper to bumper Friday evening as commuters tried to return home
or get out of town for the weekend.
CHRONOLOGY
A police chase that extended for more than 100 miles at speeds in excess of
100 mph began as a routine attempted traffic stop south of Paso Robles in
San Luis Obispo County.
* About noon - A CHP officer tries to pull over a southbound white Toyota
minivan on Highway 101 for speeding and following too close. When the
vehicle doesn't stop, officers pursue it into southern San Luis Obispo
County.
* 12:30 p.m. - Pismo Beach Police disable suspects' van with spike strip on
Five Cities Drive. Shots are exchanged between the CHP and the two suspects.
One flees on foot and is arrested in a restaurant parking lot. The second,
with a handgun, carjacks a Jeep Cherokee and flees south with the car's
three occupants inside.
* 12:43 p.m. - The Jeep reaches Santa Maria. Santa Barbara County Sheriff's
Department cars and a helicopter join the chase.
* 1:12 p.m. - Jeep runs out of gas on Highway 101 near Tajiguas. The suspect
abandons it and the three hostages and carjacks a moving van. Its occupants
flee uninjured.
* 1:18 p.m. - The big truck crosses the median to try a U-turn, almost
hitting a school bus. The truck instead leaves the northbound side of the
freeway onto El Capitan Ranch Road, where the suspect and an off-duty
narcotics officer engage in a shootout and the suspect becomes motionless.
* About 2 p.m. - A Sheriff's Department robot confirms the suspect appears
to be dead in the front seat of the truck.
* 6 p.m. - Highway 101 southbound is reopened.
* 6:25 p.m. - Highway 101 northbound is reopened.
Mark Baylis can be reached at 739-2218 or mbaylis@lompoc record.com.
March 19, 2006
Lompoc Record, CA
March 19, 2006
Arroyo Grande officer likely ended deadly Highway 101 chase
By Mark Baylis/Staff Writer
An Arroyo Grande police officer has been placed on paid administrative
leave, unofficially credited with fatally shooting an armed suspect and
ending Friday's wild police chase that included two carjackings, three
hostages and several shootouts with police.
Officer Albert L. Beattie, 32, a nine-year veteran of the department, was
placed on paid administrative leave until the shooting investigation of
Friday's fracas on Highway 101 is complete. The investigation and
administrative leave are standard procedure in deadly force incidents, said
Chief Tony Aeilts.
Authorities are awaiting the results of a Santa Barbara County Sheriff's
Department autopsy to determine if Beattie shot the suspect or whether he
died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The dead man's name hasn't been
released.
Beattie was the only officer who fired at the suspect, according to Aeilts.
“He was the only one that was in a position to fire at that time,” Aeilts
said.
The 110-mile, high-speed chase Friday started between Templeton and
Atascadero and led to one suspect being arrested in Pismo Beach and the
second suspect shot dead near El Capitan State Beach.
In between the suspects shot at officers and two vehicles were hijacked at
gunpoint, officials said. One vehicle contained three hostages carjacked in
Pismo Beach and taken south of the Gaviota tunnel before the Jeep ran out of
gas and the kidnapper abandoned them to carjack a furniture van.
The suspect was then killed during a gun battle with Beattie and four other
undercover officers along Highway 101.
Beattie belongs to a interagency drug task force that works under the
Department of Justice. He encountered the suspect while returning from Santa
Barbara to serve unrelated search warrants for the task force, police said
Saturday.
While details from the final shootout remain murky, the Santa Barbara
Sheriff's Department believe the suspect may have tried to carjack the
narcotics officers, unaware that they were plainclothes cops, said Sheriff's
Sgt. Erik Raney.
Chief Aeilts said the suspect drove his vehicle towards Beattie and the four
other narcotics officers and fired his weapon at them while they were
coincidentally assisting an unrelated motorist on the side of Highway 101.
An autopsy on the killed suspect is scheduled for Monday.
Arroyo Grande Police didn't immediately know the date of the last
officer-involved shooting, but a veteran officer said there hadn't been one
during his 20-year tenure.
It's unknown how long Beattie will be on leave until the investigation is
complete, but Aeilts said the officer was dealing well with the stress of
the shooting.
“He's in good spirits and doing as well as anybody could, given the
circumstances,” Aeilts said.
Officials have not released the killed suspect's name, age or hometown. It
is believed he had a criminal history, after he told a hostage negotiator
over a cell phone that “he didn't want to go back to prison” during the
southbound chase, according to a sheriff's dispatch.
A Paso Robles officer suffered minor injuries during the final shootout near
El Capitan State Beach, Paso Robles Police confirmed Saturday.
Officer Roger Degnan was one of the undercover narcotics officers that the
suspect fired at. The officer was struck in the neck by either a projectile
or a windshield glass fragment shattered by a bullet.
He was treated at the scene and did not require hospitalization. No other
officers or civilians were reported injured.
Officers arrested the other suspect in Pismo Beach Friday after the duo's
minivan hit a spike strip and blew its tires. Police nabbed Bay Area
resident Nicandro Sanchez, 30, in a restaurant parking lot on Five Cities
Drive - coincidentally a block away from the Denny's restaurant where last
week's triple-homicide took place.
Sanchez is being held on $500,000 bail at San Luis Obispo County Jail on
suspicion of criminal conspiracy, attempted murder, being under the
influence of a controlled substance, being a felon in possession of a
weapon, carrying a concealed weapon, receiving known stolen property and a
parole hold.
The fracas closed Highway 101 between Highway 1 and western Goleta all
afternoon, until all lanes were reopened by 6:30 p.m.
Hundreds of drivers were stranded directly in front of the crime scene
throughout the whole ordeal, unable to take a detour. A mile's worth of
drivers, seeking to head south, waited five hours before they could move.
Together they sat in the roadway, talked on cell phones and stared at the
helicopters flying over the crime scene.
Highway 154 was the only detour between the North County and South Coast. It
remained bumper to bumper Friday evening as commuters tried to return home
or get out of town for the weekend.
CHRONOLOGY
A police chase that extended for more than 100 miles at speeds in excess of
100 mph began as a routine attempted traffic stop south of Paso Robles in
San Luis Obispo County.
* About noon - A CHP officer tries to pull over a southbound white Toyota
minivan on Highway 101 for speeding and following too close. When the
vehicle doesn't stop, officers pursue it into southern San Luis Obispo
County.
* 12:30 p.m. - Pismo Beach Police disable suspects' van with spike strip on
Five Cities Drive. Shots are exchanged between the CHP and the two suspects.
One flees on foot and is arrested in a restaurant parking lot. The second,
with a handgun, carjacks a Jeep Cherokee and flees south with the car's
three occupants inside.
* 12:43 p.m. - The Jeep reaches Santa Maria. Santa Barbara County Sheriff's
Department cars and a helicopter join the chase.
* 1:12 p.m. - Jeep runs out of gas on Highway 101 near Tajiguas. The suspect
abandons it and the three hostages and carjacks a moving van. Its occupants
flee uninjured.
* 1:18 p.m. - The big truck crosses the median to try a U-turn, almost
hitting a school bus. The truck instead leaves the northbound side of the
freeway onto El Capitan Ranch Road, where the suspect and an off-duty
narcotics officer engage in a shootout and the suspect becomes motionless.
* About 2 p.m. - A Sheriff's Department robot confirms the suspect appears
to be dead in the front seat of the truck.
* 6 p.m. - Highway 101 southbound is reopened.
* 6:25 p.m. - Highway 101 northbound is reopened.
Mark Baylis can be reached at 739-2218 or mbaylis@lompoc record.com.
March 19, 2006
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Reno Shooting: Columbine Copycat
http://www.krnv.com/global/story.asp?s=4643014
RENO
Court documents reveal chilling details about Reno middle school shooting
March 18, 2006
Shocking new details are emerging about why a 14-year-old boy allegedly opened fire, injuring two students at a Reno middle school Tuesday morning [March 14, 2006].
Court documents, filed Thursday, shed new light on what was already a profoundly disturbing case.
Police quote James Scott Newman as saying he planned his attack on his fellow students for a week before taking a gun to school.
Court documents filed by the Reno Police Department offer chilling details of Newman's interview with detectives after he was arrested at Pine Middle School on Tuesday morning. They quote Newman as saying he, "Was tired of others making fun of him..." and planned the shooting for a week by "Research[ing] the Columbine High School shooting on the Internet, and this further inspired him to do the shooting."
Taking a gun from his parents' bedroom, and using three bullets that were part of a bullet collection his father gave him the day before, police say he armed himself in a school bathroom, and emerged carrying the loaded gun.
When he spotted one of his friends, who told him to put the gun away, "Newman told his friend to run."
According to the report, he chose a male student at random, "Aimed the firearm at [his] back and pulled the trigger twice. The gun did not fire as the hammer fell on two empty chambers."
Police say Newman started walking along with the student, still aiming the gun at his back and pulling the trigger before successfully firing the weapon three times, hitting the student once.
Newman was then stopped by gym teacher Jencie Fagan who held him until police arrived.
During questioning later, the report says Newman told officers, "He was unsure if he would be able to kill more than one person, as he only had three rounds."
On Thursday, Reno police, in accordance with a search warrant, seized Newman's computer and are analyzing it for further evidence.
Police say it's unlikely that Newman's parents will be charged with any crime in connection with the gun because they say there were gun locks and other reasonable security methods used at their home.
Newman will be arraigned in Reno Justice Court by video camera from the Washoe County Jail, where he remains held on 150-thousand dollars bail.
RENO
Court documents reveal chilling details about Reno middle school shooting
March 18, 2006
Shocking new details are emerging about why a 14-year-old boy allegedly opened fire, injuring two students at a Reno middle school Tuesday morning [March 14, 2006].
Court documents, filed Thursday, shed new light on what was already a profoundly disturbing case.
Police quote James Scott Newman as saying he planned his attack on his fellow students for a week before taking a gun to school.
Court documents filed by the Reno Police Department offer chilling details of Newman's interview with detectives after he was arrested at Pine Middle School on Tuesday morning. They quote Newman as saying he, "Was tired of others making fun of him..." and planned the shooting for a week by "Research[ing] the Columbine High School shooting on the Internet, and this further inspired him to do the shooting."
Taking a gun from his parents' bedroom, and using three bullets that were part of a bullet collection his father gave him the day before, police say he armed himself in a school bathroom, and emerged carrying the loaded gun.
When he spotted one of his friends, who told him to put the gun away, "Newman told his friend to run."
According to the report, he chose a male student at random, "Aimed the firearm at [his] back and pulled the trigger twice. The gun did not fire as the hammer fell on two empty chambers."
Police say Newman started walking along with the student, still aiming the gun at his back and pulling the trigger before successfully firing the weapon three times, hitting the student once.
Newman was then stopped by gym teacher Jencie Fagan who held him until police arrived.
During questioning later, the report says Newman told officers, "He was unsure if he would be able to kill more than one person, as he only had three rounds."
On Thursday, Reno police, in accordance with a search warrant, seized Newman's computer and are analyzing it for further evidence.
Police say it's unlikely that Newman's parents will be charged with any crime in connection with the gun because they say there were gun locks and other reasonable security methods used at their home.
Newman will be arraigned in Reno Justice Court by video camera from the Washoe County Jail, where he remains held on 150-thousand dollars bail.
1,600 Denny's
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/national/18dennys.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 18, 2006
Another Killing at a Denny's, Fourth in 3 Days
By CINDY CHANG
LOS ANGELES, March 17 — An 18-year-old man was shot dead early Friday and another man was wounded after a fight broke out at a Denny's restaurant in Anaheim, the third fatal shooting episode at a California Denny's in three days.
Four people have died and three have been injured in the shootings. A shooting Thursday in Ontario, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles, also stemmed from a fight. But a Wednesday shooting in the coastal town of Pismo Beach appeared to be a deranged act by a homeless man who shot at a noon lunch crowd, killing two before committing suicide.
The Denny's Corporation, which operates or licenses over 1,600 diner-style restaurants nationwide, issued a statement Friday calling the shootings "three separate and random acts of violence."
The Anaheim Denny's, which is next to Angel Stadium, attracts a crowd still looking for action after a nearby nightclub closes at 2 a.m., said Sgt. Rick Martinez of the Anaheim Police Department.
The altercation began at the nightclub and resumed inside the Denny's, spilling into the parking lot, where the 18-year-old man was shot, Sergeant Martinez said, adding that the fight was probably gang-related. The victim's name was not released.
A videotape of the Pismo Beach shooting showed a diner, Harold L. Hatley, lunging at the gunman, giving others precious seconds to flee before Mr. Hatley was shot dead at close range, the police said.
When Mr. Hatley, a 73-year-old retired oil worker from nearby Grover Beach, sprang from his seat, the police said, the gunman, Lawrence E. Woods, had already wounded a middle-aged couple and fatally shot Frank Valesquez, 73, with a revolver and a semiautomatic.
"Without question, it saved other people's lives," Cmdr. Jeff Norton of the Pismo Beach Police Department said of Mr. Hatley's action. "This whole thing from the moment the suspect entered the restaurant to the time he shot himself lasted 45 seconds."
Mr. Hatley's son, Robert Hatley, said his father ate lunch at the Denny's every morning at 11 but had been delayed almost an hour Wednesday because he was helping another son with housework.
"He was a creature of habit," Robert Hatley said. "He went to Denny's every day on his motorcycle. He was a heroic, courageous, fabulous, very funny guy."
Mr. Woods, 60, had until recently owned a company that repaired mobile homes, but the business failed and he was evicted, the police said. Writings described by the police as "rantings and ravings" were found in the van where he slept.
Mr. Woods had been convicted of several felony and drug-related offenses, the police said.
On Thursday, a 37-year-old man was shot and killed in Ontario after an early morning fight in a Denny's parking lot.
The police are still searching for suspects in both that shooting and the one in Anaheim.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 18, 2006
Another Killing at a Denny's, Fourth in 3 Days
By CINDY CHANG
LOS ANGELES, March 17 — An 18-year-old man was shot dead early Friday and another man was wounded after a fight broke out at a Denny's restaurant in Anaheim, the third fatal shooting episode at a California Denny's in three days.
Four people have died and three have been injured in the shootings. A shooting Thursday in Ontario, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles, also stemmed from a fight. But a Wednesday shooting in the coastal town of Pismo Beach appeared to be a deranged act by a homeless man who shot at a noon lunch crowd, killing two before committing suicide.
The Denny's Corporation, which operates or licenses over 1,600 diner-style restaurants nationwide, issued a statement Friday calling the shootings "three separate and random acts of violence."
The Anaheim Denny's, which is next to Angel Stadium, attracts a crowd still looking for action after a nearby nightclub closes at 2 a.m., said Sgt. Rick Martinez of the Anaheim Police Department.
The altercation began at the nightclub and resumed inside the Denny's, spilling into the parking lot, where the 18-year-old man was shot, Sergeant Martinez said, adding that the fight was probably gang-related. The victim's name was not released.
A videotape of the Pismo Beach shooting showed a diner, Harold L. Hatley, lunging at the gunman, giving others precious seconds to flee before Mr. Hatley was shot dead at close range, the police said.
When Mr. Hatley, a 73-year-old retired oil worker from nearby Grover Beach, sprang from his seat, the police said, the gunman, Lawrence E. Woods, had already wounded a middle-aged couple and fatally shot Frank Valesquez, 73, with a revolver and a semiautomatic.
"Without question, it saved other people's lives," Cmdr. Jeff Norton of the Pismo Beach Police Department said of Mr. Hatley's action. "This whole thing from the moment the suspect entered the restaurant to the time he shot himself lasted 45 seconds."
Mr. Hatley's son, Robert Hatley, said his father ate lunch at the Denny's every morning at 11 but had been delayed almost an hour Wednesday because he was helping another son with housework.
"He was a creature of habit," Robert Hatley said. "He went to Denny's every day on his motorcycle. He was a heroic, courageous, fabulous, very funny guy."
Mr. Woods, 60, had until recently owned a company that repaired mobile homes, but the business failed and he was evicted, the police said. Writings described by the police as "rantings and ravings" were found in the van where he slept.
Mr. Woods had been convicted of several felony and drug-related offenses, the police said.
On Thursday, a 37-year-old man was shot and killed in Ontario after an early morning fight in a Denny's parking lot.
The police are still searching for suspects in both that shooting and the one in Anaheim.
Marketing Analyst: Avoid Calling Denny's Copycats
Marketing analyst says: "If the media uses terms like copycat or copycat killers, then people might be less likely to eat there."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Originally published Saturday, March 18, 2006
Experts doubt California attacks will harm restaurant chain
By Muhammed El-Hasan
DAILY BREEZE
Unfazed by the news of three fatal shootings at Denny's restaurants in California this week, Lidia Azouz had a meal Friday at the Lawndale Denny's and said she'd be back.
"We're not going to stop coming to Denny's, because we take chances wherever (we) go," said the 17-year-old Hawthorne resident as she stood outside the restaurant with four friends. "You could be driving a car and get shot."
With broad media coverage of the shootings, it's unclear how they would affect business at Denny's restaurants.
As long as customers like Azouz view the violence as isolated and random, then the restaurant chain's business would likely not take a hit, according to some analysts contacted Friday.
"Financially, I really don't see a big impact," said Mark Smith, an equity analyst with Sidoti & Co. in New York. "I think that most people realize that this is just random. ... If Denny's had somehow been responsible, if it was a manager of a restaurant, if they had some exposure to litigation from this, then I think it would have an impact. But I doubt that will happen."
Business likely would slow at the three affected Denny's restaurants, but there shouldn't be problems elsewhere, said Ron Paul, a food industry analyst with Technomic Inc. in Chicago.
"Denny's has a lot of stores, so three stores are not going to put the place under," Paul said. "I don't think it's going to affect other stores."
But some customers may shy away from eating at any Denny's restaurant, said analyst Bob Sandelman, of Sandelman & Associates in San Clemente.
"People probably realize that it's not Denny's fault," Sandelman said. "But people would rather be safe than sorry. And I can see how people might say, 'Hey, let's go somewhere else for now and see what happens.' "
Sandelman added that the amount and approach of media coverage could hurt Denny's.
"If the media uses terms like copycat or copycat killers, then people might be less likely to eat there," Sandelman said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
www.dailybreeze.com/news/regstate/articles/2486856.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Originally published Saturday, March 18, 2006
Experts doubt California attacks will harm restaurant chain
By Muhammed El-Hasan
DAILY BREEZE
Unfazed by the news of three fatal shootings at Denny's restaurants in California this week, Lidia Azouz had a meal Friday at the Lawndale Denny's and said she'd be back.
"We're not going to stop coming to Denny's, because we take chances wherever (we) go," said the 17-year-old Hawthorne resident as she stood outside the restaurant with four friends. "You could be driving a car and get shot."
With broad media coverage of the shootings, it's unclear how they would affect business at Denny's restaurants.
As long as customers like Azouz view the violence as isolated and random, then the restaurant chain's business would likely not take a hit, according to some analysts contacted Friday.
"Financially, I really don't see a big impact," said Mark Smith, an equity analyst with Sidoti & Co. in New York. "I think that most people realize that this is just random. ... If Denny's had somehow been responsible, if it was a manager of a restaurant, if they had some exposure to litigation from this, then I think it would have an impact. But I doubt that will happen."
Business likely would slow at the three affected Denny's restaurants, but there shouldn't be problems elsewhere, said Ron Paul, a food industry analyst with Technomic Inc. in Chicago.
"Denny's has a lot of stores, so three stores are not going to put the place under," Paul said. "I don't think it's going to affect other stores."
But some customers may shy away from eating at any Denny's restaurant, said analyst Bob Sandelman, of Sandelman & Associates in San Clemente.
"People probably realize that it's not Denny's fault," Sandelman said. "But people would rather be safe than sorry. And I can see how people might say, 'Hey, let's go somewhere else for now and see what happens.' "
Sandelman added that the amount and approach of media coverage could hurt Denny's.
"If the media uses terms like copycat or copycat killers, then people might be less likely to eat there," Sandelman said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
www.dailybreeze.com/news/regstate/articles/2486856.html
Friday, March 17, 2006
Three SoCal Denny's Fatalities in Three Days
There is little doubt that the copycat effect is behind this.
Loren
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743482239/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.klfy.com/global/story.asp?s=4645935
March 17, 2006
Man killed in third fatal shooting at a SoCal Denny's restaurant
ANAHEIM, Calif. Another fatal shooting at a Denny's restaurant in Southern California.
Police say a gunman opened fire early this morning at a restaurant in Anaheim, killing one man and seriously wounding another.
A fight broke out inside the restaurant, and police say one victim re-entered the restaurant after being shot and died inside.
Earlier this week, two men were killed at a restaurant in Pismo Beach and another man was fatally shot in the parking lot of a restaurant in Ontario.
A gun has been found near the scene of today's shooting, but officers aren't sure if it was the weapon used.
The gunman is still being sought by authorities.
Loren
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743482239/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.klfy.com/global/story.asp?s=4645935
March 17, 2006
Man killed in third fatal shooting at a SoCal Denny's restaurant
ANAHEIM, Calif. Another fatal shooting at a Denny's restaurant in Southern California.
Police say a gunman opened fire early this morning at a restaurant in Anaheim, killing one man and seriously wounding another.
A fight broke out inside the restaurant, and police say one victim re-entered the restaurant after being shot and died inside.
Earlier this week, two men were killed at a restaurant in Pismo Beach and another man was fatally shot in the parking lot of a restaurant in Ontario.
A gun has been found near the scene of today's shooting, but officers aren't sure if it was the weapon used.
The gunman is still being sought by authorities.
Denny's, shootings #2 and #3
(2nd shooting on March 16, 2006)
A Man Is Fatally Shot Outside a Denny's
ONTARIO - Another Southern California Denny's has become the scene of a deadly shooting, this one in Ontario.
Officer Bill Russell of the Ontario police says a 37-year-old Pomona man was fatally shot in the restaurant's parking lot on the 1400 block of East Fourth Street.
Russell says a group of ten to 15 people was gathered at the scene before the victim arrived. When he did, he got into an altercation with some of its members. One pulled out a gun and shot him.
The victim died from his wounds after being taken to an area hospital.
Police are looking for a suspect, whose identity remains unknown.
Russell says officials also don't know if the gunman and the victim knew one another.
Two people were killed yesterday at a Pismo Beach Denny's when a gunman opened fire inside that restaurant.
++++
March 17, 2006
Third Denny's shooting occurs in California
Latest fatal shooting occurred at Denny's across from Anaheim Stadium.
A Man Is Fatally Shot Outside a Denny's
ONTARIO - Another Southern California Denny's has become the scene of a deadly shooting, this one in Ontario.
Officer Bill Russell of the Ontario police says a 37-year-old Pomona man was fatally shot in the restaurant's parking lot on the 1400 block of East Fourth Street.
Russell says a group of ten to 15 people was gathered at the scene before the victim arrived. When he did, he got into an altercation with some of its members. One pulled out a gun and shot him.
The victim died from his wounds after being taken to an area hospital.
Police are looking for a suspect, whose identity remains unknown.
Russell says officials also don't know if the gunman and the victim knew one another.
Two people were killed yesterday at a Pismo Beach Denny's when a gunman opened fire inside that restaurant.
++++
March 17, 2006
Third Denny's shooting occurs in California
Latest fatal shooting occurred at Denny's across from Anaheim Stadium.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Three dead, two wounded in Denny's shooting
Police say three dead, two wounded in restaurant shooting
2:20 p.m. March 15, 2006
PISMO BEACH – A gunman opened fire inside a crowded Denny's restaurant during lunch hour Wednesday, killing two people and wounding two before taking his own life, police said.
“There could have been 30 or 40 people inside. As the shootings occurred, people were fleeing the restaurant, hiding in bathrooms,” Cmdr. Jeff Norton said.
Police said they did not know the motive for the shootings.
Police Chief Joe Cortez said authorities have not found any connection between the gunman and the victims and it doesn't appear he had a grudge against Denny's or its employees.
He said the man began shooting within a few steps of the restaurant's front door.
“The witnesses described him as coming in with a dazed look on his face, then they said he started shooting,” Cortez said.
The names of the gunman and the victims were not immediately released. Nor was the condition of the wounded.
Cindy Tabelin of Stockton said her 68-year-old cousin was one of the victims. She told the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune that said she and her mother were on their way into the restaurant when the shooting started.
Her cousin was inside with his wife and young granddaughter, Tabelin said.
She sat on a curb in the restaurant parking lot after the shooting. “I'm waiting for them to let us have our cousin,” she said.
Her cousin's granddaughter was not shot, but “she just watched her grandfather get killed,” Tabelin said.
Pismo Beach is in San Luis Obispo County, about a 190-mile drive northwest of Los Angeles.
2:20 p.m. March 15, 2006
PISMO BEACH – A gunman opened fire inside a crowded Denny's restaurant during lunch hour Wednesday, killing two people and wounding two before taking his own life, police said.
“There could have been 30 or 40 people inside. As the shootings occurred, people were fleeing the restaurant, hiding in bathrooms,” Cmdr. Jeff Norton said.
Police said they did not know the motive for the shootings.
Police Chief Joe Cortez said authorities have not found any connection between the gunman and the victims and it doesn't appear he had a grudge against Denny's or its employees.
He said the man began shooting within a few steps of the restaurant's front door.
“The witnesses described him as coming in with a dazed look on his face, then they said he started shooting,” Cortez said.
The names of the gunman and the victims were not immediately released. Nor was the condition of the wounded.
Cindy Tabelin of Stockton said her 68-year-old cousin was one of the victims. She told the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune that said she and her mother were on their way into the restaurant when the shooting started.
Her cousin was inside with his wife and young granddaughter, Tabelin said.
She sat on a curb in the restaurant parking lot after the shooting. “I'm waiting for them to let us have our cousin,” she said.
Her cousin's granddaughter was not shot, but “she just watched her grandfather get killed,” Tabelin said.
Pismo Beach is in San Luis Obispo County, about a 190-mile drive northwest of Los Angeles.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Nine Dead in Two Japanese Group Suicides
CNN News is noting the following.
Their article, "Nine dead in Japan 'group suicide'," for Friday, March 10, 2006, reads in part:
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japanese police are investigating two separate cases of suspected group suicide after nine people were found dead in parked cars, the latest in a series of such cases.
Five men and one woman were found dead in a station wagon in Saitama prefecture, just north of Tokyo, a police spokesman said.
He noted that charcoal stoves were found in the car but declined to give further details, citing ongoing investigations. The charcoal generates carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas.
Separately, a man and two women were found dead in a sealed car parked in the foothills of a mountain in Aomori prefecture, some 570 km (280 miles) north of Tokyo, a police spokesman said.
In this case too, charcoal stoves were found in the car with the three, who were undergoing treatment for mental illness and may have met at hospital, an Aomori police spokesman said.
++++++
We have noted that copycats like this, in Japan, come in waves, and this may be an indication of some future activity here.
Thanks to Ben Radford for alerting us to this news item.
Their article, "Nine dead in Japan 'group suicide'," for Friday, March 10, 2006, reads in part:
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japanese police are investigating two separate cases of suspected group suicide after nine people were found dead in parked cars, the latest in a series of such cases.
Five men and one woman were found dead in a station wagon in Saitama prefecture, just north of Tokyo, a police spokesman said.
He noted that charcoal stoves were found in the car but declined to give further details, citing ongoing investigations. The charcoal generates carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas.
Separately, a man and two women were found dead in a sealed car parked in the foothills of a mountain in Aomori prefecture, some 570 km (280 miles) north of Tokyo, a police spokesman said.
In this case too, charcoal stoves were found in the car with the three, who were undergoing treatment for mental illness and may have met at hospital, an Aomori police spokesman said.
++++++
We have noted that copycats like this, in Japan, come in waves, and this may be an indication of some future activity here.
Thanks to Ben Radford for alerting us to this news item.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Iranian in US Campus "Car Attack"
According to the BBC News article, "Iranian in US campus 'car attack'" published on Sunday, 5 March 2006, we learn, in part:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
An Iranian student has been charged with attempting to murder nine people with a car in the US to "avenge the deaths of Muslims", he told police.
Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, drove a rented Jeep into a crowd at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill on Friday, police said.
Mr Taheri-azar, a graduate of the university, then called police to surrender, officers said.
No-one was seriously hurt in the incident, which the FBI is probing.
Cartoons
Mr Taheri-azar has been charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to cause bodily injury.
Police said he drove the Jeep Cherokee into a pedestrian plaza close to two libraries and the student union block at the centre of the campus.
Derek Poarch, chief of the university's police department, told the Associated Press news agency Mr Taheri-azar had said he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world".
Mr Taheri-azar is being held in a prison in nearby Raleigh and will appear in court on Monday.
Mr Poarch said Mr Taheri-azar said he had told police they would find out more about his motives if they searched his home.
++++++
Other than noting that tensions at the university have been high since a campus newspaper printed one of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, no other information was given about what was found in a search of Taheri-azar's apartment in the BBC News article.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
An Iranian student has been charged with attempting to murder nine people with a car in the US to "avenge the deaths of Muslims", he told police.
Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, drove a rented Jeep into a crowd at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill on Friday, police said.
Mr Taheri-azar, a graduate of the university, then called police to surrender, officers said.
No-one was seriously hurt in the incident, which the FBI is probing.
Cartoons
Mr Taheri-azar has been charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to cause bodily injury.
Police said he drove the Jeep Cherokee into a pedestrian plaza close to two libraries and the student union block at the centre of the campus.
Derek Poarch, chief of the university's police department, told the Associated Press news agency Mr Taheri-azar had said he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world".
Mr Taheri-azar is being held in a prison in nearby Raleigh and will appear in court on Monday.
Mr Poarch said Mr Taheri-azar said he had told police they would find out more about his motives if they searched his home.
++++++
Other than noting that tensions at the university have been high since a campus newspaper printed one of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, no other information was given about what was found in a search of Taheri-azar's apartment in the BBC News article.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Two Die In Midwest Church Shooting
On Sunday, February 26, 2006, shooting erupted at Detroit's Zion Hope Missionary Baptist Church -- located at Van Dyke and Warren avenues.
Rosita Williams, 37, was killed while attending services at the church, as she sat in the balcony with her mother, sister and four nieces. Her 10-year-old niece was wounded, according to police. The shooter was identified as Kevin Collins, 22, who was looking for Williams' daughter, Jamika, 19, the mother of his child, WDIV-TV reported.
About 5 1/2 hours after the church shooting, officers spotted Collins walking about a mile from the church and saw him run behind a home. "An officer then heard a loud boom," Second Deputy Chief James Tate reported. Collins died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
On Monday, February 27, 2006, Alarie Davis, 54, died of wounds he received trying to protect his wife from Collins' carjacking attempt near the Detroit church on Sunday. Williams' husband, James Cult, said the tragedy of the second innocent victim's death on the 26th could have been prevented. He said he told police where Collins lived and worked.
{Thanks SMiles.}
===
Flashback: On Saturday, March 12, 2005, Terry Ratzmann, 44, kills seven and then himself at church services in Brookfield, Wisconsin. On the following Friday, March 18, 2005, Jeff Weise, 16, kills nine and then himself in Red Lake, Minnesota, in the largest school shooting since Columbine.
Rosita Williams, 37, was killed while attending services at the church, as she sat in the balcony with her mother, sister and four nieces. Her 10-year-old niece was wounded, according to police. The shooter was identified as Kevin Collins, 22, who was looking for Williams' daughter, Jamika, 19, the mother of his child, WDIV-TV reported.
About 5 1/2 hours after the church shooting, officers spotted Collins walking about a mile from the church and saw him run behind a home. "An officer then heard a loud boom," Second Deputy Chief James Tate reported. Collins died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
On Monday, February 27, 2006, Alarie Davis, 54, died of wounds he received trying to protect his wife from Collins' carjacking attempt near the Detroit church on Sunday. Williams' husband, James Cult, said the tragedy of the second innocent victim's death on the 26th could have been prevented. He said he told police where Collins lived and worked.
{Thanks SMiles.}
===
Flashback: On Saturday, March 12, 2005, Terry Ratzmann, 44, kills seven and then himself at church services in Brookfield, Wisconsin. On the following Friday, March 18, 2005, Jeff Weise, 16, kills nine and then himself in Red Lake, Minnesota, in the largest school shooting since Columbine.
Monday, February 27, 2006
More West Coast Rampages in March-April?
I read with interest Carlos Castano's article on the school shooting in Roseburg on Thursday, February 23, 2006.
The KVAL journalist wrote that he interviewed an expert who said that he does not see "this one" having anything to do with "Thurston." And that those in Oregon should feel safe.
I would have to disagree. Oregon should NOT let its guard down, especially now. From my study of school suicide clusters, workplace rampages, and school shootings for over 25 years, that expert's kind of approach ignores what actually happens before and after a school shooting.
What may be more important to what occurred in Roseburg is the general returning climate for shooting rampages in this country. The January 30, 2006, incident where USPS ex-employee Jennifer Sanmarco in Santa Barbara, CA, killed seven and then herself, may have more to do with the recent Oregon event, of course, but the legacy of Thurston is in the background. The California "going postal" rampage was then followed by the gay bar incident in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the police shootout in Arkansas, followed by the killer's murder-suicide in his car.
Take for example, the incident of May 21, 1998, when Kip Kinkel shot and killed two fellow Thurston High School students. Any analysis needs to be done in context.
Please note what else was taking place around the time of the Springfield, Oregon:
March 24, 1998
Jonesboro, Arkansas. Four students and one teacher killed by Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, who shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods. Ten other students were wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm.
April 17, 1998
Near Dallas, Texas. One person was killed in a "going postal" workplace rampage shooting at the Northhaven postal facility.
April 24, 1998
Edinboro, Pennsylvania. One teacher, John Gillette, was killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.
May 19, 1998
Fayetteville, Tennessee. One student was killed in the parking lot at Lincoln County High School three days before he was to graduate. The victim was dating the ex-girlfriend of his killer, 18-year-old honor student Jacob Davis.
May 21, 1998
Springfield, Oregon. Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. His parents were later found dead at home.
My further investigations revealed that two other school shootings happen that day.
From my book, The Copycat Effect, following my discussion of the Springfield, Oregon shooting, I write:
"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.
Thank goodness there were no fatalities in the Roseburg incident. But here's my concern and prediction: Since the void in the regular workplace and school shooting cycle for the one year after 9/11, we are returning to the routine pattern in fatal shooting incidents and near fatal school shootings. The typical pattern of shootings in March and April is predictable, and often mirrors a location trend. So European shootings followed each other, April followed April, and then Minnesota followed Minnesota. Will more Oregon shootings follow this Roseburg event, and occur in the near future? I would not let the words of anyone saying "school shootings in Oregon are rare" make people feel safe.
Fatal school shootings:
April 26, 2002
Erfurt, Germany
April 29, 2002
Vlasenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina
April 24, 2003
Red Lion, Pa.
Sept. 24, 2003
Cold Spring, Minn.
Sept. 28, 2004
Carmen de Patagones, Argentina
March 21, 2005
Red Lake, Minn.
Oregon is not out of the woods yet.
Indeed, look for more rampages on the West Coast in March-April 2006.
The KVAL journalist wrote that he interviewed an expert who said that he does not see "this one" having anything to do with "Thurston." And that those in Oregon should feel safe.
I would have to disagree. Oregon should NOT let its guard down, especially now. From my study of school suicide clusters, workplace rampages, and school shootings for over 25 years, that expert's kind of approach ignores what actually happens before and after a school shooting.
What may be more important to what occurred in Roseburg is the general returning climate for shooting rampages in this country. The January 30, 2006, incident where USPS ex-employee Jennifer Sanmarco in Santa Barbara, CA, killed seven and then herself, may have more to do with the recent Oregon event, of course, but the legacy of Thurston is in the background. The California "going postal" rampage was then followed by the gay bar incident in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the police shootout in Arkansas, followed by the killer's murder-suicide in his car.
Take for example, the incident of May 21, 1998, when Kip Kinkel shot and killed two fellow Thurston High School students. Any analysis needs to be done in context.
Please note what else was taking place around the time of the Springfield, Oregon:
March 24, 1998
Jonesboro, Arkansas. Four students and one teacher killed by Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, who shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods. Ten other students were wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm.
April 17, 1998
Near Dallas, Texas. One person was killed in a "going postal" workplace rampage shooting at the Northhaven postal facility.
April 24, 1998
Edinboro, Pennsylvania. One teacher, John Gillette, was killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.
May 19, 1998
Fayetteville, Tennessee. One student was killed in the parking lot at Lincoln County High School three days before he was to graduate. The victim was dating the ex-girlfriend of his killer, 18-year-old honor student Jacob Davis.
May 21, 1998
Springfield, Oregon. Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. His parents were later found dead at home.
My further investigations revealed that two other school shootings happen that day.
From my book, The Copycat Effect, following my discussion of the Springfield, Oregon shooting, I write:
"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.
Thank goodness there were no fatalities in the Roseburg incident. But here's my concern and prediction: Since the void in the regular workplace and school shooting cycle for the one year after 9/11, we are returning to the routine pattern in fatal shooting incidents and near fatal school shootings. The typical pattern of shootings in March and April is predictable, and often mirrors a location trend. So European shootings followed each other, April followed April, and then Minnesota followed Minnesota. Will more Oregon shootings follow this Roseburg event, and occur in the near future? I would not let the words of anyone saying "school shootings in Oregon are rare" make people feel safe.
Fatal school shootings:
April 26, 2002
Erfurt, Germany
April 29, 2002
Vlasenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina
April 24, 2003
Red Lion, Pa.
Sept. 24, 2003
Cold Spring, Minn.
Sept. 28, 2004
Carmen de Patagones, Argentina
March 21, 2005
Red Lake, Minn.
Oregon is not out of the woods yet.
Indeed, look for more rampages on the West Coast in March-April 2006.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Grammys: Helter Skelter, McCartney, Manson, Melcher, More?
On February 8, 2006, during the Grammys, the second song that Paul McCartney decided to sing was "Helter Skelter."
Talk about twilight language.
"Tell me tell me tell me the answer." - Helter Skelter
The Beatles song has been tied to Charles Manson for a long time. As Wikipedia notes: "In December 1968, Charles Manson heard this song, and others from the White Album, and interpreted them as a warning of an approaching race war. He saw the Beatles as the Four Angels of the Apocalypse mentioned in the New Testament book of Revelation and believed their songs were telling him and his followers to prepare themselves ('Look out, cos here she comes!'). Manson referred to this future war as 'Helter Skelter.' The words 'Healter Skelter' [sic] were also written in blood at the scene of one of the murders committed by the Manson Family."
Singing Helter Skelter on February 8th is an intriguing choice, er, coincidence.
February 8, 1942, is the birthday of Terry Melcher.
Terry Melcher (singer/songwriter/producer, b. New York, NY, USA, d. Nov. 19, 2004, Beverly Hills, CA, USA, of cancer). Terry was the son of famed actress/singer Doris Day (her only child) and her first husband, trombonist Al Jorden. (Doris was only 18 when she gave birth to Terry.) 10 years later, he was adopted by Doris Day's third husband, her agent and producer Martin Melcher, and took his surname. Besides composing songs, and producing festivals, Melcher is remembered today as the man most responsible for shaping the 1960s sounds of California-style folk and 'surf' music. In the early 1960's, Melcher started his career as a solo performer. He soon paired with Bruce Johnston (a future 'Beach Boy') as 'Bruce & Terry, and they had several hits. The duo then formed the 'Rip Chords' and had success with their 1964 hit "Hey, Little Cobra." Melcher also performed on the seminal 'Beach Boys' album "Pet Sounds". In the mid-60's, Melcher secured an internship in Columbia's producer-trainee program in New York. As a Columbia Records producer, he returned to California, and was set to work on "Don't Make My Baby Blue" which put Frankie Laine back into the US Top Fifty for the first time since 1957. Terry also worked with such folk and rock pioneers as Gram Parsons, 'The Mamas and the Papas', and Ry Cooder. He also helped to transform the little-known folk-rock band, 'The Byrds', into stars.when he produced their versions of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" (to Everything There is a Season), "The Bells of Rhymney", and later recordings like "Ballad of Easy Rider".
In 1969, Terry Melcher became a peripheral figure in the notorious Charles Manson murder case, when it was determined that Terry had once rented the same house in which actress Sharon Tate and her friends were killed by Manson's followers. There was speculation at the time that Melcher, who knew Manson, was the real intended target because he had turned down Manson's request for a recording contract. However, police established that Melcher had moved and that Manson knew his whereabouts.
From 1968 to 1972, Terry was the executive producer of his mother's television series, "The Doris Day Show", and later co-produced her mid-1980's program, "Doris Day's Best Friends". Also in the 1980s, he co-composed the hit "Kokomo", a song that 1) was featured in the Tom Cruise film "Cocktail", 2) helped stoke a 1980's revival for the Beach Boys, and 3) received a Golden Globe nomination in 1988 for best original song. Terry was always close to his mother, and before his demise had been running various businesses for her and supervising her charitable activities, including the Doris Day Animal Foundation.
Melcher source.
February 8 is the death day of Frank Retz.
In 1998, on February 8, Frank Retz died in car accident in Los Angeles County. A World War II German Army captain who emigrated to America after the war and found success as a businessman became a victim early Sunday of the recent series of powerful storms that slammed the Southland. Frank Retz, 84, was killed when the car he was in fell to the bottom of a 60-foot ravine near his secluded home, off Santa Susana Pass Road. Did he lose control in the rainstorm or did the weight of the car in which he and his friends were riding caused the bridge to collapse? Police were unsure how the accident really happened.
The car, which belonged to Andy and Helen Gattuso, plunged to the bottom of the ravine about 1:30 a.m., authorities said. The Gattusos, both in their 60s, managed to crawl out of the overturned vehicle and climb up the edge of the embankment.
Retz was remembered as a colorful character by his neighbors, who said he boasted of being the stuntman atop the horse in the TV series, "Zorro," and of once physically assaulting Charles Manson, whom he caught trespassing on his property. (Retz source 1).
Frank Retz testified in 1977, that he purchased a portion of the Spahn Ranch in 1967 or 1968 and thereafter negotiated with Spahn for the purchase of the remainder of the ranch. In June 1969, Retz arranged to purchase the Kelly Ranch adjoining the Spahn Ranch and on June 30, 1969, Retz entered the farmhouse and saw Manson and about 20 people lying on the floor. Retz ordered Manson off of his property. Retz called the sheriff. Retz saw Manson on the Kelly property frequently after June 30, 1969, and ordered him off the property. After June 30, 1969, Retz had several conversations with Spahn, many of which were overheard by "Squeaky" Fromme (a Manson family member) about getting Manson and his family off of the Spahn Ranch. Retz told Manson to leave the ranch because Spahn asked Retz to clean up the ranch of the Manson family and he gave Retz a power of attorney. See more at Retz source 2.
Talk about twilight language.
"Tell me tell me tell me the answer." - Helter Skelter
The Beatles song has been tied to Charles Manson for a long time. As Wikipedia notes: "In December 1968, Charles Manson heard this song, and others from the White Album, and interpreted them as a warning of an approaching race war. He saw the Beatles as the Four Angels of the Apocalypse mentioned in the New Testament book of Revelation and believed their songs were telling him and his followers to prepare themselves ('Look out, cos here she comes!'). Manson referred to this future war as 'Helter Skelter.' The words 'Healter Skelter' [sic] were also written in blood at the scene of one of the murders committed by the Manson Family."
Singing Helter Skelter on February 8th is an intriguing choice, er, coincidence.
February 8, 1942, is the birthday of Terry Melcher.
Terry Melcher (singer/songwriter/producer, b. New York, NY, USA, d. Nov. 19, 2004, Beverly Hills, CA, USA, of cancer). Terry was the son of famed actress/singer Doris Day (her only child) and her first husband, trombonist Al Jorden. (Doris was only 18 when she gave birth to Terry.) 10 years later, he was adopted by Doris Day's third husband, her agent and producer Martin Melcher, and took his surname. Besides composing songs, and producing festivals, Melcher is remembered today as the man most responsible for shaping the 1960s sounds of California-style folk and 'surf' music. In the early 1960's, Melcher started his career as a solo performer. He soon paired with Bruce Johnston (a future 'Beach Boy') as 'Bruce & Terry, and they had several hits. The duo then formed the 'Rip Chords' and had success with their 1964 hit "Hey, Little Cobra." Melcher also performed on the seminal 'Beach Boys' album "Pet Sounds". In the mid-60's, Melcher secured an internship in Columbia's producer-trainee program in New York. As a Columbia Records producer, he returned to California, and was set to work on "Don't Make My Baby Blue" which put Frankie Laine back into the US Top Fifty for the first time since 1957. Terry also worked with such folk and rock pioneers as Gram Parsons, 'The Mamas and the Papas', and Ry Cooder. He also helped to transform the little-known folk-rock band, 'The Byrds', into stars.when he produced their versions of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" (to Everything There is a Season), "The Bells of Rhymney", and later recordings like "Ballad of Easy Rider".
In 1969, Terry Melcher became a peripheral figure in the notorious Charles Manson murder case, when it was determined that Terry had once rented the same house in which actress Sharon Tate and her friends were killed by Manson's followers. There was speculation at the time that Melcher, who knew Manson, was the real intended target because he had turned down Manson's request for a recording contract. However, police established that Melcher had moved and that Manson knew his whereabouts.
From 1968 to 1972, Terry was the executive producer of his mother's television series, "The Doris Day Show", and later co-produced her mid-1980's program, "Doris Day's Best Friends". Also in the 1980s, he co-composed the hit "Kokomo", a song that 1) was featured in the Tom Cruise film "Cocktail", 2) helped stoke a 1980's revival for the Beach Boys, and 3) received a Golden Globe nomination in 1988 for best original song. Terry was always close to his mother, and before his demise had been running various businesses for her and supervising her charitable activities, including the Doris Day Animal Foundation.
Melcher source.
February 8 is the death day of Frank Retz.
In 1998, on February 8, Frank Retz died in car accident in Los Angeles County. A World War II German Army captain who emigrated to America after the war and found success as a businessman became a victim early Sunday of the recent series of powerful storms that slammed the Southland. Frank Retz, 84, was killed when the car he was in fell to the bottom of a 60-foot ravine near his secluded home, off Santa Susana Pass Road. Did he lose control in the rainstorm or did the weight of the car in which he and his friends were riding caused the bridge to collapse? Police were unsure how the accident really happened.
The car, which belonged to Andy and Helen Gattuso, plunged to the bottom of the ravine about 1:30 a.m., authorities said. The Gattusos, both in their 60s, managed to crawl out of the overturned vehicle and climb up the edge of the embankment.
Retz was remembered as a colorful character by his neighbors, who said he boasted of being the stuntman atop the horse in the TV series, "Zorro," and of once physically assaulting Charles Manson, whom he caught trespassing on his property. (Retz source 1).
Frank Retz testified in 1977, that he purchased a portion of the Spahn Ranch in 1967 or 1968 and thereafter negotiated with Spahn for the purchase of the remainder of the ranch. In June 1969, Retz arranged to purchase the Kelly Ranch adjoining the Spahn Ranch and on June 30, 1969, Retz entered the farmhouse and saw Manson and about 20 people lying on the floor. Retz ordered Manson off of his property. Retz called the sheriff. Retz saw Manson on the Kelly property frequently after June 30, 1969, and ordered him off the property. After June 30, 1969, Retz had several conversations with Spahn, many of which were overheard by "Squeaky" Fromme (a Manson family member) about getting Manson and his family off of the Spahn Ranch. Retz told Manson to leave the ranch because Spahn asked Retz to clean up the ranch of the Manson family and he gave Retz a power of attorney. See more at Retz source 2.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Sanmarco and Robida Linked?
Am I the only person to see the link between Jennifer Sanmarco who went "postal" Monday last week, and Jason Robida, who went on the attack at a gay bar three days later?
Both had racist points of view. Sanmarco wished to have published in Milan, NM, something to be called "The Racist Press." Robida had a racist and neo-Nazi style myspace.com site. Sanmarco used a gun to kill mostly women and minorities at her former postal job. Robida used a hachet and gun to attack and injury gays. Later, in Norfolk, Arkansas, he used a gun to kill a law enforcement officer and perhaps his girlfriend.
Sanmarco killed herself. Robida died by "suicide by cop."
People are searching for the "why" today for Robida's cross country rampage.
How are we to know? But perhaps the Sanmarco's event triggered Robida's reaction and mayhem?
What should we expect this week?
Both had racist points of view. Sanmarco wished to have published in Milan, NM, something to be called "The Racist Press." Robida had a racist and neo-Nazi style myspace.com site. Sanmarco used a gun to kill mostly women and minorities at her former postal job. Robida used a hachet and gun to attack and injury gays. Later, in Norfolk, Arkansas, he used a gun to kill a law enforcement officer and perhaps his girlfriend.
Sanmarco killed herself. Robida died by "suicide by cop."
People are searching for the "why" today for Robida's cross country rampage.
How are we to know? But perhaps the Sanmarco's event triggered Robida's reaction and mayhem?
What should we expect this week?
Friday, February 03, 2006
Empire State Building Suicide
The Associated Press is reporting that Dovid Abramowitz, 21, of Manhattan, jumped from the Empire State Building in New York City on February 1, 2006. He apparently "had bought a ticket to the 86th-floor observation deck but found his way to a vacant office on the 66th floor, where he jumped Wednesday afternoon, said police spokesman Lt. John Grimpel. His body was discovered on a sixth-floor landing."
The article stated that "more than 30 people have committed suicide at the building since it opened in 1931. Before Wednesday, the most recent was believed to have been in 2004, when a man jumped from the observation deck."
There were two 2004 incidents of note. One occurred in February of that year, when a man jumped from the 80th floor, immediately after he had filled out a job application.
Another Empire State Building death happened when an unidentified probable West African, 25 to 30 years old, 5-feet-8 and 161 pounds, with a large scar on his left shoulder, leapt, on the morning of Nov. 26, 2004, from the observation deck.
Including the 2006 suicide victim, exactly 35 individuals have died by suicide from the Empire State Building.
The article stated that "more than 30 people have committed suicide at the building since it opened in 1931. Before Wednesday, the most recent was believed to have been in 2004, when a man jumped from the observation deck."
There were two 2004 incidents of note. One occurred in February of that year, when a man jumped from the 80th floor, immediately after he had filled out a job application.
Another Empire State Building death happened when an unidentified probable West African, 25 to 30 years old, 5-feet-8 and 161 pounds, with a large scar on his left shoulder, leapt, on the morning of Nov. 26, 2004, from the observation deck.
Including the 2006 suicide victim, exactly 35 individuals have died by suicide from the Empire State Building.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Going Postal Again
The news reports are that a USPS ex-employee has killed six, and may have killed a neighbor before she began her rampage January 30-31, 2006.
The female ex-postal worker, Jennifer Sanmarco, shot dead six people at the Processing and Distribution Center in Santa Barbara, California, before dying by suicide herself.
She killed six plus herself (6+1=7), and allegedly may have killed another earlier (#8).
"According to witnesses from the scene, she had a 9 mm pistol and reloaded at least once during her rampage," Santa Barbara County Sheriff James Anderson said Tuesday.
The possible seventh victim was found dead Tuesday from a gunshot wound to the head at a Santa Barbara condominium complex where Sanmarco once lived, said Jeff Klapakis with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
“Evidence and circumstances of both crimes show distinct correlations between the two,” Klapakis said Wednesday.
Klapakis said the woman, identified by her brother as Beverly Graham, 54, died Monday.
As some media mentioned, this is the first woman postal employee (present or former) to be the shooter in a "going postal" event.
It is also being noted by the media that it has been eight years since a postal rampage.
Yes, there were several in 1998. But, while it was not technically a "postal shooting," on April 10, 2001, an Ethiopian immigrant walked into at a postal bulk transfer facility in New Jersey, and slashed three employees. He then was found in the locker room by police, wearing only his underwear, covered in his own blood because he'd cut his left wrist. Three Kearney, NJ police officers who found him were then approached by the man who had a knife and a gun.. They asked him to throw aside his weapons, but when he didn't, they all dispatched their firearms, killing the postal invader.
I've always wondered about the metaphoric twilight language in this 4/10 attack - an Ethiopian (who had been in the country since 1994) using a knife (like a boxcutter) to attempt a murder-suicide attack against a symbol of America (the USPS), five months before 9/11.
The media attention to this new 1/30/06 "going postal" event (somewhat lessened by the immediate replacement "breaking news" items, the death of Coretta Scott King) could cause a copycat effect ripple this Friday and/or Monday via another workplace rampage and/or a school shooting.
I have been predicting that this spring 2006 could be another time with a couple rather dramatic school shootings (with March 20th through April 20th, once again, being the key days). This event might speed up the timetable.
See Chapter 10, "Going Postal," in The Copycat Effect (2004), for more details about other postal rampage shootings.
The female ex-postal worker, Jennifer Sanmarco, shot dead six people at the Processing and Distribution Center in Santa Barbara, California, before dying by suicide herself.
She killed six plus herself (6+1=7), and allegedly may have killed another earlier (#8).
"According to witnesses from the scene, she had a 9 mm pistol and reloaded at least once during her rampage," Santa Barbara County Sheriff James Anderson said Tuesday.
The possible seventh victim was found dead Tuesday from a gunshot wound to the head at a Santa Barbara condominium complex where Sanmarco once lived, said Jeff Klapakis with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
“Evidence and circumstances of both crimes show distinct correlations between the two,” Klapakis said Wednesday.
Klapakis said the woman, identified by her brother as Beverly Graham, 54, died Monday.
As some media mentioned, this is the first woman postal employee (present or former) to be the shooter in a "going postal" event.
It is also being noted by the media that it has been eight years since a postal rampage.
Yes, there were several in 1998. But, while it was not technically a "postal shooting," on April 10, 2001, an Ethiopian immigrant walked into at a postal bulk transfer facility in New Jersey, and slashed three employees. He then was found in the locker room by police, wearing only his underwear, covered in his own blood because he'd cut his left wrist. Three Kearney, NJ police officers who found him were then approached by the man who had a knife and a gun.. They asked him to throw aside his weapons, but when he didn't, they all dispatched their firearms, killing the postal invader.
I've always wondered about the metaphoric twilight language in this 4/10 attack - an Ethiopian (who had been in the country since 1994) using a knife (like a boxcutter) to attempt a murder-suicide attack against a symbol of America (the USPS), five months before 9/11.
The media attention to this new 1/30/06 "going postal" event (somewhat lessened by the immediate replacement "breaking news" items, the death of Coretta Scott King) could cause a copycat effect ripple this Friday and/or Monday via another workplace rampage and/or a school shooting.
I have been predicting that this spring 2006 could be another time with a couple rather dramatic school shootings (with March 20th through April 20th, once again, being the key days). This event might speed up the timetable.
See Chapter 10, "Going Postal," in The Copycat Effect (2004), for more details about other postal rampage shootings.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Tennessee School Shooting
Tennessee School Shooting
There's been another school shooting . It was widely reported by the media today.
A teenager shot and killed an assistant principal and seriously wounded two other administrators at a high school, officials said. The student was arrested, after he was shot with his own gun, a .22-caliber handgun, in a struggle with law enforcement officers. Other than the suspect, Ken Bartley Jr., 15, no other students were hurt in the shooting.
In an overview, the Canada's National spread the news: "Principal Ken Bruce was shot in the chest just after 2 p.m. Tuesday and died soon after at a hospital....Principal Gary Seale was shot in the lower abdomen, and Assistant Principal Jim Pierce was shot in the chest. Seale was in serious condition and Pierce in critical condition at University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville."
Principal Seale, after being hit, raced to an intercom, called for a lockdown. The sealing of the school apparently saved more lives, students told the media.
Intriguingly, earlier this fall, there was a nonfatal school shooting in Saginaw, Michigan. Probable gang-member (translate this from the media as "African-American") Clarence Russell III, 15, was accused of shooting fellow sophomore Daniel Foster, 15, just after noon, Thursday, October 20 near a stairwell inside Saginaw High School. Foster did not die of his injuries, and some speculation occurred that it was a gang-related shooting. This seemed especially true when on Monday, October 24, in a drive-by shooting, three teens were targeted, with two hit. The one teen who was not shot was the 17-year-old half brother of Clarence Russell III.
Recent news articles about the Saginaw incidents, as the shooting moves to trial, however, have discussed the matter as a "school shooting.," harking back to the waves of school shootings that hit the country, beginning in the late 1990s.
It is an exercise in awareness of the copycat effect to see what past school schoolings the nonAmerica media, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation views as "significant," as per this listing:
Timeline: US school shootings .
March 2005: Minnesota schoolboy kills nine, then shoots himself
May 2004: Four people injured in shooting at a school in Maryland
April 2003: Teenager shoots dead head-teacher at a Pennsylvania school, then kills himself
March 2001: Pupil opens fire at a school in California, killing two students
February 2000: Six-year-old girl shot dead by classmate in Michigan
November 1999: Thirteen-year-old girl shot dead by a classmate in New Mexico
May 1999: Student injures six pupils in shoot-out in Georgia
April 1999: Two teenagers shoot dead 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine School in Colorado
June 1998: Two adults hurt in shooting by teenage student at high school in Virginia
May 1998: Fifteen-year-old boy shoots himself in the head after taking a girl hostage
May 1998: Fifteen-year-old shoots dead two students in school cafeteria in Oregon
April 1998: Fourteen-year-old shoots dead a teacher and wounds two students in Pennsylvania
March 1998: Two boys, 11 and 13, kill four girls and a teacher in Arkansas
December 1997: Fourteen-year-old boy kills three students in Kentucky
October 1997: Sixteen-year-old boy stabs mother, then shoots dead two students at school in Mississippi, injuring several others
The list is, in reality, much longer, as you can see from The Copycat Effect (2004), but it is noting the ones that are highlighted that is enlightening. As anyone can see, the post-9/11 gap appears to have been caused by the media not reporting on school shootings.
There's been another school shooting . It was widely reported by the media today.
A teenager shot and killed an assistant principal and seriously wounded two other administrators at a high school, officials said. The student was arrested, after he was shot with his own gun, a .22-caliber handgun, in a struggle with law enforcement officers. Other than the suspect, Ken Bartley Jr., 15, no other students were hurt in the shooting.
In an overview, the Canada's National spread the news: "Principal Ken Bruce was shot in the chest just after 2 p.m. Tuesday and died soon after at a hospital....Principal Gary Seale was shot in the lower abdomen, and Assistant Principal Jim Pierce was shot in the chest. Seale was in serious condition and Pierce in critical condition at University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville."
Principal Seale, after being hit, raced to an intercom, called for a lockdown. The sealing of the school apparently saved more lives, students told the media.
Intriguingly, earlier this fall, there was a nonfatal school shooting in Saginaw, Michigan. Probable gang-member (translate this from the media as "African-American") Clarence Russell III, 15, was accused of shooting fellow sophomore Daniel Foster, 15, just after noon, Thursday, October 20 near a stairwell inside Saginaw High School. Foster did not die of his injuries, and some speculation occurred that it was a gang-related shooting. This seemed especially true when on Monday, October 24, in a drive-by shooting, three teens were targeted, with two hit. The one teen who was not shot was the 17-year-old half brother of Clarence Russell III.
Recent news articles about the Saginaw incidents, as the shooting moves to trial, however, have discussed the matter as a "school shooting.," harking back to the waves of school shootings that hit the country, beginning in the late 1990s.
It is an exercise in awareness of the copycat effect to see what past school schoolings the nonAmerica media, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation views as "significant," as per this listing:
Timeline: US school shootings .
March 2005: Minnesota schoolboy kills nine, then shoots himself
May 2004: Four people injured in shooting at a school in Maryland
April 2003: Teenager shoots dead head-teacher at a Pennsylvania school, then kills himself
March 2001: Pupil opens fire at a school in California, killing two students
February 2000: Six-year-old girl shot dead by classmate in Michigan
November 1999: Thirteen-year-old girl shot dead by a classmate in New Mexico
May 1999: Student injures six pupils in shoot-out in Georgia
April 1999: Two teenagers shoot dead 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine School in Colorado
June 1998: Two adults hurt in shooting by teenage student at high school in Virginia
May 1998: Fifteen-year-old boy shoots himself in the head after taking a girl hostage
May 1998: Fifteen-year-old shoots dead two students in school cafeteria in Oregon
April 1998: Fourteen-year-old shoots dead a teacher and wounds two students in Pennsylvania
March 1998: Two boys, 11 and 13, kill four girls and a teacher in Arkansas
December 1997: Fourteen-year-old boy kills three students in Kentucky
October 1997: Sixteen-year-old boy stabs mother, then shoots dead two students at school in Mississippi, injuring several others
The list is, in reality, much longer, as you can see from The Copycat Effect (2004), but it is noting the ones that are highlighted that is enlightening. As anyone can see, the post-9/11 gap appears to have been caused by the media not reporting on school shootings.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Bird Flu Media Hysteria
Let's all calm down a bit. The media and governmental hysteria that is being whipped up in the talk of bird flu becoming an international pandemic is all too familiar. First, how about setting aside the illogical statements coming from the Bush administration. They are feeding into the media frenzy by saying they are set to call out the military, declare quarantines, and close the borders, when it is well-known that this does not stop bird flu (hey, birds fly, remember).
So, catch your breath, and compare the bird flu predictions of global mass deaths to recent media scares of a similar nature.
In The Copycat Effect, I wrote:
In the summer of 2002, the West Nile virus was declared a great danger to Americans. As it developed, however, only a small number of people died (54), but as the Christian Science Monitor noted, “One would think from media reports that Americans are suffering the plague.”
During the spring and summer of 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Disease, the “SARS epidemic,” replaced the hysteria of the West Nile virus. SARS first emerged in November 2002, in the Guangdong province of China, but by the first warm months of 2003, you would think it was spreading like wildfire all over the world. On April 23, 2003, USA Today was warning that health officials were saying that “if SARS is not contained, it could cause millions of deaths worldwide - and some of those deaths would almost certainly occur in the USA.” The death drumbeat of the media was very clear. USA Today continued: “In terms of sheer numbers, the SARS epidemic so far pales in comparison to other worldwide epidemics. The Spanish flu of 1918-1919 killed roughly 30 million people, including about 675,000 Americans. Over the past 20 years, the slow-motion funeral march of AIDS has carried off 20 million people; 40 million more are poised to die in the next decade. Yet SARS is just beginning. The death toll could rise dramatically.”
On June 24, 2003, the newspaper that publishes “All The News That’s Fit to Print” did a special sciences spread on the “SARS Epidemic.” The New York Times had proclaimed it the “Summer of SARS,” just as surely as Time had crowned 2001 “The Summer of the Shark.” The source of the disease was unknown and serious, but a look at the known death tolls in June 2003, when the “epidemic peaked,” reveals that worldwide there were 812 deaths, of which 348 were in China, 298 in Hong Kong, 84 in Taiwan, 32 in Singapore, and 38 in Canada.
For all the talk of wild animal attacks and deadly viruses sweeping the world, it is obvious the media misses the bigger picture daily, instead going for the melodramatic, the dramatic, and the sensational. If news organizations were really interested in talking about the most deathly animal around, for example, they would be doing more reports on mosquitoes which, according to the World Health Organization, are responsible for two million deaths annually from encephalitis, Dengue fever, malaria, and the West Nile virus, or the tsetse fly which wipes out another 66,000 people every year. But a news story about a mosquito just doesn’t have the bite of a shark story obviously.
The media loves melodrama. Sensationalism now rules the news. In the human realm, the media reinforces the events it covers. Otherwise, it blows subjects out of all proportion to reality. The unjustified amount of attention it devotes to shark attacks and SARS, for example, demonstrates that the level of media coverage has no relation to the real impact these topics have on most people.
So, catch your breath, and compare the bird flu predictions of global mass deaths to recent media scares of a similar nature.
In The Copycat Effect, I wrote:
In the summer of 2002, the West Nile virus was declared a great danger to Americans. As it developed, however, only a small number of people died (54), but as the Christian Science Monitor noted, “One would think from media reports that Americans are suffering the plague.”
During the spring and summer of 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Disease, the “SARS epidemic,” replaced the hysteria of the West Nile virus. SARS first emerged in November 2002, in the Guangdong province of China, but by the first warm months of 2003, you would think it was spreading like wildfire all over the world. On April 23, 2003, USA Today was warning that health officials were saying that “if SARS is not contained, it could cause millions of deaths worldwide - and some of those deaths would almost certainly occur in the USA.” The death drumbeat of the media was very clear. USA Today continued: “In terms of sheer numbers, the SARS epidemic so far pales in comparison to other worldwide epidemics. The Spanish flu of 1918-1919 killed roughly 30 million people, including about 675,000 Americans. Over the past 20 years, the slow-motion funeral march of AIDS has carried off 20 million people; 40 million more are poised to die in the next decade. Yet SARS is just beginning. The death toll could rise dramatically.”
On June 24, 2003, the newspaper that publishes “All The News That’s Fit to Print” did a special sciences spread on the “SARS Epidemic.” The New York Times had proclaimed it the “Summer of SARS,” just as surely as Time had crowned 2001 “The Summer of the Shark.” The source of the disease was unknown and serious, but a look at the known death tolls in June 2003, when the “epidemic peaked,” reveals that worldwide there were 812 deaths, of which 348 were in China, 298 in Hong Kong, 84 in Taiwan, 32 in Singapore, and 38 in Canada.
For all the talk of wild animal attacks and deadly viruses sweeping the world, it is obvious the media misses the bigger picture daily, instead going for the melodramatic, the dramatic, and the sensational. If news organizations were really interested in talking about the most deathly animal around, for example, they would be doing more reports on mosquitoes which, according to the World Health Organization, are responsible for two million deaths annually from encephalitis, Dengue fever, malaria, and the West Nile virus, or the tsetse fly which wipes out another 66,000 people every year. But a news story about a mosquito just doesn’t have the bite of a shark story obviously.
The media loves melodrama. Sensationalism now rules the news. In the human realm, the media reinforces the events it covers. Otherwise, it blows subjects out of all proportion to reality. The unjustified amount of attention it devotes to shark attacks and SARS, for example, demonstrates that the level of media coverage has no relation to the real impact these topics have on most people.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Chatroom Copycats
We've heard about them in Japan. Now the media is reporting on what they are calling "the first internet suicide pact" discovered in the United Kingdom. And the method the couple used was directly copied from recent Asian pacts.
The bodies of Christopher Aston, 25, and Maria Williams, 42, were found in a car in Greenwich Peninsula Park, near the Millenium Dome in southeast London, at 7 p.m. on February 23, 2005. Aston, a Ph. D. student who grew up in the street next to Penny Lane in Liverpool, and the unemployed Williams, a former private detective and convicted fraudster who used the name Sanchez, poisoned themselves with fumes from burning barbecue charcoal,according to the report of the inquest. They died two days after making contact for the first time on a chatroom dedicated to discussions about suicide.
The Guardian's Ian Cobain reported, "Mr Aston and Ms Williams were found together in her red BMW, parked outside a branch of the TK Maxx store, a place which her family say she liked because she had used 'dodgy credit cards' to shop there."
Cobain noted that due to this suicide, "Internet companies are being urged by the Home Office to make so-called suicide websites and chatrooms more difficult to access." [Mr. Cobain, of course, shares his name with Kurt Cobain whose suicide has since spawned at least 70 copycat suicides worldwide.]
The suicides of Aston and Willians, however, are not the "first internet" suicide pact in the UK. In The Copycat Effect, I report on the 2003 deaths of Louis Gillies, 36, and Michael Gooden, 35. They met on the internet, exchanged messages, and decided to kill themselves together. Journeying to the famous "suicide cliff" of Beachy Head, they were going to jump together. Gillies did and died. Police charged Gooden with assisting the Gillies suicide, but before standing trial, he was found hanged in his home on April 22, 2003, when he failed to appear at court.
The bodies of Christopher Aston, 25, and Maria Williams, 42, were found in a car in Greenwich Peninsula Park, near the Millenium Dome in southeast London, at 7 p.m. on February 23, 2005. Aston, a Ph. D. student who grew up in the street next to Penny Lane in Liverpool, and the unemployed Williams, a former private detective and convicted fraudster who used the name Sanchez, poisoned themselves with fumes from burning barbecue charcoal,according to the report of the inquest. They died two days after making contact for the first time on a chatroom dedicated to discussions about suicide.
The Guardian's Ian Cobain reported, "Mr Aston and Ms Williams were found together in her red BMW, parked outside a branch of the TK Maxx store, a place which her family say she liked because she had used 'dodgy credit cards' to shop there."
Cobain noted that due to this suicide, "Internet companies are being urged by the Home Office to make so-called suicide websites and chatrooms more difficult to access." [Mr. Cobain, of course, shares his name with Kurt Cobain whose suicide has since spawned at least 70 copycat suicides worldwide.]
The suicides of Aston and Willians, however, are not the "first internet" suicide pact in the UK. In The Copycat Effect, I report on the 2003 deaths of Louis Gillies, 36, and Michael Gooden, 35. They met on the internet, exchanged messages, and decided to kill themselves together. Journeying to the famous "suicide cliff" of Beachy Head, they were going to jump together. Gillies did and died. Police charged Gooden with assisting the Gillies suicide, but before standing trial, he was found hanged in his home on April 22, 2003, when he failed to appear at court.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Oklahoma's Suicide Bomber
On Saturday evening, October 1, 2005, University of Colorado student, 21-year-old Joel Henry Hinrichs III of Colorado Springs, killed himself with a bomb. He was sitting near the university's Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, which at the time was filled with more than 84,000 football fans. The game between the Oklahoma Sooners and Kansas State was undisturbed. The explosion only killed Hinrichs, who was sitting on a park bench outside Cross Hall, a university science building, just west of the stadium.
"He was a very intelligent, very private individual who somehow lost the confidence that his life would be a good one. Obviously, every parent believes their son is a good kid, and I certainly believed that about mine," said his father, Joel Henry Hinrichs Jr., according to reporter AP Jeff Latzke. Hinrichs' father also noted he did not think his son had even one friend.
Was the younger Hinrichs an al Qaeda wannabe, just like Charles Bishop, who flew into a Tampa, Florida building, in imitation of the 9/11 suicide hijackers?
According to the Northeast Intelligence Network, while searching Hinrichs' apartment, Colorado "officials stated that they recovered 'a significant amount' of Islamic 'Jihad' type literature, some possibly written in Arabic, along with the suspect’s computer. Some of the documentation included material on how to construct bomb-making vests."
In terms of the copycat factor, hours earlier, half a globe away, it was already Saturday, October 1st, 2005. News hit the media late on September 30, and early on October 1st, in the USA and around the world, that three suicide bombers had walked into the midst of families eating in three restaurants in Bali. The resulting explosions left, so far, 19 people dead, and over a 100 injured. It was a reminder of the October 12, 2002 disco suicide bombers that killed 202 dead, many of them being nightclubbing Australians.
Was Hinrichs a vulnerable, lonely, suicidal young man who became a copycat Jihad warrior, in hopes of joining "something"? Will tomorrow's next and perhaps more dangerous American copycat suicide bomber have a similar psychological profile?
"He was a very intelligent, very private individual who somehow lost the confidence that his life would be a good one. Obviously, every parent believes their son is a good kid, and I certainly believed that about mine," said his father, Joel Henry Hinrichs Jr., according to reporter AP Jeff Latzke. Hinrichs' father also noted he did not think his son had even one friend.
Was the younger Hinrichs an al Qaeda wannabe, just like Charles Bishop, who flew into a Tampa, Florida building, in imitation of the 9/11 suicide hijackers?
According to the Northeast Intelligence Network, while searching Hinrichs' apartment, Colorado "officials stated that they recovered 'a significant amount' of Islamic 'Jihad' type literature, some possibly written in Arabic, along with the suspect’s computer. Some of the documentation included material on how to construct bomb-making vests."
In terms of the copycat factor, hours earlier, half a globe away, it was already Saturday, October 1st, 2005. News hit the media late on September 30, and early on October 1st, in the USA and around the world, that three suicide bombers had walked into the midst of families eating in three restaurants in Bali. The resulting explosions left, so far, 19 people dead, and over a 100 injured. It was a reminder of the October 12, 2002 disco suicide bombers that killed 202 dead, many of them being nightclubbing Australians.
Was Hinrichs a vulnerable, lonely, suicidal young man who became a copycat Jihad warrior, in hopes of joining "something"? Will tomorrow's next and perhaps more dangerous American copycat suicide bomber have a similar psychological profile?
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
"Rampages" Are Back
Post-Rita and Post-Katrina "Rampages"
As often occurs after a period in which there is a single media theme (such as the hurricane disasters lately), such a time is followed by a microburst of local news becoming national bulletins, and a spate of violent "rampages" appear to "happen."
As the 2005 school year began, a bizarre incident occurred (a potential "school shooting") that boomeranged on the shooter's family. The sad series of events unfolded on Tuesday, September 20, 2005, in Elkhorn City, Kentucky. Matthew Hackney, 17, a senior, was sent home from East Ridge High School for being intoxicated. Hackney allegedly was going to get a gun to return to school. At home, instead, he then shot to death his parents (Ivan Hackney, 47, and Shirley Hackney, 44) and grandmother (Wilma Hackney, 63). Hackney next told Christa Coleman, 18, that he'd killed his parents, and wanted to hide out at her house. She told him: "No way." Hackney died in a crash after police attempted to pull him over on a highway. Another driver also was killed.
On the next day, September 21, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Stephen M. Ressa, 27, of Rialto, California, drove a Buick stolen from his 54-year-old mother (whom he choked unconscious on Monday, September 19) into a crowd in front of the Bally casino. He allegedly killed two tourists and injured 12 others. Ressa told police the people appeared to be "like demons."
Perhaps in a copycat trigger, mentions author Michael Newton in an email to me, on January 29, 2005, former schoolteacher Priscilla Ford, 75, died in prison, and her death was noted in the media with retellings of her earlier crime. Ford drove her car onto a downtown Reno, Nevada sidewalk on Thanksgiving 1980, killing six people and injuring 20. During her trial for murder, her mental state--including an obsessive identification with Seventh-day Adventist figure Ellen White (to whom Ford bore a striking resemblance)--drew concern. She was found guilty and sentenced to death, but never executed.
The September 21 news was also "reminiscent of an April 2000 crash that killed a Wisconsin man and injured five other people in front of the Aladdin hotel-casino in Las Vegas....A Las Vegas stripper, Juanita Kim McDonald, was sentenced to five to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to driving under the influence in the 2000 crash," noted the Hollister Free Lance.
On Monday afternoon, September 26, Victor Piazza, 55, allegedly shot two co-owners and an office manager at Velma International, a nail polish factory in New Windsor, New York. He then killed himself. Piazza had been fired from the company 19 months earlier, after pornography was found on his company computer.
Update September 27, 2005
The most seriously wounded by Victor Piazza, who used a .38 pistol, is JoAnne Obrien, 48, the office manager of the New Windsor factory. She remained in very critical condition at St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital on the 27th.
Intriguingly, regarding the twilight language, the Verla International's office and plant location, in New Windsor, New York, is on Temple Hill Road.
Update September 30, 2005
JoAnne Obrien died on September 30th.
As often occurs after a period in which there is a single media theme (such as the hurricane disasters lately), such a time is followed by a microburst of local news becoming national bulletins, and a spate of violent "rampages" appear to "happen."
As the 2005 school year began, a bizarre incident occurred (a potential "school shooting") that boomeranged on the shooter's family. The sad series of events unfolded on Tuesday, September 20, 2005, in Elkhorn City, Kentucky. Matthew Hackney, 17, a senior, was sent home from East Ridge High School for being intoxicated. Hackney allegedly was going to get a gun to return to school. At home, instead, he then shot to death his parents (Ivan Hackney, 47, and Shirley Hackney, 44) and grandmother (Wilma Hackney, 63). Hackney next told Christa Coleman, 18, that he'd killed his parents, and wanted to hide out at her house. She told him: "No way." Hackney died in a crash after police attempted to pull him over on a highway. Another driver also was killed.
On the next day, September 21, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Stephen M. Ressa, 27, of Rialto, California, drove a Buick stolen from his 54-year-old mother (whom he choked unconscious on Monday, September 19) into a crowd in front of the Bally casino. He allegedly killed two tourists and injured 12 others. Ressa told police the people appeared to be "like demons."
Perhaps in a copycat trigger, mentions author Michael Newton in an email to me, on January 29, 2005, former schoolteacher Priscilla Ford, 75, died in prison, and her death was noted in the media with retellings of her earlier crime. Ford drove her car onto a downtown Reno, Nevada sidewalk on Thanksgiving 1980, killing six people and injuring 20. During her trial for murder, her mental state--including an obsessive identification with Seventh-day Adventist figure Ellen White (to whom Ford bore a striking resemblance)--drew concern. She was found guilty and sentenced to death, but never executed.
The September 21 news was also "reminiscent of an April 2000 crash that killed a Wisconsin man and injured five other people in front of the Aladdin hotel-casino in Las Vegas....A Las Vegas stripper, Juanita Kim McDonald, was sentenced to five to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to driving under the influence in the 2000 crash," noted the Hollister Free Lance.
On Monday afternoon, September 26, Victor Piazza, 55, allegedly shot two co-owners and an office manager at Velma International, a nail polish factory in New Windsor, New York. He then killed himself. Piazza had been fired from the company 19 months earlier, after pornography was found on his company computer.
Update September 27, 2005
The most seriously wounded by Victor Piazza, who used a .38 pistol, is JoAnne Obrien, 48, the office manager of the New Windsor factory. She remained in very critical condition at St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital on the 27th.
Intriguingly, regarding the twilight language, the Verla International's office and plant location, in New Windsor, New York, is on Temple Hill Road.
Update September 30, 2005
JoAnne Obrien died on September 30th.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Another 9/11 Copycat
In a comment by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., in the Global Politician on September 26, 2005, he writes "the September atrocities provoked a wave of copycats and renewed awareness of such risks."
Mentioning the January 2002-Tampa and April 2002-Milan incidents I wrote about in my "Planes into Buildings" chapter, Vaknin also notes one I've not heard about: "At the beginning of May 2002, an Indian air force jet crashed into a bank building in northwestern India. Eight died in the ensuing fire."
Mentioning the January 2002-Tampa and April 2002-Milan incidents I wrote about in my "Planes into Buildings" chapter, Vaknin also notes one I've not heard about: "At the beginning of May 2002, an Indian air force jet crashed into a bank building in northwestern India. Eight died in the ensuing fire."
Saturday, September 17, 2005
More Capital Hijackings?
Taking a plane trip to or from an international capital or similar city soon? Watch out! We are entering a time of increased hijackings. And a common factor is they concern global "capitals."
Are you aware that news services from Aljazeera to China's Xinhua today had a lot to say about a hijacking? Probably not, because it is not on the American media's radar yet.
But on Saturday, September 17, 2005, a man hijacked a plane in "New Zealand’s commercial capital and biggest city," in direct copycat of 9/11, which occurred in America's commerical, financial, and media "capital," New York City. The N.Z. hijacker said he was going to fly it into Auckland's tallest building, the Sky Tower. Instead, he crashed the plane into the sea Saturday night and was rescued and taken to a hospital. Not coincidentally, September 17th is New Zealand's General Election Day. The leaders of the parties were awaiting the election results in Auckland, not in N.Z.'s capital city, Wellington.
While Americans may have only vaguely heard about this news due to the constant Katrina media coverage in the US, around the world this event comes on the heels of other hijacking stories this week. And, of course, the media has been awash in 9/11 hijack docudramas and documentaries, due to the fourth anniversary on Sunday, September 11.
On Monday, September 12, a father in a "too large for the detectors" wheelchair dodged a checkpoint and smuggled grenades onto a plane. The father and son hijackers surrendered five hours after commandeering an Aires airliner around midday Monday after it departed from the southern city of Florencia on a flight headed to Colombia's capital, Bogota. All passengers and crew were eventually freed unharmed before the hijackers, 42-year-old Porfirio Ramirez and his 22-year-old son, Linsen Ramirez, gave up and were arrested.
On the morning of Tuesday, September 13, Adane Bayu Arage, an Israeli youth attempted to get a disassembled gun and 22 bullets, hidden inside a tool, onto a plane. He allegedly planned to hijack a passenger plane, Ethiopian Airlines Flight Number 424, in the capital of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The youth was born in Ethiopia and later immigrated to Israel. The Israeli Foreign Ministry questioned whether the suspect is Israeli.
Plane hijackings come in waves because they are one of the most likely events to be impacted by the copycat effect. In the 1970s, social scientists began talking about a "skyjack virus" transmitted through the media. Then in 1973, Dr. David Phillips published his first study on the importance of imitation in explaining hijackings. The rest is history, and some of it quite recent, of course.
If such events have become a frequent current topic of the international media, including such outlets as Aljazeera, don't be surprised to watch an upturn in hijackings.
Are you aware that news services from Aljazeera to China's Xinhua today had a lot to say about a hijacking? Probably not, because it is not on the American media's radar yet.
But on Saturday, September 17, 2005, a man hijacked a plane in "New Zealand’s commercial capital and biggest city," in direct copycat of 9/11, which occurred in America's commerical, financial, and media "capital," New York City. The N.Z. hijacker said he was going to fly it into Auckland's tallest building, the Sky Tower. Instead, he crashed the plane into the sea Saturday night and was rescued and taken to a hospital. Not coincidentally, September 17th is New Zealand's General Election Day. The leaders of the parties were awaiting the election results in Auckland, not in N.Z.'s capital city, Wellington.
While Americans may have only vaguely heard about this news due to the constant Katrina media coverage in the US, around the world this event comes on the heels of other hijacking stories this week. And, of course, the media has been awash in 9/11 hijack docudramas and documentaries, due to the fourth anniversary on Sunday, September 11.
On Monday, September 12, a father in a "too large for the detectors" wheelchair dodged a checkpoint and smuggled grenades onto a plane. The father and son hijackers surrendered five hours after commandeering an Aires airliner around midday Monday after it departed from the southern city of Florencia on a flight headed to Colombia's capital, Bogota. All passengers and crew were eventually freed unharmed before the hijackers, 42-year-old Porfirio Ramirez and his 22-year-old son, Linsen Ramirez, gave up and were arrested.
On the morning of Tuesday, September 13, Adane Bayu Arage, an Israeli youth attempted to get a disassembled gun and 22 bullets, hidden inside a tool, onto a plane. He allegedly planned to hijack a passenger plane, Ethiopian Airlines Flight Number 424, in the capital of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The youth was born in Ethiopia and later immigrated to Israel. The Israeli Foreign Ministry questioned whether the suspect is Israeli.
Plane hijackings come in waves because they are one of the most likely events to be impacted by the copycat effect. In the 1970s, social scientists began talking about a "skyjack virus" transmitted through the media. Then in 1973, Dr. David Phillips published his first study on the importance of imitation in explaining hijackings. The rest is history, and some of it quite recent, of course.
If such events have become a frequent current topic of the international media, including such outlets as Aljazeera, don't be surprised to watch an upturn in hijackings.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Scotsman Drops Ball
A wave of suicides in a Scottish community is being recognized as the probable result of the copycat effect. But the media only goes halfway in preventing future copycats.
Edinburgh's Scotsman publishes an article on September 16, with the headline, "Third teenage death fuels fears of copycat suicides."
Discussing the third suicide in three months in Lothians' Livingston, the paper writes: "Ryan Hargan, 17, was found by his mother in the bathroom of his home on Wednesday evening. Ryan's death comes only a week after Liam Cosgrove, 15, was found hanging from a climbing frame of a playpark in the town. In June, Daniel Brockie, 16, was also found hanging in his home."
The paper extends the copycat effect by graphically detailing the local method of suicidal death. This is an unnecessary retelling of this means, easily available to youth, as a behavioral option and something "their peers" are doing.
Also, "in recent years, the Lothians has been rocked by a series of teenage suicides. Seven teenagers took their own lives in the Lothians in just six months. Three Lothian youths were believed to have taken their own lives in March 2002, bringing the total to seven since August 2001."
Why the use of the word "rocked"? The twilight meaning for youth is that "to rock" is a positive outcome.
The realization that the copycat effect may be involved is mentioned. "ChildLine Scotland director Anne Houston has warned about copycat suicides. Ms Houston said: 'Part of the concerning thing, according to people who work with suicide as an issue, is it can almost become infectious. It can have a copycat effect.'"
Awareness is the first step, but the newspaper's article unfortunately merely "reports" (somewhat too graphically) without going the next step. Despite mentioning that "Children's charities have today urged suicidal youngsters in the Lothians to come forward" to talk to someone about their feelings, the article does not give hotline or helpline numbers, or addresses or websites for youth thinking about killing themselves to visit for a lifeline.
This article dropped the ball.
Edinburgh's Scotsman publishes an article on September 16, with the headline, "Third teenage death fuels fears of copycat suicides."
Discussing the third suicide in three months in Lothians' Livingston, the paper writes: "Ryan Hargan, 17, was found by his mother in the bathroom of his home on Wednesday evening. Ryan's death comes only a week after Liam Cosgrove, 15, was found hanging from a climbing frame of a playpark in the town. In June, Daniel Brockie, 16, was also found hanging in his home."
The paper extends the copycat effect by graphically detailing the local method of suicidal death. This is an unnecessary retelling of this means, easily available to youth, as a behavioral option and something "their peers" are doing.
Also, "in recent years, the Lothians has been rocked by a series of teenage suicides. Seven teenagers took their own lives in the Lothians in just six months. Three Lothian youths were believed to have taken their own lives in March 2002, bringing the total to seven since August 2001."
Why the use of the word "rocked"? The twilight meaning for youth is that "to rock" is a positive outcome.
The realization that the copycat effect may be involved is mentioned. "ChildLine Scotland director Anne Houston has warned about copycat suicides. Ms Houston said: 'Part of the concerning thing, according to people who work with suicide as an issue, is it can almost become infectious. It can have a copycat effect.'"
Awareness is the first step, but the newspaper's article unfortunately merely "reports" (somewhat too graphically) without going the next step. Despite mentioning that "Children's charities have today urged suicidal youngsters in the Lothians to come forward" to talk to someone about their feelings, the article does not give hotline or helpline numbers, or addresses or websites for youth thinking about killing themselves to visit for a lifeline.
This article dropped the ball.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Indian celebrity copycats
The influence of the celebrity copycat effect is worldwide.
During a World Suicide Prevention Day 2005 news conference, September 12, India reported that it's rate of suicide is extremely high, with Indians topping the list of the 2,555 suicide victims annually nationwide, followed by the Chinese and Malays. The report said that Indians died by suicide at a rate of 21.1 suicides per 100,000 Indians, compared to 8.6 per 100,000 Chinese and 2.6 per 100,000 Malays, among their country's population.
In a New Strait Times article, "Indians top suicide list," Health Ministry deputy director-general Datuk Dr Shafie Ooyub.
urged "the media to play down stories on celebrity suicides which sometimes led to a copycat effect on some. He said some tended to think that the celebrity’s act was 'cool' and could be emulated. Dr Shafie was referring to the suicides of Hong Kong superstar Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing, who leapt off a 24th floor balcony, and that of South Korean actress Lee Eun-ju, who hanged herself earlier this year."
Shafie told the newspaper: "We urge the media to tone down on such reporting as there are people committing suicides because their favorite celebrity did so."
During a World Suicide Prevention Day 2005 news conference, September 12, India reported that it's rate of suicide is extremely high, with Indians topping the list of the 2,555 suicide victims annually nationwide, followed by the Chinese and Malays. The report said that Indians died by suicide at a rate of 21.1 suicides per 100,000 Indians, compared to 8.6 per 100,000 Chinese and 2.6 per 100,000 Malays, among their country's population.
In a New Strait Times article, "Indians top suicide list," Health Ministry deputy director-general Datuk Dr Shafie Ooyub.
urged "the media to play down stories on celebrity suicides which sometimes led to a copycat effect on some. He said some tended to think that the celebrity’s act was 'cool' and could be emulated. Dr Shafie was referring to the suicides of Hong Kong superstar Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing, who leapt off a 24th floor balcony, and that of South Korean actress Lee Eun-ju, who hanged herself earlier this year."
Shafie told the newspaper: "We urge the media to tone down on such reporting as there are people committing suicides because their favorite celebrity did so."
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Oswald and Atta
Katrina & 9/11
Allow me to randomly speak of recent and past events on a more personal level today, on how I am relating to these difficult few days and anniversaries.
Remembering the Unbelievable
Name the biggest stories of modern media? Pearl Harbor Day? No, too long ago for you? JFK's assassination? Of course, if you are a certain age. Post-Edward R. Murrow, our modern broadcast news (live, in the field, and on video, versus archival, in the studio, and on film) began on 11/22/63. (Remember when we use to not write dates all the way out?) Yes, November 22, 1963. Four straight days of television news. I couldn't believe what I was watching. As a mere kid myself, I saw a kid from New Orleans named Oswald killed, live, while I was sitting on the back of my family's couch in my living room. Live. Unbelievable.
Then 9/11 happened. We all saw that "live" too. I "heard" the news through an email, turned on my television, and saw, like millions of others, the second plane crash. Live. I flew into New York City a month later to film an interview for a documentary, and my plane banked exactly over Ground Zero, on my side of the plane. I looked straight into hell. And I watched on television how this all changed our view of America. All over again. Unbelievable.
Katrina. Almost two weeks later, and it's still on the television, every day, almost every moment. This one crept up on us, and yet has turned into one of the biggest and most sorrowful of cabe news' human tragedies. A natural disaster that has become worse as a manmade one. Television, the internet, radio. Katrina, day and night. New Orleans is a great city that I have visited a few times. There's always been an underground twilight language part of New Orleans, of course. I informally once, even created a walking tour of all of the locations (thanks to addresses from John Gooch) where Lee Harvey Oswald lived, worked, demonstrated, and interacted with the shadow side of government. I've stood on the streets with my sons and caught beads. I've enjoyed the music of the city. Now on television, America sees little of the life, history, or traditions of that city. No jazz, no Lafayette Square, no, not even any stories about the Voodoo Queen in Cemetery #1. It is all about floating bodies, the horror of the Convention Center, and an Arabian horse guy heading FEMA these days (but may not tomorrow). On a more subtle level, it is about the race war in America, and reflects, as I've mentioned in The Copycat Effect how "death sells" in the media. Unbelievable.
Predictions
What the Katrina coverage does is expose an incredible vulnerable belly to the world. If you live in America, you know its truths. You realize that some whites are afraid of people of color, and some would rather think all blacks are going to loot that just be in need. You know that a rich guy's government will fly in troops within hours to Florida during hurricane disasters if your brother is the governor there, but if a black mayor and a Democratic governor are saying things to you about New Orleans, you just won't "get" it for a few days. We know that, on some level. Now it is being broadcast worldwide. We have to face this - what is being reported, that we have shown al Qaeda we are sometimes less than a super power, and that we are only human. And we are showing ourselves these things too.
Sure, sometimes is has not been the media's finest hour. We see the media stumbling around with words like "refugees" for days before they get it that these are American "survivors" or "evacuees." We still hear NPR's news department and PBS's nightly reports have "experts" debate "pre-planning," which actually, of course, means simply "planning." But from the brown water of New Orleans, the future comes forth. What of tomorrow?
The predictions have begun. It is almost 9/11 again, and we have some hard days ahead.
Take Tom Ritchford, New York author and Fortean thinker, for example. On an internet forum, he put out this list of predictions, including these:
-- al Qaeda clearly wishes to strike again at some point.
-- the resistance movement in Iraq is about ready for a "Tet
offensive" to cause serious damage to the (distracted by mutinies!) US
forces
-- China wishes to take Taiwan and doesn't care about headlines.
-- there are many other evil forces that want to take on the United
States now that it has moved to the dark side.
and September 11 approaches.
If I were one of these parties and I had a nefarious scheme hatched,
I'd be racing to get it going just at the point where the US's
resources are most tied up with disaster recovery -- Sunday, September
11. I'd hit people at a vacation center or some similar relaxation
place -- they've already made people feel unsafe at work, why not make
them feel unsafe at play?
If I were bold I'd hit the Patriot Day parade in DC. (Did you know
9/11 is now called Patriot Day?)
Why Portland?
Can such things happen? Will al Qaeda see that if there was ever a time to strike again, a la' London's 7/7, it is now, because of how far stretched America is? Will they decide to hit a mall, like the Bloomington Mall in Minnesota, or all those targets people have been watching like the Sears Tower. How many people are guarding the malls versus how many are watching the Seattle airport? You do the math.
And speaking of math, what about the dates? This Bush administration's little known badly named Patriot Day (9/11) may or may not be that important to al Qaeda, as I think they have their own number, date, and name game agenda. They might wish to go for the real Patriots Day, in April, in Maine, or the Patriots Day in Massachusetts, at the Boston Marathon, for example. Thousands of people there. Of course, this is not an invitation, but we have to see that we might not see what they see. Maine, you ask? Why?
Well, then, truth be told, I live in Portland, Maine, where 9/11 all began for Mohammed Atta, who picked Flight 11, so needless to say, I'm not letting my guard down on 9/11/05. Or 11/9/05. Or 11/11 (Veteran's Day). Or on next April's Patriots Day 2006, 2007, 2008, and so forth. Atta, the leader of the operations wing of 9/11, historically, was tied into those elevens. Afterall, the first mastermind of the 1993 Twin Towers attack was Ramzi Yousef, and he used parts of Bonjinka, a plan to place bombs on 11 planes in the Phillippines, for the eventual 9/11 attacks. Yousef's test run for Bonjinka occurred on, you guessed it, another eleven, December 11, 1994. Sometime, look up the 1970 origins of the naming of the group "Black September," whose kidnapping of Israeli athletes attending the Munich Olympics (which was scheduled to end on September 11, 1972), ended in the death of 11 of those athletes. Certainly, 9/11 hits very close to home. And lives on. Mysteries remain that may be hidden in numbers and places.
For example, why did Atta pick Portland? A question that haunts my city. And it troubles me too.
Was that Arab man I exchanged glances with and a smile that wasn't returned, in the Portland International Jetport, a few months before 9/11/01, Atta? I was on my way to another speaking engagement. I would later remember him vividly because he seemed relatively out-of-place in Portland - and there was those piercing eyes. Maybe just a business man visiting to make a deal, I thought. Unlikely. Only later, when all the photos of Atta were published, did I join the ranks of those in Portland who think they saw Atta here months before 9/11/01. Was he practicing? Why Portland?
Oh yes, some things come full circle. Today, you can go on an informal driving tour of the spots where Atta stayed (Comfort Inn), went to the two ATMs (at a bank and a Mobil Station), ate (Pizza Hut), and shopped (Wal-Mart), just like those Lee Harvey Oswald places I've visited in New Orleans. Frighteningly unbelievable.
Why Portland?
Why New Orleans?
Where next?
Allow me to randomly speak of recent and past events on a more personal level today, on how I am relating to these difficult few days and anniversaries.
Remembering the Unbelievable
Name the biggest stories of modern media? Pearl Harbor Day? No, too long ago for you? JFK's assassination? Of course, if you are a certain age. Post-Edward R. Murrow, our modern broadcast news (live, in the field, and on video, versus archival, in the studio, and on film) began on 11/22/63. (Remember when we use to not write dates all the way out?) Yes, November 22, 1963. Four straight days of television news. I couldn't believe what I was watching. As a mere kid myself, I saw a kid from New Orleans named Oswald killed, live, while I was sitting on the back of my family's couch in my living room. Live. Unbelievable.
Then 9/11 happened. We all saw that "live" too. I "heard" the news through an email, turned on my television, and saw, like millions of others, the second plane crash. Live. I flew into New York City a month later to film an interview for a documentary, and my plane banked exactly over Ground Zero, on my side of the plane. I looked straight into hell. And I watched on television how this all changed our view of America. All over again. Unbelievable.
Katrina. Almost two weeks later, and it's still on the television, every day, almost every moment. This one crept up on us, and yet has turned into one of the biggest and most sorrowful of cabe news' human tragedies. A natural disaster that has become worse as a manmade one. Television, the internet, radio. Katrina, day and night. New Orleans is a great city that I have visited a few times. There's always been an underground twilight language part of New Orleans, of course. I informally once, even created a walking tour of all of the locations (thanks to addresses from John Gooch) where Lee Harvey Oswald lived, worked, demonstrated, and interacted with the shadow side of government. I've stood on the streets with my sons and caught beads. I've enjoyed the music of the city. Now on television, America sees little of the life, history, or traditions of that city. No jazz, no Lafayette Square, no, not even any stories about the Voodoo Queen in Cemetery #1. It is all about floating bodies, the horror of the Convention Center, and an Arabian horse guy heading FEMA these days (but may not tomorrow). On a more subtle level, it is about the race war in America, and reflects, as I've mentioned in The Copycat Effect how "death sells" in the media. Unbelievable.
Predictions
What the Katrina coverage does is expose an incredible vulnerable belly to the world. If you live in America, you know its truths. You realize that some whites are afraid of people of color, and some would rather think all blacks are going to loot that just be in need. You know that a rich guy's government will fly in troops within hours to Florida during hurricane disasters if your brother is the governor there, but if a black mayor and a Democratic governor are saying things to you about New Orleans, you just won't "get" it for a few days. We know that, on some level. Now it is being broadcast worldwide. We have to face this - what is being reported, that we have shown al Qaeda we are sometimes less than a super power, and that we are only human. And we are showing ourselves these things too.
Sure, sometimes is has not been the media's finest hour. We see the media stumbling around with words like "refugees" for days before they get it that these are American "survivors" or "evacuees." We still hear NPR's news department and PBS's nightly reports have "experts" debate "pre-planning," which actually, of course, means simply "planning." But from the brown water of New Orleans, the future comes forth. What of tomorrow?
The predictions have begun. It is almost 9/11 again, and we have some hard days ahead.
Take Tom Ritchford, New York author and Fortean thinker, for example. On an internet forum, he put out this list of predictions, including these:
-- al Qaeda clearly wishes to strike again at some point.
-- the resistance movement in Iraq is about ready for a "Tet
offensive" to cause serious damage to the (distracted by mutinies!) US
forces
-- China wishes to take Taiwan and doesn't care about headlines.
-- there are many other evil forces that want to take on the United
States now that it has moved to the dark side.
and September 11 approaches.
If I were one of these parties and I had a nefarious scheme hatched,
I'd be racing to get it going just at the point where the US's
resources are most tied up with disaster recovery -- Sunday, September
11. I'd hit people at a vacation center or some similar relaxation
place -- they've already made people feel unsafe at work, why not make
them feel unsafe at play?
If I were bold I'd hit the Patriot Day parade in DC. (Did you know
9/11 is now called Patriot Day?)
Why Portland?
Can such things happen? Will al Qaeda see that if there was ever a time to strike again, a la' London's 7/7, it is now, because of how far stretched America is? Will they decide to hit a mall, like the Bloomington Mall in Minnesota, or all those targets people have been watching like the Sears Tower. How many people are guarding the malls versus how many are watching the Seattle airport? You do the math.
And speaking of math, what about the dates? This Bush administration's little known badly named Patriot Day (9/11) may or may not be that important to al Qaeda, as I think they have their own number, date, and name game agenda. They might wish to go for the real Patriots Day, in April, in Maine, or the Patriots Day in Massachusetts, at the Boston Marathon, for example. Thousands of people there. Of course, this is not an invitation, but we have to see that we might not see what they see. Maine, you ask? Why?
Well, then, truth be told, I live in Portland, Maine, where 9/11 all began for Mohammed Atta, who picked Flight 11, so needless to say, I'm not letting my guard down on 9/11/05. Or 11/9/05. Or 11/11 (Veteran's Day). Or on next April's Patriots Day 2006, 2007, 2008, and so forth. Atta, the leader of the operations wing of 9/11, historically, was tied into those elevens. Afterall, the first mastermind of the 1993 Twin Towers attack was Ramzi Yousef, and he used parts of Bonjinka, a plan to place bombs on 11 planes in the Phillippines, for the eventual 9/11 attacks. Yousef's test run for Bonjinka occurred on, you guessed it, another eleven, December 11, 1994. Sometime, look up the 1970 origins of the naming of the group "Black September," whose kidnapping of Israeli athletes attending the Munich Olympics (which was scheduled to end on September 11, 1972), ended in the death of 11 of those athletes. Certainly, 9/11 hits very close to home. And lives on. Mysteries remain that may be hidden in numbers and places.
For example, why did Atta pick Portland? A question that haunts my city. And it troubles me too.
Was that Arab man I exchanged glances with and a smile that wasn't returned, in the Portland International Jetport, a few months before 9/11/01, Atta? I was on my way to another speaking engagement. I would later remember him vividly because he seemed relatively out-of-place in Portland - and there was those piercing eyes. Maybe just a business man visiting to make a deal, I thought. Unlikely. Only later, when all the photos of Atta were published, did I join the ranks of those in Portland who think they saw Atta here months before 9/11/01. Was he practicing? Why Portland?
Oh yes, some things come full circle. Today, you can go on an informal driving tour of the spots where Atta stayed (Comfort Inn), went to the two ATMs (at a bank and a Mobil Station), ate (Pizza Hut), and shopped (Wal-Mart), just like those Lee Harvey Oswald places I've visited in New Orleans. Frighteningly unbelievable.
Why Portland?
Why New Orleans?
Where next?
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