History > 2006 > USA > Gun violence (II)

Past of accused 'serial shooter'

cited as deeply troubled

Updated 8/8/2006 11:08 AM ET
By Judi Villa, Robert Anglen, Sarah Muench and William Hermann,The Arizona Republic
USA Today

One of the men accused in a yearlong spree of serial killings is a deeply troubled guy whose life spiraled out of control amid divorce, homelessness and unemployment, friends say.

Samuel "Sammy" John Dieteman seemed to find refuge at the Stardust bar in Glendale, where he drank rum and Cokes and made friends who became like family to him. Last week, the day after a Mesa woman was shot dead, friends say, Dieteman called one of them, making statements about a string of fatal shootings that has left seven people dead and 17 more wounded.

Dieteman, 30, and his roommate, Dale S. Hausner, 33, now are accused in the "Serial Shooter" crimes that struck fear across the metropolitan area as the violence swept from the West Valley to the East. In all, 37 shootings that targeted people walking, biking or otherwise outside alone at night are believed to be linked.

"I would never ever, ever expect anything like that from him," Sherry Vandervort, a bartender at Stardust, said of Dieteman.

In a jailhouse interview Monday, Hausner calmly and adamantly proclaimed his innocence, saying he is "an upstanding member of society" who could never participate in such a coldblooded frenzy of killings, although he theorized that Dieteman may have. Hausner said he met Dieteman through his brother Jeff and allowed him to move into his apartment about five weeks ago because Dieteman didn't have a job or a place to live.

"Apparently at night Sam had been taking my car out, using various weapons I have at my house to commit crimes." Hausner said. "And apparently they tracked it to my car and, when they came and busted in the house, I was there, and I guess I'm just guilty by association, even though I did not shoot anybody or kill anybody."

Also Monday, a seventh homicide was linked to the yearlong spree of serial killings. Tony Junior Mendez, 38, was gunned down on May 17, 2005.

Phoenix police now are poring through shootings dating to the beginning of 2005, looking for similarities, and they have asked law-enforcement agencies Valley-wide to do the same, said Sgt. Andy Hill.

"We could very well end up with more," Hill said.

Resembled transients

The serial shootings began with Mendez's killing. Court records say the men selected victims who looked like transients in what Dieteman called "random recreational violence."

Dieteman and Hausner were arrested last week at their Mesa apartment and booked on two counts of first-degree murder and 14 counts of aggravated assault. The men also are believed to have set two fires 45 minutes apart at two Wal-Mart stores in Glendale on June 8. A federal search warrant affidavit obtained Monday by The Arizona Republic says Hausner and Dieteman were identified as the two suspects caught on surveillance tapes.

Police had been looking for Dieteman since mid-July as a possible suspect in the Serial Shooter cases. They found him last week at Stardust and put him under surveillance until his arrest.

Police have said they have a wealth of evidence linking the two men to the shootings, including weapons and incriminating statements.

Dieteman declined interview requests.

Court records have described the shootings as stealth attacks. They usually occurred in clusters and generally within a few miles of each other. All were between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. Little evidence was left behind.

Mendez's killing fits the profile. A transient, Mendez was biking near the home where his children lived when he was shot at 10:30 p.m.

Mendez's mother, Barbara Robles, said her son was starting to work again and wanted to get his kids back. The family didn't understand who would want to kill Mendez.

"Everybody says, 'Well, God calls you in different places and different times,' " Robles said. "He must have told him, 'It's your time, Tony.' "

Hausner on Monday expressed compassion for the victims and their families, saying his two sons died in a 1994 car accident and his 2-year-old daughter is terminally ill.

"I am so sorry. This is such a tragedy," he said. "I know what it's like to suffer the loss of a kid."

Answer for everything

For a man accused of being one of the most prolific serial killers in the history of Phoenix, Hausner was remarkably calm, never raising his voice and seemingly having an answer for everything.

He admitted to being at the Wal-Mart stores with Dieteman the night of the arsons but said he didn't set any fires or see Dieteman set any either. He said he kept news clippings and maps of the serial shootings merely because he was keeping up on the attacks like everyone else in the Valley.

And even though court records say police tailed Hausner and Dieteman last week as they "suspiciously drove" through the areas of prior attacks, slowing in the areas of vagrant activity, Hausner had an explanation for that, too: Sometimes he drove around late at night when he couldn't sleep.

Hausner did admit owning a small arsenal that included numerous rifles, shotguns, pellet guns, various knives and stabbing weapons, ice picks, awls, "stuff like that," but he said, "I'm a gun collector. I have lots of weapons — as does most Americans.

"I'm not going to be out shooting people for no reason," he said.

Hausner's demeanor could conceivably reflect the confidence of an innocent man, two criminologists said Monday. Or it could also be the arrogance of a sociopath, they said.

Robert Keppel, a consulting detective from Washington state with years of experience investigating serial-killer cases, said it isn't unusual for a serial killer to wish to "exercise his mastery over a situation by acting very cool."

"He is being dominant," Keppel said, describing a serial killer. "He is power-hungry and he wants nothing but to make everyone else look like they are wrong. It's his way to gain one-upsmanship on everyone around him. There are many like him in prison."

Nowhere to go

Hausner grew up in Phoenix and seemed to teeter between grief and anger as tragedy, divorce and allegations of domestic violence and substance abuse touched his life.

After the deaths of his sons 12 years ago, Hausner told friends he spent the next decade living with extreme guilt and battling depression.

Hausner worked as a janitor at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport from January 1999 until last week, when he was fired after his arrest. He also was an amateur sports photographer.

A Republic analysis of city personnel records indicates 10 of the shootings occurred on Hausner's regularly scheduled days off and five more were on days when Hausner had taken personal leave.

Friends say Dieteman, a divorced father of two with a lengthy history of petty criminal offenses, went downhill last year after his mother kicked him out. Friends would often spot him walking the streets in the early morning because he had nowhere to go. Dieteman had quit his job as an electrician in 2002.

"He was somebody who needed to be loved," said Kelly Hottowe, a bartender and close friend of Dieteman's. "He would curl up in the back of my car and take a nap like a little kid."

The Arizona Republic is a publication of Gannett.

Contributing: Staff reporters Michael Kiefer, Lindsey Collom and Monica Alonzo-Dunsmoor

    Past of accused 'serial shooter' cited as deeply troubled, UT, 8.8.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-08-08-serial-shooters_x.htm

15 States Expand Right to Shoot in Self-Defense

August 7, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM LIPTAK

In the last year, 15 states have enacted laws that expand the right of self-defense, allowing crime victims to use deadly force in situations that might formerly have subjected them to prosecution for murder.

Supporters call them “stand your ground” laws. Opponents call them “shoot first” laws.

Thanks to this sort of law, a prostitute in Port Richey, Fla., who killed her 72-year-old client with his own gun rather than flee was not charged last month. Similarly, the police in Clearwater, Fla., did not arrest a man who shot a neighbor in early June after a shouting match over putting out garbage, though the authorities say they are still reviewing the evidence.

The first of the new laws took effect in Florida in October, and cases under it are now reaching prosecutors and juries there. The other laws, mostly in Southern and Midwestern states, were enacted this year, according to the National Rifle Association, which has enthusiastically promoted them.

Florida does not keep comprehensive records on the impact of its new law, but prosecutors and defense lawyers there agree that fewer people who claim self-defense are being charged or convicted.

The Florida law, which served as a model for the others, gives people the right to use deadly force against intruders entering their homes. They no longer need to prove that they feared for their safety, only that the person they killed had intruded unlawfully and forcefully. The law also extends this principle to vehicles.

In addition, the law does away with an earlier requirement that a person attacked in a public place must retreat if possible. Now, that same person, in the law’s words, “has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.” The law also forbids the arrest, detention or prosecution of the people covered by the law, and it prohibits civil suits against them.

The central innovation in the Florida law, said Anthony J. Sebok, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, is not its elimination of the duty to retreat, which has been eroding nationally through judicial decisions, but in expanding the right to shoot intruders who pose no threat to the occupant’s safety.

“In effect,” Professor Sebok said, “the law allows citizens to kill other citizens in defense of property.”

This month, a jury in West Palm Beach, Fla., will hear the retrial of a murder case that illustrates the dividing line between the old law and the new one. In November 2004, before the new law was enacted, a cabdriver in West Palm Beach killed a drunken passenger in an altercation after dropping him off.

The first jury deadlocked 9-to-3 in favor of convicting the driver, Robert Lee Smiley Jr., said Henry Munnilal, the jury foreman.

“Mr. Smiley had a lot of chances to retreat and to avoid an escalation,” said Mr. Munnilal, a 62-year-old accountant. “He could have just gotten in his cab and left. The thing could have been avoided, and a man’s life would have been saved.”

Mr. Smiley tried to invoke the new law, which does away with the duty to retreat and would almost certainly have meant his acquittal, but an appeals court refused to apply it retroactively. He has appealed that issue to the Florida Supreme Court.

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the N.R.A., said the Florida law had sent a needed message to law-abiding citizens.

“If they make a decision to save their lives in the split second they are being attacked, the law is on their side,” Mr. LaPierre said. “Good people make good decisions. That’s why they’re good people. If you’re going to empower someone, empower the crime victim.”

The N.R.A. said it would lobby for versions of the law in eight more states in 2007.

Sarah Brady, chairwoman of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said her group would fight those efforts. “In a way,” Ms. Brady said of the new laws, “it’s a license to kill.”

Many prosecutors oppose the laws, saying they are unnecessary at best and pernicious at worst. “They’re basically giving citizens more rights to use deadly force than we give police officers, and with less review,” said Paul A. Logli, president of the National District Attorneys Association.

But some legal experts doubt the laws will make a practical difference. “It’s inconceivable to me that one in a hundred Floridians could tell you how the law has changed,” said Gary Kleck, who teaches criminology at Florida State University.

Even before the new laws, Professor Kleck added, claims of self-defense were often accepted. “In the South,” he said, “they more or less give the benefit of the doubt to the alleged victim’s account.”

The case involving the Port Richey prostitute, Jacqueline Galas, turned on the new law, said Michael Halkitis, division director of the state attorney’s office in nearby New Port Richey. Ms. Galas, 23, said that a longtime client, Frank Labiento, 72, threatened to kill her and then kill himself last month. A suicide note he had left and other evidence supported her contention.

The law came into play when Ms. Galas grabbed Mr. Labiento’s gun and chose not to flee but to kill him. “Before that law,” Mr. Halkitis said, “before you could use deadly force, you had to retreat. Under the new law, you don’t have to do that.”

The decision not to charge Ms. Galas was straightforward, Mr. Halkitis said. “It would have been a more difficult situation with the old law,” he said, “much more difficult.”

In the case of the West Palm Beach cabdriver, Mr. Smiley, then 56, killed Jimmie Morningstar, 43. A sports bar had paid Mr. Smiley $10 to drive Mr. Morningstar home in the early morning of Nov. 6, 2004.

Mr. Morningstar was apparently reluctant to leave the cab once it reached its destination, and Mr. Smiley used a stun gun to hasten his exit. Once outside the cab, Mr. Morningstar flashed a knife, Mr. Smiley testified at his first trial, though one was never found. Mr. Smiley, who had gotten out of his cab, reacted by shooting at his passenger’s feet and then into his body, killing him.

Cliff Morningstar, the dead man’s uncle, said he was baffled by the killing. “He had a radio,” Mr. Morningstar said of Mr. Smiley. “He could have gotten in his car and left. He could have shot him in his knee.”

Carey Haughwout, the public defender who represents Mr. Smiley, conceded that no knife was found. “However,” Ms. Haughwout said, “there is evidence to support that the victim came at Smiley after Smiley fired two warning shots, and that he did have something in his hand.”

In April, a Florida appeals court indicated that the new law, had it applied to Mr. Smiley’s case, would have affected its outcome.

“Prior to the legislative enactment, a person was required to ‘retreat to the wall’ before using his or her right of self-defense by exercising deadly force,” Judge Martha C. Warner wrote. The new law, Judge Warner said, abolished that duty.

Jason M. Rosenbloom, the man shot by his neighbor in Clearwater, said his case illustrated the flaws in the Florida law. “Had it been a year and a half ago, he could have been arrested for attempted murder,” Mr. Rosenbloom said of his neighbor, Kenneth Allen.

“I was in T-shirt and shorts,” Mr. Rosenbloom said, recalling the day he knocked on Mr. Allen’s door. Mr. Allen, a retired Virginia police officer, had lodged a complaint with the local authorities, taking Mr. Rosenbloom to task for putting out eight bags of garbage, though local ordinances allow only six.

“I was no threat,” Mr. Rosenbloom said. “I had no weapon.”

The men exchanged heated words. “He closed the door and then opened the door,” Mr. Rosenbloom said of Mr. Allen. “He had a gun. I turned around to put my hands up. He didn’t even say a word, and he fired once into my stomach. I bent over, and he shot me in the chest.”

Mr. Allen, whose phone number is out of service and who could not be reached for comment, told The St. Petersburg Times that Mr. Rosenbloom had had his foot in the door and had tried to rush into the house, an assertion Mr. Rosenbloom denied.

“I have a right,” Mr. Allen said, “to keep my house safe.”

    15 States Expand Right to Shoot in Self-Defense, NYT, 7.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/us/07shoot.html?hp&ex=1155009600&en=3466fb01a2227803&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Suspected Phoenix serial killers took turns at the trigger, police say

Posted 8/6/2006 7:06 PM ET
AP
USA Today

PHOENIX (AP) — The gunmen took turns as they drove around the city.

Some nights it was Samuel John Dieteman, a burly electrician with a ragged mop of jet black hair. According to court documents, he'd blast at lone pedestrians from the window of a silver Toyota Camry in what he called "random recreational violence."

Other nights the trigger was pulled by his roommate, Dale S. Hausner, a baby-faced janitor and freelance photographer, the court documents allege.

After each shooting, the pair would drive slowly away, leaving little evidence other than the victim's body on a sidewalk.

Court documents and interviews with police provide a glimpse into the way investigators believe the pair operated and how they were finally found.

"We are so confident that these are the people," Chief Jack Harris told The Associated Press, adding that the men had admitted some of the crimes since they were arrested on Thursday.

Dieteman, 30, and Hausner, 33, face two counts each of first-degree murder and 13 counts each of attempted first-degree murder. A preliminary hearing is scheduled Aug. 14.

Overall, they are being investigated in 36 shootings, including 17 that targeted people and others that involved animals.

An expert on serial killers, Katherine Ramsland, said it's common in team killings that one person is "egging the other on" to join in.

"If one was the quiet timid type, he may have been the follower who got himself in a situation and just kept going because the reality was created by the dominant partner," she said. "That happens in team killings quite often."

Until last week, investigators had no idea who was responsible for the late-night attacks. They didn't know if the attacks were committed by one person or more, and grouped the attacks under one name: the "Serial Shooter."

Phoenix police are still seeking another shooter, dubbed the Baseline Killer, who is believed responsible for eight killings in the area of Baseline Road.

While the Serial Shooter investigation isn't complete, police believe the attacks started just past midnight on May 24, 2005, with the killing of 56-year-old Reginald Remillard, who was shot in the neck while he slept at a bus stop.

The last shooting the men are accused of occurred on July 30. Robin Blasnek was shot in the back as she walked to her boyfriend's house in Mesa. She was alive when a neighbor found her, but died later at a hospital.

In between, a probable cause statement alleges, Dieteman and Hausner had taken turns driving while they selected victims at random.

On May 2, the probable cause statement said, Hausner pulled along the curb next to Claudia Gutierrez-Cruz, 20, after she stepped off a bus on her way home from work at a Scottsdale restaurant.

Dieteman allegedly fired one blast from a shotgun, hitting Gutierrez-Cruz on the left side. She died later at a hospital.

A few minutes later, police say, the duo shot a 17-year-old in the back while he was walking along a street.

After targeting people and animals across Phoenix and its suburbs on the west side, the attackers moved east.

Early on the morning of July 22, they found a man in his 30s riding his bicycle in Mesa. Dieteman told police that Hausner pulled close in the Camry, pulled the shotgun over the steering wheel and fired out the driver's side window, according to the probable cause statement. The man survived but was seriously injured.

Police say the last attack, the one that killed Blasnek, occurred less than three miles away from the apartment Hausner and Dieteman shared. Hausner shot her while driving, Dieteman said, according to the statement.

"The circumstances of Robin's death tells us how wicked this world has become," Blasnek's mother, Sandra, said Saturday at her daughter's funeral.

Investigators had started looking for Dieteman in July as a suspect in arson fires in June at two Wal-Marts in suburban Glendale, but didn't spot him until one day after Blasnek was shot. They found out where he lived and kept him and his roommate under surveillance for most of the week.

Thursday night, police decided they had enough to make the arrests in connection with the Serial Shooter attacks. Authorities said their evidence against the men included weapons and a map marking the locations of dozens of shootings.

    Suspected Phoenix serial killers took turns at the trigger, police say, UT, 6.8.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-08-06-phoenix-suspects_x.htm

Friends of Phoenix Slay Suspect Shocked

August 6, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:38 a.m. ET
The New York Times

PHOENIX (AP) -- He was always polite to friends. A lover of boxing who decorated his room with drawings of his favorite athletes. A father to a 2-year-old girl, as well as two young sons who died in a tragic car accident. To many who know him, Dale S. Hausner simply is too sweet, too timid, to have terrorized city residents in a deadly, 15-month rash of late night shootings as police said Friday.

''He doesn't even look like he would know which end of the (gun) barrel the bullet would come out of,'' said Mary Ann Owen, a Las Vegas photographer who knew Hausner since 1999.

Others, however, noticed a change in Hausner's behavior as early as about a year ago. They said he stopped showing up at the boxing matches he had long photographed, and referred to the shooting spree in a suspicious phone call about three weeks ago.

His ex-wife also said he had a dark side, reportedly alleging in 2001 divorce filings that he had threatened to kill her in the Arizona desert.

Hausner and his alleged accomplice, Samuel John Dieteman, have each been booked on two counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted first-degree murder for a series of attacks since May 2005.

Police arrested Hausner, 33, and Dieteman, 30, on Thursday after keeping both under tight surveillance for four days. Authorities say their evidence against the men includes a weapons and a map marking the dozens of shootings. Court documents said Dieteman admitted the pair was involved in some of the crimes.

A person who police did not identify said Dieteman would drive through Phoenix-area cities selecting random targets that he called ''RV'' -- Random Recreational Violence, according to a probable cause statement.

Hausner's daughter was in the apartment when he and Dieteman were arrested outside and was returned to her mother, police said. Linda Swaney posted a sign on the front door of her home saying she wouldn't comment.

Hausner also had two sons, ages 2 and 3, who drowned in a creek after a car crash, according to a 1994 report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The story said Hausner's second wife, Karen, was driving the car and fell asleep while Hausner was in the vehicle.

''My boys drowned in a filthy, freezing cold body of water,'' Hausner wrote in a 2004 letter to his family obtained by The Arizona Republic. ''I tried to get them out but the current was awful and the water was freezing and I almost died trying to get them out.''

In a 2001 divorce filing also obtained by the Republic, Karen Hausner wrote that he took her to a deserted place outside Phoenix ''and had a shotgun and said he was going to kill me. Dale appears to be unstable emotionally, and I'm afraid he would do harm to myself or people I care about as retribution for me leaving him.''

Hausner's first wife, Tracie Hazelett, 33, called her ex-husband mentally abusive and said she was afraid of him, according to her current husband, Davis Hazelett.

''He always struck me as the type of person who would hit you when you're not looking,'' Davis Hazelett told The Associated Press.

Clement Vierra, owner of the Hard Knocks Gym in Phoenix, said he met Hausner about two years ago and would talk to him at boxing events. But about a year ago, Hausner stopped showing up at the fights.

''It was pretty strange because he was really involved with the boxing,'' Vierra said.

''He just stopped. Nobody knew where he was. He wouldn't return any calls that we left for him,'' Vierra said.

An Oregon police officer who runs a Web site for female boxers said that about three weeks ago she got a call from Hausner, who was almost breathless with excitement. He said he needed help with a law enforcement question.

''Dale Hausner has done some (freelance photo) coverage for us in 2003,'' Sue TL Fox said in a telephone interview. ''I kind of terminated him back then, so the call was out of the blue.

''He was excited. He said 'Hey Sue, is the news all over the place about the shootings in Phoenix? I said, no, I haven't been paying attention to that. He said OK. I won't bother you anymore.''

Fox said she called Phoenix police about Hausner's call. Like many others who knew Hausner, she's mystified about the charges against him.

At the gated complex where Hausner and Dieteman shared an apartment, Jill O'Donnell, 20, also noticed a change in Hausner in the past month.

She said she had spent a considerable amount of time chatting with Hausner, and he was always ''really nice,'' but lately he ''gave off a vibe of someone you didn't want to be too social with.''

''He wouldn't say 'Hi.''' she said. ''He wouldn't wave when I passed him. Little things like that.''

Katherine Ramsland, who has written dozens of books on the psychology and habits of criminals, said there are few similarities between serial killers and how they act.

''But it's very obvious (Hausner) had a secret compartment where he put his anger. You'll find people who are quiet and timid but they are in fact angry about not being able to express themselves. The anger builds, and they express it in aggressive ways.''

Investigators first started looking for Dieteman in July when he surfaced as a suspect in arson fires at two Glendale Wal-Marts in June. But Phoenix police didn't find Dieteman until Monday, when an investigator spotted him in his car.

Investigators found shotgun cartridges, shotguns and long rifles in the men's apartment, according to the probable cause statement.

Police searching through their trash found a map with red and blue dots representing the locations of the attacks, the document said. The bag also contained an ''America's Most Wanted'' video and news clippings of the shootings and other attacks linked to another serial assailant dubbed the Baseline Killer.

The men are being investigated in 36 shootings, including some involving animals. They're also suspected of committing two arsons. A preliminary hearing is scheduled Aug. 14.

Hausner's brother, Randy, said Saturday that Deiteman ''was a friend of his (Hausner's) that he'd met a while back. I didn't even know they were staying together. And Dale hasn't even known him that long. They met through my other brother.''

Court records show that Dieteman had traffic cases against him in Arizona as early as June 2001, though it wasn't clear whether he was living in the state at the time.

O'Donnell said she met Dieteman once while inside their apartment. He just drank a beer and said nothing.

Associated Press writer Terry Tang contributed to this report.

    Friends of Phoenix Slay Suspect Shocked, NYT, 6.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Phoenix-Investigation.html

Arizona Shootings Described as ‘Recreational’

August 6, 2006
The New York Times
By PAUL GIBLIN

PHOENIX, Aug. 5 — Two men arrested Friday in a yearlong series of shootings went on late-night joy rides through the city and its suburbs shooting people in what court papers called “random recreational violence.”

The police booked the suspects, Dale S. Hausner, 33, and Samuel J. Dieteman, 30, late Friday on suspicion of two counts of first-degree murder and 14 counts of attempted first-degree murder. They were denied bail.

More charges are pending, local and federal authorities said.

The two are suspected in shootings that killed 6 and wounded 18 and in fires at two Wal-Mart stores.

Court documents said a resident told the police that Mr. Dieteman was responsible for drive-by shootings.

“Dieteman would drive through the cities selecting random targets which he referred to as ‘RV,’ random recreational violence,” the resident said, according to the probable cause statement used to hold the suspects.

The police said Mr. Dieteman and Mr. Hausner admitted that they had taken turns driving a silver four-door Toyota Camry and shooting at people in Phoenix and suburban Mesa and Scottsdale. The two used a shotgun and aimed at victims from the back or from angles, according to the court documents. Some victims were homeless.

The police also recovered evidence from an apartment the suspects shared in Mesa, according to the documents.

At least one shotgun, rifles and other guns were among the materials found, as well as shotgun ammunition, two maps, a video of the television program “America’s Most Wanted,” newspaper clippings of the shooting cases and maps identifying routes and possible locations of shootings.

Members of a multi-agency task force, working on a tip, considered Mr. Dieteman to be a possible suspect in the case since mid-July, but were unable to locate him until late Monday night, said Sgt. Andy Hill of the Phoenix police.

“From that moment on, the minute we found where he was, then we were able to find out where he lived and everything else went from there,” Sergeant Hill said. “We were on him 24/7, because if this turned out to be our suspect, we were not going to let another incident happen.”

The police trailed the two men as they drove through the areas of the shootings and slowed in areas of vagrant activity on Tuesday night, Sergeant Hill said.

The police were “absolutely” prepared to shoot them if they showed signs they intended to shoot anyone along the streets, he said.

The police kept the men under surveillance until they had collected enough evidence to arrest them late Thursday.

    Arizona Shootings Described as ‘Recreational’, NYT, 6.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/us/06serial.html

Arizona Police Arrest Two in Serial Shootings Case

August 4, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:06 p.m. ET
The New York Times

PHOENIX (AP) -- Police have arrested two men they said were responsible for one of the two strings of serial killings that have terrorized Phoenix area residents for more than a year, officials said Friday.

Authorities would not say what evidence they have against Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman, who were arrested late Thursday at a gated apartment complex in the suburb of Mesa.

But authorities expressed total confidence that the pair were responsible for 15 months of deadly attacks in the ''Serial Shooter'' case.

''These are the two monsters we've been hunting,'' Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said at a news conference.

Police Chief Jack Harris said the men will face numerous counts of murder and aggravated assault, though authorities didn't have specifics on how many.

Phoenix police Assistant Chief Kevin Robinson said Hausner, 33, and Dieteman, 31, are friends who lived in Mesa. Investigators found no obvious connections between the two men and the victims, Robinson said.

''The best we could tell, they were just random victims. These individuals just picked victims out and that was it,'' Robinson said.

Six people were killed and 17 wounded in attacks attributed to the Serial Shooter, mostly in the western and eastern edges of Phoenix's sprawling suburbs. Police said the crimes appear unrelated to the eight slayings and 11 rapes in the still-unsolved ''Baseline Killer'' cases.

The two cases doubled the fear and paranoia gripping Phoenix neighborhoods in recent months, and led law enforcement agencies to devote more than 200 investigators to track down the killers. Authorities said they will move investigators from the Serial Shooter to the Baseline Killer case.

''I hope they got him,'' said Caroll Roberts, whose 19-year-old son was shot in the torso last month and survived after four hours of surgery. ''I want to shoot him in the stomach to see how he'd like it, like he did my son.''

Robinson said investigators identified them as suspects Monday evening, but added that they had some information about them before that.

''It wasn't just one source,'' Robinson said. ''We were able to get on these individuals from a lot of different sources.''

Since May 2005, police say, the Serial Shooter was responsible for three dozen shootings; victims included pedestrians, bicyclists, dogs and horses. They generally occurred at night, with no witnesses. The most recent was Sunday in Mesa when a 22-year-old woman was fatally shot as she was walking from her parents' home to her boyfriend's house, authorities said.

Once police thought they had the shooters, Robinson said they spent the next four days gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses and watching the suspects so they had enough information to confidently arrest and hold them.

''We are confident these are the individuals involved,'' Robinson said.

Officials from several police agencies searched the apartment complex Friday morning as part of the investigation. Some used flashlights to peer through the windows of a car, which was later hauled away by a tow truck.

Television footage showed police officers carrying what appeared to be several rifles or shotguns away from the apartment.

Complex resident Loraine Salyers said she lives near where police came in Friday.

''I came out and there were like a hundred cops,'' Salyers said. ''I was so scared. My heart's pounding.''

Investigators found no connections between the suspects and the Baseline Killer, who is believed responsible for killing seven women and one man since last September, and sexually assaulting 11 women and girls in the past year.

Robin Blasnek, 22, was gunned down at about 11:15 p.m. Sunday. Neighbors heard a shot and ran to help the young woman, but she soon lost consciousness and died at a hospital.

The shooting was linked to earlier cases because of similarities and forensic evidence, authorities said.

Blasnek's father told the East Valley Tribune that his daughter grew up as a special needs child, and lived part time with her parents in Mesa and at a group home in Tempe.

''She was just a great kid. Very, very naive, and pure as far as not understanding the dangers of the world,'' Steve Blasnek said. ''I guess my only regret is that I didn't give her a big hug.''

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On the Net:

Phoenix Police Department: http://www.phoenix.gov/police 

    Arizona Police Arrest Two in Serial Shootings Case, NYT, 4.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Phoenix-Investigation.html?hp&ex=1154750400&en=a0b680050b44d1a7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Weekend shootings claim six in New Orleans

Sun Jul 30, 2006 2:26 AM ET
Reuters
By Russell McCulley

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans police reported on Saturday the hurricane-ravaged city had seen six murders in less than 24 hours, including a quadruple killing not far from the historic French Quarter.

The weekend is shaping up to be the city's bloodiest since mid-June, when five teenagers were gunned down in the Central City neighborhood. That incident prompted Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco to dispatch more than 300 National Guard troops and a contingency of state police to the city to augment the local police force's crime-fighting efforts.

After a lull following Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast August 29, killing more than 1,300 and virtually emptying New Orleans, the repopulating city has witnessed a persistent increase in violent crime.

The quadruple murder, which took place Friday evening, claimed the lives of three New Orleans brothers - two 16-year-olds and a 21-year-old - along with a 39-year-old local man. New Orleans Police Department superintendent Warren Riley said the older man was the apparent target of the attack by two gunmen, who were still at large Sunday morning.

A pair of unrelated shootings claimed two more victims Saturday, bringing the city's murder count for the year to 78.

Riley said drug and gang culture were to blame for much of the city's violence.

"It's unfortunate for anyone to be killed," he said. "But it is clearly, clearly, people who live the life, that are involved in drugs and violence, who are killing each other, and who are dying."

Police have made no arrests and have named no suspects in any of the six murders, said department spokesperson Garry Flot.

Mayor Ray Nagin said Saturday that recent crime fighting efforts, such as having the National Guard patrol largely deserted neighborhoods so city police can concentrate on high-crime districts, were helping curb violence. But he said little could be done to prevent gang and drug-related revenge killings.

"If citizens are still going to, you know, retaliate against each other ... I don't know what more we can do to stop this," Nagin told WWL-TV.

    Weekend shootings claim six in New Orleans, R, 30.7.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-07-30T062550Z_01_N30196683_RTRUKOC_0_US-WEATHER-HURRICANES-MURDERS.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-3

Police Describe Seattle Shooting as a Hate Crime

July 30, 2006
The New York Times
By WILLIAM YARDLEY

SEATTLE, July 29 — A day after a gunman killed one woman and wounded five others in the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, the police identified a Muslim man on Saturday as the suspect and said he used the Internet to select the federation as a random target for his anger toward Jews.

As Jewish groups across the Puget Sound region moved to increase security on Saturday, the police identified the suspect as Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, whose family lives in Pasco, in southeast Washington, about 180 miles from Seattle.

At a court hearing on Saturday, a judge ordered Mr. Haq held on $50 million bail at the King County Jail pending formal charges of murder and attempted murder, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Haq entered the courtroom in handcuffs, chains and leg shackles, and a white jail shirt that labeled him an “ultra security inmate.”

The police are treating the shooting as a hate crime based on what they say Mr. Haq told a 911 dispatcher shortly before surrendering.

“He said he wanted the United States to leave Iraq, that his people were being mistreated and that the United States was harming his people,” Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske of the Seattle Police said Saturday at a news conference. “And he pointedly blamed the Jewish people for all of these problems. He stated he didn’t care if he lived.”

The chief said the gunman apparently selected the federation as a target by randomly searching the Internet for Jewish organizations in the area. The police confiscated at least three computers, he said.

Chief Kerlikowske described an intense and violent scene inside the federation, with some of the 18 people present jumping out of second-story windows and one young pregnant woman crawling to call 911 after being shot in the arm as she covered her abdomen. When the gunman later encountered her on the phone with emergency dispatchers, she refused to hang up.

“She was able to get him to take the telephone,” the chief said, calling her “a hero.”

A neighbor of Mr. Haq’s family in Pasco said Mr. Haq had spoken of Jews as recently as 10 days ago, sometimes using stereotypes about Jewish influence in the United States.

“He was saying he wasn’t trying to be racial about it but how they had control over a lot of the newscasts and things, ownership and stuff,” said the neighbor, Caleb Hales, 21.

Colleagues of the victims said the gunman had identified himself as “a Muslim-American” who was “angry at Israel.”

The A.P., citing a statement of probable cause, reported that Mr. Haq had told a 911 dispatcher, “These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East."

The Seattle Times reported Saturday that Mr. Haq was also facing a charge of lewd conduct in Benton County, in southeast Washington, accused of exposing himself in public.

The police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have said they believe Mr. Haq was acting alone.

The chief said the Mr. Haq “was so enraged at first” but later calmed down and followed the emergency dispatchers’ instructions to leave the building with his hands up. He surrendered to the police at the federation offices near downtown 12 minutes after the shootings were first reported to 911.

The police have not released the names of the victims, all women. Three of the survivors were in serious condition on Saturday and two were in satisfactory condition, according to the media relations office at the Harborview Medical Center. They range in age from their early 20’s to 40’s and had gunshot wounds in the knee, groin, abdomen and arm. Federation officials said the woman who was killed was Pam Waechter, 58, its director of annual giving.

Federation officials identified the wounded women as Dayna Klein, 37; Cheryl Stumbo, 43; Layla Bush, 23; and Carol Goldman, 35; and Christina Rexroad, whose age was not known.

Asked to describe her group’s general relations with area Muslim groups, Amy Wasser-Simpson, the federation’s vice president, said, “We have had no negative interactions with the Muslim community whatsoever.”

Robert S. Jacobs, regional director for the Pacific Northwest Region of the Anti-Defamation League, who knew several of the victims, said that the three with serious injuries are not Jewish, including Cheryl Stumbo, the federation’s marketing director.

“These were really good, hard-working people who cared about the community and cared about their jobs,” he said.

The gunman apparently hid behind a plant at the federation’s offices and waited for someone to enter the building, and then forced his way inside at gunpoint when a teenager opened a locked door, Chief Kerlikowske said. The gunman had two semiautomatic pistols.

A half-hour before the shooting, Mr. Haq was ticketed for a minor traffic infraction on Third Avenue, the same street where the federation has its offices, the chief said.

Mr. Hales, the neighbor of Mr. Haq’s family, said he spoke with Mr. Haq on July 20,. Mr. Hales, whose family is Mormon, said Mr. Haq had talked about finding a job, perhaps in engineering. The conversation wandered, Mr. Hales said, with Mr. Haq expressing curiosity about Mr. Hales’s religion. “He told me he would stay up late up at night reading about people’s religions and cultural backgrounds,” Mr. Hales said.

His mother, Maureen Hales, said she believed that the Haqs were originally from Pakistan and that Mr. Haq’s father, Mian Haq, was an engineer who worked at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

    Police Describe Seattle Shooting as a Hate Crime, NYT, 30.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30seattle.html

Two Serial Killers Sought in Phoenix

July 29, 2006
The New York Times
By PAUL GIBLIN

PHOENIX, July 28 — The authorities this week linked a double murder and a nonfatal shooting to two serial killers who have evaded capture despite an intensive police investigation in Phoenix and its suburbs.

The unknown gunmen, who the police believe are acting independently, are thought to be responsible for dozens of killings, rapes, robberies and shootings since last year. The most recent shooting was Saturday.

The police used forensic evidence to connect the killing of two women, Romelia Vargas, 38, and Mirna Palma-Roman, 23, in south Phoenix on Feb. 20 to the crimes attributed to the person they call the Baseline Killer, Sgt. Andy Hill said. The women were shot before dawn as they prepared for work in a catering truck parked near a construction site.

“One of the things we have done investigatively is to go back over cases — and there’s a lot of them to go back over,” Sergeant Hill said. “In the last year and a half, there’s been almost 400 homicides and a lot of other violent crimes.”

The police attribute 23 cases to the Baseline Killer, whose first crimes in August were clustered around Baseline Road in Phoenix. The person is thought be responsible for eight killings, seven rapes and eight robberies.

The police also linked the nonfatal shooting of a man riding a bicycle before dawn in the suburb of Mesa on Saturday to the second gunman, who is known as the Serial Shooter.

The shooting was a new eastern expansion for the attacker, whose territory has spanned 32 miles from the bedroom cities of Avondale, west of Phoenix, to Mesa, east of Phoenix.

The police think he may shoot people walking or riding bikes from a light-colored sedan. The Serial Shooter is believed to be responsible for 5 killings, 17 nonfatal shootings, 12 shootings of animals and one property shooting at a business.

    Two Serial Killers Sought in Phoenix, NYT, 29.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/29/us/29serial.html

Six Are Shot at Seattle Jewish Center

July 29, 2006
The New York Times
By WILLIAM YARDLEY and JODI RUDOREN

SEATTLE, July 28 — Five people were injured and one was killed Friday afternoon when a man who expressed anger toward Jews opened fire in the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, the authorities said.

The Seattle Police did not identify the suspect. They said he was arrested 12 minutes after the first report came in to emergency dispatchers. At 4:03 p.m., according to Assistant Chief Nick Metz, dispatchers received a call saying people had been shot and hostages taken at the offices of the federation, a fund-raising and planning organization at the edge of downtown.

Two minutes later, 911 dispatchers were on the phone with the suspect, said Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske of the Seattle Police, at a news conference Friday night.

Because of what the suspect said in that conversation, which the chief would not disclose, the shootings are being treated as a hate crime, he said. Chief Kerlikowske said the suspect was Muslim.

The authorities said they did not think the suspect was acting as part of a terrorist group.

“We believe at this point that it’s just a lone individual acting out some kind of antagonism toward this particular organization,” said David Gomez, the Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who heads its counterterrorism unit in Seattle.

Mr. Gomez said his agency had been “monitoring” both Jewish and Muslim organizations, and reaching out to their leaders “for the last couple of weeks, since the beginning of hostilities in the Middle East.”

Frederick Dutt, an F.B.I. agent, said the agency had issued two bulletins, on July 21 and on Wednesday, urging “vigilance” at organizations and religious locations in light of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in the Middle East. “Not specific targets because we didn’t have that information, to be honest,” he said.

Mr. Dutt noted there was an attack on a mosque in Seattle after Sept. 11, 2001. And the F.B.I. investigated two mosques for ties to Al Qaeda.

Marla Meislin-Dietrich, who works in the federation’s development department but was not in the office at the time of the shooting, said a colleague told her that one shooting victim said she had heard the gunman say “that he was a Muslim-American and that he was angry at Israel.”

“That’s all I know,” said Ms. Meislin-Dietrich, who spent the day working — and learning to bake challah — at the home of Amy Wasser-Simpson, the federation’s vice president. “I talked to the person who was running out of the building with the person who was shot in the arm. She gave me the quote.”

“The news is quoting us, and we don’t know,” she added. “We don’t know who’s dead, we don’t know for sure.”

Sgt. Deanna Nollette of the police said she believed all of the victims were women.

Ms. Meislin-Dietrich said that about 25 people typically work in the group’s offices, which occupy the entire second floor of a modest building on Third Avenue in the Belltown neighborhood. Fewer were there Friday afternoon because of the onset of the Sabbath and because it is summer, she said.

The police found a vehicle they believed belonged to the suspect and planned to test it for explosives although they did not expect to find any, Chief Metz said.

The police closed off several blocks around the federation’s offices and briefly required people to stay inside other buildings nearby. At one point there was concern among people nearby that a gunman was on the rooftops, but Rich Pruitt, a spokesman for the Seattle Police, said those fears were unfounded.

The police said they recovered a handgun that the suspect put down before he surrendered.

Laura Laughlin, special agent in the F.B.I.’s Seattle office, said that the suspect was a United States citizen and that agents were interviewing his relatives.

Mayor Greg Nickels said at the news conference, “This is a crime of hate, and there’s no place for that in the city of Seattle.”

Asked whether the suspect had links to a local mosque, Mr. Nickels said, “He’s not a resident of the city, and we know of no other connection he has.”

    Six Are Shot at Seattle Jewish Center, NYT, 29.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/29/us/29seattle.html?hp&ex=1154232000&en=7819ededebc5cac1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Teen arrested in Indiana highway sniper shootings

Updated 7/25/2006 11:13 PM ET
By Tim Evans, John Strauss and Theodore Kim, The Indianapolis Star
USA Today

SEYMOUR, Ind. — A teenage hunter was arrested Tuesday in connection with a series of highway sniper shootings that killed one man and wounded another, police said.

A 17-year-old was jailed in Jackson County, where he faced preliminary charges of murder, attempted murder and criminal recklessness, prosecutor Stephen Pierson said.

No motive was known for the shootings, State Police Superintendent Paul Whitesell said. Asked if the teen had confessed, Whitesell said he was remorseful and cooperated with investigators.

"I would call that a confession," Whitesell said.

USA TODAY does not normally publish the names of juveniles suspected of or charged in crimes.

The victims, Jerry Ross, 40, who was killed, and Robert Hartl, 25, were shot early Sunday as they rode in pickups on Interstate 65 near Seymour, south of Indianapolis.

About two hours later, bullets hit a moving tractor-trailer and a parked vehicle on I-69 in Delaware County, about 100 miles to the northeast near the teen's home in Gaston. No one was hurt in those shootings.

After examining shell casings, investigators determined they were looking for a Remington 710 hunting rifle firing .270-caliber rounds. Police found a rifle of that model, with a telescopic aiming sight, at the teen's home, Whitesell said.

The teen had hunted in the Seymour area previously and knew the area well, Whitesell said. "That helps explain why he was able to perpetrate a crime from that overpass, because it requires a certain esoteric knowledge of the lay of the land to get there," he said.

Gov. Mitch Daniels praised law enforcement officers Tuesday. "Indiana has been spared the sort of fear, uncertainty and disruption that has befallen other jurisdictions elsewhere," he said.

    Teen arrested in Indiana highway sniper shootings, UT, 25.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-25-sniper-shootings_x.htm

Gunfire on I-65 in Indiana Kills Man in Pickup

July 24, 2006
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEYMOUR, Ind., July 23 (AP) — Sniper fire struck two pickup trucks along Interstate 65 in southern Indiana early Sunday, killing one person and injuring another, the state police said.

One or more snipers shot at a truck about 12:20 a.m., killing Jerry L. Ross, 40, of New Albany, one of the three occupants, the police said.

About the same time, a bullet grazed the head of a passenger in another pickup on the same highway. The driver of that pickup, Brandon Bonnesen of Anita, Iowa, said he and Robert J. O. Hartl, 25, of Audubon, Iowa, were driving to Florida for construction work when he heard a loud noise.

“I cussed a little bit and looked at my friend,” Mr. Bonnesen said. “He was all bent over and I said, ‘You all right?’ ”

Mr. Hartl was treated at a hospital and released.

The authorities closed a 14-mile section of I-65, about 50 miles south of Indianapolis, for about eight hours on Sunday.

The interstate is part of the main direct route between Chicago and Florida and is heavily traveled at all hours, said Sgt. Jerry Goodin of the state police.

Officials were also investigating two other shootings along Interstate 69, about 50 miles northeast of Indianapolis. No one was hurt in those shootings, and there was no immediate indication if the two cases were connected, the police said.

In the I-69 shootings, bullets struck a tractor-trailer in Muncie and a parked but unattended sport utility vehicle at a service station in the same area. The police said both vehicles were struck multiple times.

    Gunfire on I-65 in Indiana Kills Man in Pickup, NYT, 24.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/us/24sniper.html

2 dead, at least 10 hurt in Kansas City shooting

Updated 7/23/2006 3:26 PM ET
AP
USA Today

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Gunfire erupted early Sunday outside a Knights of Columbus hall where a party had attracted hundreds of young people, killing two men and wounding at least 10 other people, police said.

An officer handling a traffic accident heard several gunshots around 1 a.m. from near the Catholic fraternal lodge, located behind a commercial strip on a busy street in south Kansas City. The hall had been rented out, though police didn't know by whom.

Police rushed to the scene and witnessed "people running in all different directions," said Sgt. Doug Niemeier.

After the people and vehicles cleared the area, a 20-year-old man was found dead in a parking lot next to the hall. A second man, also 20, died later at a hospital, police said.

Niemeier said at least two other people were critically wounded — a 17-year-old shot in the chest and a 24-year-old shot in the neck — and at least eight others were also injured.

Police worked Sunday to determine an exact number of wounded. Some victims were taken to hospitals by ambulance, but others went in private vehicles, Niemeier said.

Investigators did not know what prompted the gunfire. Niemeier estimated that 25 to 50 rounds were fired.

No arrests had been made by Sunday afternoon, and the victims' names had not been released. Phone messages left at the Knights of Columbus were not returned.

Crowds of young people filled two parking lots near the hall by 10:30 p.m. Saturday, milling around and leaning against cars, said Dan Blevins, 58, who was nearby at D'Angelo's Lounge. The bartender called police, who arrived around 11 p.m. and left a short time later, he said.

Then, around 1 a.m., "We see people diving to the ground, and it sounds like firecrackers," Blevins said. The bartender locked the door, and they watched as emergency vehicles arrived and people were carried away on stretchers.

Blevins returned to the site Sunday morning to retrieve his pickup from an area that police had taped off after the shootings. He inspected it before driving away, but found no bullet holes.

"I wasn't worried about my truck. I was worried for my life and my friend's life," he said, referring to the bartender.

    2 dead, at least 10 hurt in Kansas City shooting, UT, 23.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-23-kc-shooting_x.htm

Journals Reveal Ruminations of Teenage Columbine Killers

July 7, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK JOHNSON

GOLDEN, Colo., July 6 — The mind of a teenage killer-in-training is a very dark place.

"I have a goal to destroy as much as possible, and I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy or any of that," Eric Harris wrote in a journal entry almost exactly six months before he and his friend Dylan Klebold took their bombs and guns to Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.

Another entry is even more to the point: "It's cool to hate."

But as the nearly 1,000 pages of documents released here on Thursday by the Jefferson County sheriff also reveal, evil was hatched amid the utterly ordinary things of teenage life. Immature rants against the world, declarations of invincible superiority and depressed mopes about the love for a girl who did not love back are interspersed with to-do lists that, in retrospect, are the stuff of bleakest horror.

On one undated page, Mr. Harris, who was 18 when he and Mr. Klebold, 17, killed 13 people and then themselves, wrote down a neatly enumerated list of things still to be done. Get nails. Get gas cans. Fill clips. Finish fuses.

At the top of the page was a chipper printed reminder about the virtues of optimism: "Your outlook determines your ability to overcome any challenge."

The documents, most of which were seized by the police from the Klebold and Harris homes and vehicles, were released by the sheriff as a result of an order by the Colorado Supreme Court, which said last year that the sheriff must review the retained evidence — including videotapes made by the killers — and decide what materials, if any, were in the public interest.

The sheriff, Ted Mink, said in a letter posted on the county Web site that after extensive review, and discussions with the family members of the victims and with violent-crime behavior analysts, he had decided that the videotapes should not be released because he feared they could inspire copycat crimes. But the documents passed the court's test.

"No one item has held the key," Sheriff Mink wrote.

What the new trove of documents offers, over and over, is the mixed sense of inevitability — two young men surging toward disaster — and just as often the glimpse of another future that might have unfolded, in which all the detailed plans for mayhem and killing stayed in a drawer, a fantasy only.

In a school paper written by Mr. Klebold, two months before the killings, according to the handwritten date at the top, he described an intensely violent scene in which a man carrying duffle bags pulled out weapons and began a mass killing. The gore is described in vivid detail: blood spatters under the streetlights, metal objects are thrust though skulls.

The teacher appeared somewhat taken aback.

"I'd like to talk to you about your story before I give you a grade," the unnamed teacher wrote. "You are an excellent writer/storyteller, but I have some problems with this one."

The documents also give nuance and texture to some of the myths and caricatures that have grown up around the killers: that they were bullied losers pushed to the edge or angry teenagers fueled by emptiness and techno music.

Mr. Klebold, for example, rhapsodized about a girl. Whatever else happened to him in the months and weeks leading up the killings, he loved once, like any other teenager, if only from afar.

The girl's name was redacted in the documents.

"I hear the sound of her laugh, I picture her face," he wrote. "I just hope she likes me."

One long typed document, taken from the Harris home, talks about what might happen after the killings. "Do not blame anyone else besides me and V for this," said the unnamed writer, presumably Mr. Harris, who often referred to Mr. Klebold as V. "Don't blame my family, they had no clue and there is nothing they could have done."

But the sometimes grandiose tone in the documents, that the killers are different, set off from society and better than those they intend to kill, is blunted by the moments of despair and anguish that come through in other journal entries and poems.

One entry taken from the Harris home was simply called "Black." "I can't see a [expletive deleted] thing," it said, "so what the hell am I gonna write about, how I can't see anything? My mind is black, sight is black, everything is black."

In another entry taken from the Harris home, the author — presumably Mr. Harris — fantasizes being the gun itself.

"I am a gun," he wrote. "I was never made for hunting, just for killing humans." He then describes blowing off half the head of a man he did not like.

"I am god," the note reads. "He died."

    Journals Reveal Ruminations of Teenage Columbine Killers, NYT, 7.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/us/07columbine.html

More records from Columbine released

Updated 7/6/2006 10:50 PM ET
USA TODAY
By Patrick O'Driscoll

GOLDEN, Colo. — More than seven years after the Columbine High School massacre, hundreds more pages of documents from the two killers were released Thursday, including epithet-filled diaries, violence-themed essays and to-do lists for the assault.

Much of the material, taken from the student gunmen's homes and computers, echoes or repeats hate-filled texts already made public since the April 20, 1999, shootings in a Denver suburb. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, dressed in black and laden with automatic weapons and homemade bombs, killed 12 students and a teacher, wounded 23 others and killed themselves. It was the worst school shooting in U.S. history. The word Columbine became synonymous with school violence.

The documents, tied up for years in family lawsuits, were made public after the Colorado Supreme Court ordered Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink to weigh the pros and cons of release. The killers' parents did not object.

The 936 pages of records begin with a notebook that Harris' father kept. It chronicled his son's run-ins with police and schoolmates in the years leading up to the massacre. Some victims" families and others have criticized authorities for missing numerous warning signs.

Among the revelations are school papers, written months before the bloodbath, that won the killers praise and concern from teachers.

In December 1998, Harris turned in a business-model project called "Trenchcoat Mafia Hit-Men For Hire." Heavily armed gunmen would protect bullied students by killing "people who anger our clients." It includes a price list for protection, including "assaults and beatings." The project got an A.

Two months later, Klebold turned in a story about a trench-coated "man in black" who guns down "college preps" in a small town. "Quite an ending," his teacher wrote at the bottom. "You are an excellent writer/storyteller, but I have some problems with this one."

In 1997, Harris wrote an essay titled, "Guns in School: Solution," calling for metal detectors and more police. "A school is no place for a gun," he wrote.

One April 20 calendar entry highlights the killers' intended time for the assault, the start of lunch in the Columbine cafeteria. "11:16 — HA HA HA," it reads.

Less than three weeks before, Harris wrote that he and "Vodka," Klebold's nickname, "test fired all of our babies" and had timers, propane tanks and five dozen other homemade bombs.

Klebold, in another writing, said, "In 26.4 hours I'll be dead, & in happiness ... of course, I will miss things. Not really."

Still not released are videos made by the killers the month before the assault. Mink has said the tapes could be "instructional material" for others.

EXCERPTS FROM DOCUMENTS

"im happy, i finally got the courage to tell my parents what i really think. i put it on paper so they wouldnt think i was 'talking back' or heaving (sic) a 'bad attitude' or something." -Harris, in undated online chatroom exchange with unidentified person

"Doom is a first-person 'shoot-em-up' style game. So basically, one runs around levels and shoots at monsters with military weaponry. To most people it may be just another silly computer game, but to me it is an outlet for my thoughts and dreams." -Harris, school essay Aug. 31, 1998

"The so-called 'Trench Coat Mafia' is a small group of friends who generally wear dark clothes, military fatigues, and long black dusters. Most people usually just stare and whisper when they see us. We don't mind because we generally don't like people anyway. Now they have reason to stay clear of us." -Harris, school essay, Dec. 10, 1998

"Thorough and logical. A few formatting problems, however. Nice job. 69/75." -teacher comments on December 1997 essay by Harris titled Guns in Schools in which he writes at one point: "Students can be very resourceful, and can find ways to avoid the (metal) detectors."

    More records from Columbine released, UT, 6.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-06-columbine_x.htm

Man kills 4 children, self, police say

Updated 7/5/2006 12:46 AM ET
USA Today

GUSTINE, Calif. (AP) — A man who was seen arguing with his wife Tuesday later killed his four young children with a hunting rifle before turning the gun on himself, officials said.

The children apparently died of gunshots to the head, and their father, Trevor Branscum, 38, died of a self-inflicted wound, Mayor Jim Bonta said.

Police Sgt. Vince Inaudi said the children appeared to be sleeping when they were shot. The evidence was consistent with a murder-suicide, but the department planned to conduct a full homicide investigation, he said.

Authorities identified the dead siblings as Aubrie, 12; Jacob, 10; and twins Taylor and Alyssa, both 5. The wife, Amanda Branscum, was uninjured, officials said.

The Branscums had lived in Gustine for three years, and there were no reports of domestic violence with the family, Inaudi said. Trevor and Amanda Branscum were married on Valentine's Day in 2003, Inaudi said. All four children were theirs.

Steven Morris, 18, who lived across the street from the Branscums, said he saw the family lighting fireworks on their front lawn Monday night.

"They always seemed really happy," Morris said. "I never heard any arguments from the house. It's sad because the kids didn't do anything. Kids don't deserve that."

The bloodshed came about an hour after a store owner called police to report that Trevor Branscum and his wife were arguing.

Amanda Branscum went in to buy a few things, and her husband followed her into the market, police said. The merchant said that as the woman drove away in a van, her husband dove through the window. The store owner declined to comment on the dispute that preceded the violence.

As officers searched for the van, police said, another call came in at 1:30 a.m. of shots fired at the Branscum home. Officers saw Amanda Branscum lying in the road uninjured; the bodies of Trevor Branscum and the children were inside the house.

Gustine, with a population of about 5,200, is about 90 miles northwest of Fresno in California's San Joaquin Valley. The deaths Tuesday were the community's first reported killings in nearly four decades.

"It's kind of shocking in this area," said 41-year-old neighbor Francisco Torres, whose daughter was friends with Aubrie. "You always hear about crime in other cities, but it's shocking because it's your own neighbors."

    Man kills 4 children, self, police say, UT, 5.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-04-calif-shootings_x.htm

House votes to overturn mandatory gun locks

Wed Jun 28, 2006 11:15 PM ET
Reuters



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to overturn a recently enacted law requiring safety trigger locks on all hand guns sold in the United States.

The Republican-controlled House handed a victory to opponents of gun control by a vote of 230-191.

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a Colorado Republican, argued that the added cost of the trigger locks is passed on to gun owners and that they "do not stop accidental shootings."

Last fall, President George W. Bush signed legislation giving gun makers broad protections from civil lawsuits, but that law contained the mandatory trigger lock provision.

The amendment overturning the requirement for trigger locks was attached to a larger law enforcement spending bill for next year that has not yet been considered by the Senate.

    House votes to overturn mandatory gun locks, NYT, 28.6.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-06-29T031519Z_01_N28182425_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-GUNS.xml

Gunman was 'shooting and lighting fires' at Safeway distribution area

Updated 6/26/2006 12:23 AM ET
AP
USA Today

DENVER (AP) — A gunman opened fire Sunday afternoon at a Safeway Inc. distribution center, killing one person and injuring five others, including a police officer, before police shot and killed the shooter.

Denver Fire Chief Larry Trujillo said multiple fires were set in one area of the building with what appeared to be products from the center, and one fire was set in another area. He would not say whether the gunman was suspected of setting them.

Safeway worker Jesus Lopez told KMGH-TV he was about 20 feet away from the gunman. "He was just shooting and lighting fires. He wanted to turn the building on fire," Lopez said. "I just ran. Everybody just ran out."

More than 150 employees who were working at the time evacuated the building, Police Chief Gerry Whitman said.

"I've never been through anything like this," said meat department employee Scott Stroman, in his second week on the job. He said the gunshots sounded like faint popping sounds from another part of the building.

"Other employees came running up and said 'hey, let's get out of here,'" Stroman said. Officers were already on the scene when he got outside.

Two victims were in critical condition; two people including the officer were in serious condition; and one was treated at Denver Health Medical Center and released, hospital spokeswoman Benny Samuels said late Sunday.

Police received a report of shootings around 3 p.m. and entered the distribution center near Interstate 70 to find four victims.

About an hour after entering the warehouse, officers found the suspect, who shot SWAT officer Derick Dominguez, 38, in the left hip, Whitman said. Dominguez suffered a broken leg. An officer shot and killed the suspect, Whitman said.

As officers swept through the 1.3 million-square-foot center, they found another victim who had died.

Whitman said that all the victims were men. Whitman said there was no reason to believe there was more than one suspect.

Safeway spokesman Jeff Stroh said parts of the warehouse would reopen Monday and that store officials had contacted grief counselors.

Stroman said his wife and six children kept calling him after hearing about the shootings. He said it was strange to think it could happen at Safeway.

"Where I work, everybody gets along," he said.

    Gunman was 'shooting and lighting fires' at Safeway distribution area, UT, 26.6.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-25-denver-shooting_x.htm

After 7 Deaths, Digging for an Explanation

June 25, 2006
The New York Times
By TIMOTHY EGAN

SEATTLE, June 24 — It made no sense when Aaron Kyle Huff, a pizza delivery man with a vaporous background, strolled into an early-morning party after a rave in Seattle three months ago and shot eight people at random, killing six before he turned his pistol-grip shotgun on himself.

From his hometown of Whitefish, Mont., where Mr. Huff had not made a huge impression despite his bearlike frame, to Seattle, where he lived with his identical twin, the question of "why" turned up blank stares and disbelief.

But with the victims buried and the killings solved beyond a doubt, there seemed little for the police to do. A city was left with its grief, and with a muddle for a motive.

"There were detectives here who said, 'Hey, Chief, it's over — let's move on,' " said R. Gil Kerlikowske, the Seattle police chief.

But instead of closing the book, Chief Kerlikowske took the rare step days after the killings of hiring James Alan Fox, the Lipman Family professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston. Dr. Fox, 54, is among the nation's best-known criminologists, sometimes called the dean of death. The author of 16 books, he was an adviser to former President Bill Clinton and has been a frequent couch mate to Oprah Winfrey.

Usually, Dr. Fox is called on to make sense out of the soup of crime statistics. Never before had the authorities asked him to explain why someone had gone on a murderous rampage, he said. In a change of roles, Dr. Fox, an intense, bespectacled man who speaks in a low, conspiratorial voice, has been acting as a detective of sorts.

Assisted by a panel of three people, he has been lucky that family members of the victims, as well as Mr. Huff's mother and twin brother, Kane, who were unavailable for interviews for this article, have spoken to him, Dr. Fox said. Chief Kerlikowske said he had hired Dr. Fox largely because he thought people who would not talk to the police would open up to a professor.

"Academics used to look at police like we were the white rats and they had the lab coats on," Chief Kerlikowske said. "But it's much better now. And for us, it's irresponsible not to seek their help when an entire city is trying to find some answers."

In about a week, Dr. Fox will present his findings to the police. He is confident, he said, that there are explanations for why Mr. Huff, who was 28, armed himself with a 12-gauge shotgun, a handgun and nearly 300 rounds of ammunition, and proceeded to commit the worst mass killing here in 20 years.

"In this case, the people who were killed didn't know Kyle Huff," Dr. Fox said in an interview. "But that doesn't mean they didn't represent something. Very, very few mass murderers just go out and shoot anything that moves. There's a reason they pick certain targets."

Dr. Fox said he was certain that Mr. Huff "didn't just snap."

"That's not what killers like this do," he said.

He noted that Mr. Huff was from a small town, and that once he left for the big city, he led an anonymous life.

In Whitefish, a resort community near Glacier National Park, "people remember Kyle in a very positive way," Dr. Fox said. In Seattle, he said, people had a different perspective of him.

The police know that before the Seattle killings, Mr. Huff was charged after a violent outburst; he had shot up a moose sculpture in Whitefish. He was booked on a felony criminal mischief charge, later reduced to a misdemeanor, which allowed him to keep his arsenal of guns.

Dr. Fox does not make much of the incident, dismissing it as more a youthful prank than a precursor to multiple homicide.

The weapons went with Mr. Huff to Seattle when he moved here about five years ago to live with his brother. He seemed to have little ambition, the police said.

"He was a career pizza delivery guy," Chief Kerlikowske said. "What does that tell you?"

On Friday night, March 24, Mr. Huff attended a rave, a loose-knit party sometimes structured around a theme, at an arts center in Seattle. The theme of this one was "Better Off Undead," and some people had dressed in a zombie motif. Sometime in the early morning, Mr. Huff went by invitation from someone he had met at the rave to a party at a house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Nobody knew Mr. Huff, the police said, nor did he leave an impression of rage or resentment.

Near dawn, Mr. Huff left the party and went to his pickup truck. He retrieved his weapons and ammunition, spray-painted "NOW" on the sidewalk and began his killing spree. When an officer arrived, Mr. Huff put the shotgun in his mouth and killed himself.

The crime scene horrified Chief Kerlikowske, a 34-year police veteran. He said there had been dead people in zombie makeup, slumped and bloodied. A distraught woman had come up to him, saying she had been driving around all night trying to find her daughter and feared she was among the victims. It turned out that she was.

"The more I thought about it, the more I realized we had a responsibility to these victims to probe more and find out what caused this," Chief Kerlikowske said. "I sit up here in a rarefied atmosphere, with 2,000 people and a $200 million budget, and sometimes you have to be reminded what this business is all about."

Not long after Dr. Fox was hired by private contract, a crumpled, single-page note was found in a trash bin near the apartment in which Mr. Huff and his brother had lived. Crime lab officials have concluded that it is "highly probable" that Mr. Huff wrote the note, which was handwritten and addressed to his brother.

The note, written shortly before the killings, provided Dr. Fox with an opening into Mr. Huff's mind. In it, Mr. Huff said goodbye to his brother and explained that he was dutybound to go after the ravers.

"I can't let them get away with what they're doing," he wrote. "I hate this world of sex they are striving to make."

He was not specific, outside of several references to open sex. He referred to "things they say and do" and said: "It's just a question of if we're willing to be O.K. with it. And obviously I'm not."

He expressed regret at leaving his brother. "I hate leaving you by yourself, but this is something I feel I have to do," he wrote. "I can't let them get away with what they're doing."

Dr. Fox said, "Obviously you don't want to blame the victims, but he was clearly upset at the ravers."

He said there was a practical lesson in his work here for fellow academics: they should get out of school more.

"A lot of my colleagues just want to write scholarly articles for scholarly journals," he said. "But I think if you're in a field with specialized knowledge that can be useful to the community, you should engage the public and the policy makers."

    After 7 Deaths, Digging for an Explanation, NYT, 25.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/us/25fox.html

A Memorial at Last for Columbine Killings

June 17, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK JOHNSON and KATIE KELLEY

LITTLETON, Colo., June 16 — Construction of a long-delayed and reduced memorial to the victims of the Columbine High School shootings began on Friday in a quiet spot between two hills in a park where students took refuge as chaos descended on April 20, 1999.

Alex Dudik, who was a senior that year, returned for the groundbreaking near here and a speech by former President Bill Clinton to commemorate the attack.

Mr. Dudik, now 25, said he had his own memorial. He rolled up a sleeve to show a tattoo that he said he shares with more than a few members of his graduating class, a "C" in light purple, the Columbine color, with "April 20th" inside.

"It's going to be a part of me forever," Mr. Dudik said of the attack.

The plans for a memorial — an inner wall for the 13 murder victims, and an outer circle for the 23 people wounded by the two teen-age gunmen who then took their own lives — evolved greatly over the years of planning and postponement.

After Sept. 11, 2001, especially, Columbine High's place in the national consciousness of wounds and scars seemed to shift, people involved in the planning said. Donations from outside Colorado dried up.

Last year, the memorial committee cut $1 million from the $2.5 million budget and sent the designers back to the drawing board.

"The key thing that emerged was that it needed to be focused on Littleton, on us," said Bob Easton, chairman of the Columbine Memorial Committee, which included parents, teachers and residents.

Mr. Easton said he believed that the changes, however much they were forced on the committee and the town, just south of Denver, were positive. The memorial became simpler, and the community, in rallying to pay for it through fund-raisers and the sales of Columbine High memorial pins by local businesses, came together. The memorial fund is still several hundred thousand dollars short of its goal, committee officials said.

Plans for a 10-foot-high water wall at the entrance were scrapped in favor of a small fountain. The walls, which were to have been made of expensive polished granite, will be carved from local Colorado sandstone. The staircases that were to have led to the hilltop that overlooks the school were replaced with pathways.

Other people say the years blunted the whole idea of the memorial, as anxiety deepened about whether it could be accomplished.

"The details of the memorial are less important than the actual existence of it," said Courtney Shakowski, 24, who was a junior in 1999 and was on the memorial committee until last year.

Mr. Clinton, who came here after the shootings as president to speak to the students, was back to lead the groundbreaking. Coming to the microphone as a thunderstorm struck, he spoke for a few minutes, during which he donated $50,000 to the memorial fund.

"Millions of Americans were changed by Columbine," Mr. Clinton said as a volunteer held an umbrella over his head as the rain fell and lightning flashed. "It was one of the darkest days for Hillary and me in the White House."

People in the audience of several thousand huddled under coats and plastic bags.

After speaking, Mr. Clinton went with family members and wounded survivors and their families to a spot between the hills where he and others put shovels to earth.

The sun came out briefly. Then it began to rain again.

Columbine High School, which stretches out below the hills past the field where prairie dogs chattered and peeked from their holes on Friday morning as the site was prepared, has become a type of memorial.

The football field was renamed for a victim, Matthew Kechter. Plaques here and there are dedicated to other victims.

Lee Andres, a teacher of vocal music, said he had a picture of the slain teacher, Dave Sanders, on his classroom wall. The library where many killings occurred has been rebuilt.

And cars still regularly stop in front, residents say, full of people jumping out to snap pictures of what is almost certainly the most famous high school in the nation.

"I don't think it will put it to rest," said Susan Hollis, who lives near the school and walked in the park on Friday.

Ms. Hollis said the Columbine name was so powerful that the school would probably remain the place of pilgrimage or ghoulish curiosity no matter how the memorial turned out.

Other residents say the memorial will create an emotional anchor for residents and outsiders alike.

But no memorial can undo a fundamental change wrought by the killings, said Cindy Strobel, who lives a few blocks from the school. Now, Ms. Strobel said, a teen-ager wearing a trench coat like the killers who stormed the school would probably set off a call to the police.

"We're a more guarded community now," she said. "It hit close to home."

    A Memorial at Last for Columbine Killings, NYT, 17.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/us/17columbine.html?hp&ex=1150603200&en=0d118d948e26b33c&ei=5094&partner=homepage