The Mass Shooting Thread

[SciFiFisher]

It's mind boggling because we have a significant percentage of the population who really think we should not do anything to fix this. Because somehow the cure is worse than letting someone kill kids en mass. And politicians who work really hard to make sure it stays that way.

[lady_*nix]

This article pretty much captures my feelings: https://theswordandthesandwich.substack ... ildren?s=r

[geonuc]

We had a shooting here in Bend yesterday. Grocery store; two dead plus the shooter; no word on how the shooter got dead. Police say they didn't fire any shots. AR-15 style weapon reportedly.

[SciFiFisher]

We had a shooting here in Bend yesterday. Grocery store; two dead plus the shooter; no word on how the shooter got dead. Police say they didn't fire any shots. AR-15 style weapon reportedly.

Yikes! IIRC I think I saw that the shooter committed suicide.

[geonuc]

We had a shooting here in Bend yesterday. Grocery store; two dead plus the shooter; no word on how the shooter got dead. Police say they didn't fire any shots. AR-15 style weapon reportedly.

Yikes! IIRC I think I saw that the shooter committed suicide.

Yeah, he shot himself after killing two people.

Main story coming out of this - other than the trauma of knowing we're now 'on the map' as a city with a gun incident - is that one of the victims, a Safeway employee, confronted the shooter and attempted to disarm him. He failed and got dead for his efforts but the police and everyone else agree that he undoubtedly saved lives as the shooter's apparent intent was to kill a whole lot more people. So he's been lauded as a hero ... until his backstory came to light. Our hero was a convicted sex offender. Arrgh. To his credit (beyond the obvious credit due from his heroism), that was 30 years ago and he's been an exemplary citizen since getting out of prison. I, for one, believe in the possibility of redemption.

Other significant story is that of the Bend police arrived two minutes after the 911 call was received and immediately rushed in the building while shots were still being fired. No hesitation. We're looking at you, Uvalde police.

Last item, which apparently only I seem to find significant, is that during all the press conferences, memorials and other public appearances since the shooting, the Mayor Pro Tem has represented the city (along with one or two of the city councilors). The Mayor herself has been silent and unseen. After a few days, I sent a message to the City's official IG account asking after her welfare. No response. Yesterday, as part of a recap of events, it was mentioned that she was camping out of cellphone range and came back "to a city that had changed." Still no peep out of her yet, though. Weird, as she's a good mayor.

[SciFiFisher]

We had a shooting here in Bend yesterday. Grocery store; two dead plus the shooter; no word on how the shooter got dead. Police say they didn't fire any shots. AR-15 style weapon reportedly.

Yikes! IIRC I think I saw that the shooter committed suicide.

Yeah, he shot himself after killing two people.

Main story coming out of this - other than the trauma of knowing we're now 'on the map' as a city with a gun incident - is that one of the victims, a Safeway employee, confronted the shooter and attempted to disarm him. He failed and got dead for his efforts but the police and everyone else agree that he undoubtedly saved lives as the shooter's apparent intent was to kill a whole lot more people. So he's been lauded as a hero ... until his backstory came to light. Our hero was a convicted sex offender. Arrgh. To his credit (beyond the obvious credit due from his heroism), that was 30 years ago and he's been an exemplary citizen since getting out of prison. I, for one, believe in the possibility of redemption.

Other significant story is that of the Bend police arrived two minutes after the 911 call was received and immediately rushed in the building while shots were still being fired. No hesitation. We're looking at you, Uvalde police.

Last item, which apparently only I seem to find significant, is that during all the press conferences, memorials and other public appearances since the shooting, the Mayor Pro Tem has represented the city (along with one or two of the city councilors). The Mayor herself has been silent and unseen. After a few days, I sent a message to the City's official IG account asking after her welfare. No response. Yesterday, as part of a recap of events, it was mentioned that she was camping out of cellphone range and came back "to a city that had changed." Still no peep out of her yet, though. Weird, as she's a good mayor.

RE: Redemption. That sounds like something out a movie script. I think it's complicated. People can do something truly horrible and yet also do something heroic. I hate it when hero's where tarnished capes.

RE: The mayor may not quite know how to respond. Of course, she should have a PR person who can coach her. Maybe she thinks everything that should be said was said. Again, I hate it when people are human.

[Thumper]

Shooting on the campus of the University of Virginia. A former football player for the university came back and shot up the place, specifically targeting current players, killing 3 and wounding at least 3. Reports are that the suspect (who is in custody) had been investigated by police in the past for some gun related incident(s).
And the system fails once again. And we still do nothing.

[lady_*nix]

Another one at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs. On Trans Day of Remembrance, and it was pretty clearly a hate crime. Five dead, 25-30 injured (7 still critical).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... hate-crime

The suspect arrested is the grandson of a Trumpist assemblyman from CA, and already has a felony record. It would be absolutely zero surprise to me if he spouts to the police a load of BS about "groomers" and drag shows indoctrinating children to be trans.

[Rommie]

As I heard someone say recently, it's pretty telling that the biggest threat a kid faces when going to, say, drag queen storytime is that a Christian with a gun might show up and threaten them.

[lady_*nix]

Also something interesting on this, a detail. Two people intervened to stop the shooter. One was a straight military vet, there with his wife and daughter, who grabbed the guy's gun and pistol whipped him. The other kept him from getting up again, by way of a high heeled shoe in the face.

The second person was described as a "drag queen" in most media and then forgotten about.

She was not a drag queen, she was not part of the show. She was a trans woman.
https://nitter.it/UnluckyBanshee/status ... 36809472#m

It's probably just as well that she stays out of the limelight - people would waste no time digging into her private life and tearing her apart, and she could easily become a target for violence too. But it's still interesting to me as a display of how women, cis or trans, are erased from the media picture of community self-defense.

[Thumper]

You are right, in the several accounts I heard about the incident, they mentioned the military vet who took down the suspect, even interviewed him. I have heard nothing of the second hero until your post.

[lady_*nix]

Related - don't jump to believe the thing from the shooter's lawyer that he's actually nonbinary. It's almost certainly trolling, both a political strategy to deflect blame to trans people and a legal strategy to avoid a hate crime conviction. Right wingers do this all the time, and rely on liberals extending good faith to them.

[Rommie]

I'll agree on that point. It's definitely rare, but there are definitely people out there who use fake identity politics for their own issues because they think it'll gain sympathy, which is SUPER rare but I've encountered firsthand. And is usually a cover for something messed up, and what's more messed up than a shooting...

Also, how do I put it, meth head dad didn't exactly seem concerned about this angle in his weird-ass interview, instead saying thank goodness his son was gay, so while I'm not saying that dad knows everything I think if there was a kernel of truth he would have ranted about that.

[lady_*nix]

His dad apparently played little to no part in raising him, from what I've heard? But could've fooled me.

And yeah, fucked up closet cases do happen, but I doubt it in this case. Especially as the talk about him being nonbinary hasn't stuck, whereas e.g. with Chelsea Manning we never heard the end of it. Sure that was a different era, but the lawyers already dropping it is a pretty strong suggestion that it was a ploy or trolling IMO.

[Rommie]

Yeah, and I think these days conservatives are almost gleeful when it turns out it's someone not a right-wing nutjob, in that "see, it's not just an US problem!" kind of way. Ugh.

[lady_*nix]

Oh yes, absolutely. They jump on every piece of ammo against us that they can. Whenever a trans person is convicted or just accused of doing something fucked up, they're all just "SEEEEEEE they really are a bunch of dangerous pervs who need their rights restricted"

Kind of a similar deal to the Trump regime having a website listing crimes by undocumented people (without the caveat that citizens are more likely to commit crimes). Or for that matter, the Nazis having a newspaper section just for Jewish criminals. I won't pretend trans people are all good and decent - TBQH the shit we go through can manifest in ugly ways, and I have met some very fucked up people since transition. But literally every demographic has assholes, and none should get their rights removed wholesale because of those assholes. Not even if they are at statistically higher risk for doing bad things, which we aren't.

[geonuc]

The local police department recently released a composite/montage video of our recent shooting compiled from various security cams. It's somewhat chilling even though they blacked out the faces and some of the scenes of the two murders. You can see the killer roam through the Safeway store and see patrons flee and in some cases, cower (not judging). What I found interesting is that the guy only shot and killed two people - one upon entering the store in the area between the two double doors where he might have been surprised (it's not clear from the video), and the grocery store employee who attempted to disarm him. The rest of the time, the guy just shot up the store. He even stood next to a cowering person and only shot the food stand next to him. In other words, this shooter *seemed* intent on just causing panic by shooting up the place, although he obviously wasn't above killing. He had multiple opportunities to easily shoot more people. After killing the employee, the shooter quickly sat down and ate a bullet himself. The video also shows how quickly Bend police were to respond, in force. Four officers converged on the killer from two directions just after he shot himself. Kudos to the cops.

Anyway, I found it interesting. The store employee has been lauded a hero who "probably saved lives." He certainly was brave but I have to think if he'd just let the guy be, the cops would have dealt with the shooter in short order without anyone else getting hurt. Hard to make judgments like that in the moment I imagine, and given the country's continued spate of mass shootings where the gunmen *were* intent on killing as many people as possible, he probably did the right thing with the information he had. Cost him his life though.

[pumpkinpi]

So I'm currently working from home because there is a threat on the U Minnesota Twin Cities campus. Our first notification this morning was for a "a specific threat to shoot persons on the TC campus" and named the person who made the threat. As more information has come out, it turns out it's a former mayor of a small southern MN town with a history of mental illness. He made some pretty specific and graphic threats, talking about shooting UMN students and "parents lock up your kids." So staff was first encouraged to work from home, and then ordered to go/stay home. Fortunately the term hasn't started so there aren't a lot of students on campus.

It took me until not long ago to remember that Rooster was supposed to take a field trip to the Minneapolis campus to see a "Physics Force" stage show. I called the school right away, and fortunately they cancelled it.

It was already too close to home, and this makes it even closer. I'm still processing it. Trying not to think about how....god, I can't even write it.

I've always been devastated by shootings, but it's been increasingly hard this past year. There was a shooting on the UNC campus and I had a zoom meeting scheduled with some close colleagues there right as lockdown was happening--heard about what they were going through in real time. The most recent school shooting was in Iowa, and I had to check to make sure it wasn't near where my cousin lives with her teenagers. And that is the first one that when I read about, I actually cried.

We're still getting updates....a news article said they have deputies posted at his house "in case he shows up there" so I am assuming there is a pretty serious manhunt on. I'm anxiously awaiting the all clear that he's in custody.

Dare I say thank god for facebook? That's where he posted his threats.

[pumpkinpi]

So I'm currently working from home because there is a threat on the U Minnesota Twin Cities campus. Our first notification this morning was for a "a specific threat to shoot persons on the TC campus" and named the person who made the threat. As more information has come out, it turns out it's a former mayor of a small southern MN town with a history of mental illness. He made some pretty specific and graphic threats, talking about shooting UMN students and "parents lock up your kids." So staff was first encouraged to work from home, and then ordered to go/stay home. Fortunately the term hasn't started so there aren't a lot of students on campus.

It took me until not long ago to remember that Rooster was supposed to take a field trip to the Minneapolis campus to see a "Physics Force" stage show. I called the school right away, and fortunately they cancelled it.

It was already too close to home, and this makes it even closer. I'm still processing it. Trying not to think about how....god, I can't even write it.

I've always been devastated by shootings, but it's been increasingly hard this past year. There was a shooting on the UNC campus and I had a zoom meeting scheduled with some close colleagues there right as lockdown was happening--heard about what they were going through in real time. The most recent school shooting was in Iowa, and I had to check to make sure it wasn't near where my cousin lives with her teenagers. And that is the first one that when I read about, I actually cried.

We're still getting updates....a news article said they have deputies posted at his house "in case he shows up there" so I am assuming there is a pretty serious manhunt on. I'm anxiously awaiting the all clear that he's in custody.

Dare I say thank god for facebook? That's where he posted his threats.

Update: the suspect has been found in his home county and is "contained", so we have the all clear. I'm glad that uncertainty is over.

[pumpkinpi]

Rooster knew about the problem; the teachers told her grade that they had to cancel the field trip because there was a safety threat on campus. I told her I had to stay home too. She said she wondered what happened. I told her that it was a person who lived in a town far away from the city who made threats to come to the university and hurt people, but the police have him now. She wondered why he did that. I said he had a history of mental illness. She said, "well, I hope he gets better." What a dear. We should all lead with that kind of empathy.

[lady_*nix]

Gods above, I'm so sorry about this pumpkinpi! Glad nobody got hurt.

[Rommie]

Yikes! That's scary. I'm glad it was all resolved as well as these things can be but that still sucks.

[Thumper]

Especially since nobody was harmed, almost the saddest thing to me was you having to explain horrible things to your daughter. I remember having to relay terrible news to my daughter over the years and it was always heartbreaking. Her beautiful response brought tears to my eyes.

[Sigma_Orionis]