History > 2007 > USA > Gun violence (VI)

Sagmeister Inc.

Clause and Effect        NYT        16.12.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/opinion/16freedman.html

Site of Shootings

Reopens With Tears and Applause

December 21, 2007
The New York Times
By SUSAN SAULNY

OMAHA — It was all quiet except for the sound of muffled crying when the security gate rose Thursday morning at the reopening of the Von Maur department store here, the site of a shooting rampage that left nine people dead just over two weeks ago.

Inside the gate, dozens of store employees stood hand-in-hand, some with tear-stained faces. They were missing six of their co-workers, who were killed when a disturbed teenager opened fire on an otherwise typical Wednesday afternoon during the Christmas shopping season.

Outside the entryway, hundreds of supporters who had gathered for the opening burst into applause. Blue ribbons on holiday wreaths bore the phrase “We remember.” There were prayers, long hugs and well wishes as the crowd trickled back into the aisles, empty since the store closed after the shootings on Dec. 5.

Omaha is a big city, but it acted very much like a small town on Thursday as residents came together to find comfort in familiar routines while still clearly struggling with the aftermath of very public trauma.

“Their deaths were not in vain,” Rabbi Aryeh Azriel told the crowd in a brief ceremony at the opening. “May their deaths become a legacy that will invigorate us to live a peaceful existence in this town.”

The Von Maur employees who died in the shooting were Beverly Flynn, 47; Janet Jorgensen, 66; Gary Joy, 56; Angie Schuster, 36; Dianne Trent, 53; and Maggie Webb, 24.

Two Von Maur customers, John McDonald, 65, and Gary Scharf, 48, were also killed before the gunman, Robert A. Hawkins, 19, turned his semiautomatic weapon on himself near a gift-wrapping station on the third floor. Two other employees, Fred Wilson, 61, and Micky Oldham, 65, were shot and are recuperating from serious injuries.

“We need to let the community and the world know that we do not tolerate this kind of senseless brutality in Omaha or in any other community in Nebraska,” Carole Christ, a former teacher, wrote in an e-mail message that urged supporters to show up Thursday. The message made it around town — some shoppers said it had been forwarded to them as many as eight or nine times.

“Everyone grieves in different ways, but I think facing the demon is good,” Ms. Christ said. “It’s a tribute, too.”

Some people took the day off from work and browsed as they sobbed. Others were more celebratory, buying gifts with glee. They said they wanted to add some spirit to a place that had been robbed of its holiday cheer.

“I was so concerned that they wouldn’t open the store,” said Barb Lile, an accountant. “But that would have been the biggest victory for Hawkins. This, just being here, is the hugest step for healing.”

James D. von Maur, the president of the department store chain, and Mayor Mike Fahey reiterated those sentiments as they welcomed shoppers.

“God bless you,” one woman told Mr. von Maur, whose family donated a half-million dollars to a victims’ compensation fund. The company also assisted in funeral arrangements, is providing grief counseling and paid employees while the store was closed.

The store, one of the most upscale in Omaha, was fully staffed on Thursday with well over 200 workers. Roses were everywhere. A pianist played “White Christmas.”

“From the bottom of my heart, thank you,” Mr. von Maur told his employees.

While some workers decided that they could no longer work at the store, a Von Maur spokeswoman said, the majority returned.

On the night before the re-opening, Heather Donnelly, the manager of the boys’ department on the third floor, where most of the victims were shot, talked about her reasons for returning. Ms. Donnelly’s friend and mentor, Ms. Schuster, the manager of the girls’ department, was among those killed.

“It’s obviously difficult,” Ms. Donnelly said. “I’m not going to let that stop me from going back to work for a company I’m proud of and to people who are my friends. I feel that it’s my duty to go back there.”

She added: “It was almost comforting to see the store again after all that’s happened. The people of Omaha have been extremely encouraging. It just helps to know they’re behind us.”

There was no sign on Thursday of the rampage, just sparkling decorations, orderly merchandise, shining floors. Store officials would not speak of the cleanup that took place. The police presence was high.

Diane Aden, a substitute teacher who said she would not have missed the reopening for anything, was one of the biggest morale-boosters in the store. A regular in Von Maur, she fluttered from department to department with a big smile and greetings for the many workers she knows by name.

“My presents will be late,” she said. “I needed to buy them here. This is like my second home.”

Lisa Braun was looking over sweaters next to Ms. Aden. “This is hard,” she said. “When I walked in, I had to take a deep breath. I told my neighbor: ‘I’m going. I’ve got to buy something, anything.’”

    Site of Shootings Reopens With Tears and Applause, NYT, 21.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/us/21omaha.html

This month's mass killings a reminder of vulnerability

20 December 2007
USA Today
By Judy Keen and Andrea Stone

Jerry Auger finds himself "profiling people" when he's at a mall or other crowded place to gauge whether they might be dangerous. Victor Cotton tells his kids that if they see people running away from something, they should, too. Barbara Murch rarely goes out alone and always looks for potential threats.

Auger, Cotton and Murch share a sense of vulnerability that was reinforced by shootings this month in places few people consider obvious targets of violence: a shopping mall, a church, a school bus stop.

The cluster of shootings reminded people that they can become victims even in the most benign public places and revived the sort of insecurity that swept the country after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, more than two dozen interviews show.

Three-fourths of Americans followed the news about the latest incidents very or somewhat closely, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,011 adults last Friday through Sunday found. Three in 10 people said they worry they could be victims of similar attacks.

"Right now in the world, anything can happen to you at any time," says Cotton, 37, a corrections officer in Lexington, Ky. When he's with his children, he avoids malls and amusement parks. He's always on alert. "Nobody gets too close to me," he says.

Security and crime analysts and psychiatrists say such fears are understandable following high-profile crimes, but they caution that temporary wariness shouldn't become permanent paranoia.

"Events like these shatter the illusion" of safety, says Jim Sorrell, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. "That rupture in our social fabric takes time to restore … but it's still random. It's getting hit by lightning."

Crime statistics do not show an increase in shootings with multiple victims. Between 1996 and 2005, shootings that left four or more people dead occurred about 18 times a year, according to FBI crime data, and represented about 0.2% of the USA's total homicides.

Still, coming eight months after Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, many people say they were rattled by this month's shootings:

•Robert Hawkins, 19, opened fire in Omaha's Westroads Mall on Dec. 5, killing eight before taking his own life. The Von Maur department store where the shootings occurred reopened Thursday. Eight wreaths dedicated to victims were placed near the entrance. A ribbon on each read, "We remember."

•Matthew Murray, 24, killed two people at New Life Church in Colorado Springs and two at Youth with a Mission, a training school in Arvada, Colo., on Dec. 9, police say. He then killed himself.

•Four people have been arrested in connection with a shooting that wounded six young people at a Las Vegas school bus stop Dec. 11.

Auger, 59, who works for a Greensburg, Ind., company that makes door locks for cars, says he sees "some sort of pattern" in the shootings. "Everyone is talking about it and (asking) 'Where is our country going?' " he says.

Routine precautions

Auger, like many of those interviewed, says his sense of awareness has been heightened. Now he "looks at people in a different way," he says, and is wary of "young guys in dark clothing."

Cathy Andriadis, 50, of Greenville, Del., keeps track of escalators, exits and aisles at malls and avoids areas with no escape routes. If she's looking for a parking spot and sees something that makes her uncomfortable, she moves on.

Murch, 61, who works at an Ocala, Fla., department store, says the 1999 shootings at Colorado's Columbine High School first made her think she could be a target of violence. The 9/11 attacks scared her, but she worried less about terrorism because she rarely flies.

This month's shootings convinced her that precautions she routinely takes are appropriate. She often asks security guards to walk her to her car in mall parking lots. When she's home, she says, "I barricade my windows, lock my doors, close my curtains and worry about who's my next-door neighbor."

Murch thinks she understands why violence seems to be erupting everywhere. "We're going back to the Wild West days, shooting each other in the street," she says.

The shootings reinforced feelings on both sides of the gun debate. The alleged culprits in the recent shootings "all had easy access to guns," says Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

"We make guns so easily available to people, and gun laws are so weak they're able to get these weapons," he says. "Throw that on holiday stress, and you've got a very volatile situation."

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, notes that Jeanne Assam, a security guard at New Life Church who shot and wounded Murray, saved lives. "The only thing that's stopping these bad guys with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he says.

He sees a different link among the shootings: "The common thread … is in a sick way these people see it as an opportunity to become instant celebrities."

Those who study criminal behavior say media coverage of shootings can prompt copycat crimes and fuel the perception that violence is escalating. That, in turn, ignites fear that makes people alter their daily lives.

People who are considering committing crimes "identify with the attackers and can be empowered by these events," says Eugene Regala, a former FBI behavioral analyst. As the cycle of violence continues, some people conclude that "these things happen all the time," he says.

Mike Heidingfield, president of the Memphis Crime Commission, says a "transference of fear" spreads across the country after headline-grabbing incidents at places often considered immune from such problems.

'Paranoia is not the answer'

That sort of anxiety made Darwin Wika of West Chester, Pa., change his routines. At malls, he watches to ensure that no one follows him to his car. He practices using the remote that operates his car doors to ensure that only one door opens when he clicks. "You have to build it into your lifestyle," he says.

Those precautions make sense, says Larry Barton, president and professor of management at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa. "Paranoia is not the answer," he says. "Being prudent and aware of your surroundings at work or in a concert hall, shopping center or any public place is downright smart."

Employers, co-workers and friends of troubled people can help prevent crimes such as the recent shootings, says Barton, who studies workplace violence. He recommends deeper background checks of prospective employees, speaking up when someone behaves inappropriately and notifying law enforcement when someone threatens violence or suicide.

Most mass shootings, Barton says, "were preceded by specific events in which the people around the perpetrator knew or suspected that the individual was at high risk because they were laid off, depressed or suicidal."

Concerns about becoming targets of random violence are increasing demand for classes in self-defense, says Gary Belson, who runs a security consulting firm in Fernandina Beach, Fla. His advice:

•Identify exits in public places.

•In an attack, don't call attention to yourself. Don't make eye contact with or speak to attackers.

•Don't freeze if you witness a violent attack. Run away.

•Walk in open areas of parking lots, not close to parked cars.

"We're not talking about being afraid," Belson says. "We're talking about being alert. People who are naive about these issues are endangering themselves."

Weldon Walker agrees with that philosophy. The insurance agent and rancher from Calhan, Colo., 52, has been more attuned to "people acting strangely" since 9/11. "You're stupid to bury your head in the sand and not plan appropriately," he says. "It would be like not planning for your retirement."

That doesn't mean he avoids malls and other public places. "Because these incidents are so random, that would be like me saying I'm never going to New York City again because of terrorism," he says. "It wouldn't be sane."

Many people accept the possibility of an indiscriminate attack as part of life.

"Something could happen at any time," says Jake Sale, a salesman from Mount Horeb, Wis. "You just don't know when life is going to give you your last day. There's no sense in worrying about it.

Contributing: Brad Heath and Kevin Johnson; Leon Alligood of The Tennessean in Nashville; Ron Barnett of The Greenville (S.C.) News; Ben Jones of The (Appleton, Wis.) Post-Crescent; Jeff Martin of the Sioux Falls, S.D., Argus Leader; Maureen Milford of The News Journal in Wilmington, Del.

    This month's mass killings a reminder of vulnerability, UT, 20.12.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-20-shootings_N.htm

Senate passes gun bill in response to rampage

Wed Dec 19, 2007
8:21pm EST
Reuters
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress, prodded by the deadliest shooting rampage in modern American history, passed legislation on Wednesday to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

Without objection, the Senate and House of Representatives approved the measure, which would bolster background checks for gun buyers, and sent it to President George W. Bush to sign.

The measure would be the first major new U.S. gun-control law since 1994. It was drafted after a gunman with a history of mental illness killed himself and 32 others in April at Virginia Tech university.

The product of months of talks, the bill was finally agreed to as lawmakers prepared to wrap up their work for the year and head home for the holidays.

"Together, we have crafted a bill that will prevent gun violence, but maintain the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens" to bear arms, said Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York, a chief sponsor of the bill.

McCarthy was elected to Congress in 1996, three years after her husband was killed and son injured when a gunman opened fire on a commuter train.

The 4 million-member National Rifle Association, a powerful U.S. pro-gun lobbying group that has helped stop numerous gun-control bills, backed this one.

"Everybody on both the sides of the issue of firearms' ownership joined together," said Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, a former NRA board member and another chief sponsor of the bill.

"Both sides recognize this as a very sensible and proper way to see to it that the law is enforced and people are protected," Dingell told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Americans are among the world's most heavily armed people, and the country has one of the world's highest murder rates.

There are an estimated 250 million privately owned guns in the United States, which has a population of about 300 million. About 30,000 people a year die from gun wounds.

UPDATING DATABASE

The 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits anyone found by a court to be "a mental defective" from possessing a gun. It also bars felons, fugitives, drug addicts and wife beaters.

But because of state privacy laws and fiscal restraints, most states have failed to fully report such records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Congress has long been reluctant to tackle the politically explosive issue of gun control. But it did so after it was disclosed that the Virginia Tech gunman had once been deemed by a judge to be dangerous and the information never reached a background check system for gun buyers.

The legislation would provide financial incentives for states to provide mental health and criminal records to a database used for federal background checks on gun buyers.

The House initially passed such a bill in June. But the Senate refused to go along with it until changes were made. One would require the government to pay legal fees if a person who claims to have been wrongly listed in the background system wins an appeal.

The bill would also allow those found to no longer be mentally ill and a threat to be removed from the list.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said: "Nothing can bring back the lives tragically lost at Virginia Tech, and no legislation can be a panacea, but the bill we pass today will begin to repair and restore our faith in the NICS system and may help prevent similar tragedies in the future."

(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)

    Senate passes gun bill in response to rampage, R, 19.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1962838820071220

She Aided Victims of Shootings, and She Became One

December 17, 2007
The New York Times
By MICHAEL WILSON and DARYL KHAN

It was about 5:30 p.m. when, while taking her 9-year-old son to a Saturday evening swimming practice in Brooklyn, Carol Simon-Hayes realized she had forgotten something at her apartment. She left her son, Kieron, with friends at a gas station and approached her building, just down the block on Eastern Parkway.

When she was just steps away from the entryway to the building, a man standing amid nearby trash cans and folded boxes pulled out a gun and started firing at another man, striking her with a bullet, the police said on Sunday.

Ms. Simon-Hayes, 35, dropped her purse, staggered a few feet, lost a shoe and collapsed on the steps to the building’s entrance, witnesses said.

She had been talking to a friend on her cellphone at the time, said her brother-in-law, Alister Fortune, 49.

“She said to the friend, ‘I got a bullet. I have to call 911,’” Mr. Fortune said.

Ms. Simon-Hayes, a hospital worker who relatives said went by the name Carol Simon, was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital Center, the police said.

The police said they believed she was not the intended target.

In a section of Crown Heights where condominiums and young professionals are becoming more commonplace, the random violence was a throwback to the violent past.

Community leaders held a news conference Sunday to implore residents to overcome the “stop snitching” mentality and help the police.

“When a bullet leaves the barrel of a gun, it not only pierces the flesh of an individual, but it pierces the soul and the flesh of the body of our community,” said State Senator Eric Adams, a former captain in the Police Department.

Friends and relatives filled in some details of the life and final hours of Ms. Simon.

Ms. Simon came to New York City from Grenada 15 years ago, working in several shops along Flatbush Avenue before going to work at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, her friends and relatives said.

Her husband, Clarence McEwen, ran a popular restaurant in the neighborhood, Pop Master Delight, on Utica Avenue. On Sunday, the restaurant was closed, and a distraught cook made sandwiches in the kitchen to take to the family.

Ms. Simon worked in the morning and attended nursing classes at the College of Staten Island, relatives said. She regularly visited her relatives in Grenada.

“She was an example of what people are supposed to be,” said Ritchie Francis, 40, a close friend. “She worked. She went to school. She just stepped on the street — one second.”

Earlier in the day, Ms. Simon had visited a local beauty salon, where two men began fighting, the police said.

It was unclear Sunday whether the men, who the salon owner said were punching each other outside, had anything to do with the shooting.

Friends streamed through Ms. Simon’s apartment throughout the night Saturday, their cries of grief clashing with the carols playing from a novelty Christmas tree in a hallway below.

The slain woman’s brother, Alwin Simon, 42, said Ms. Simon was a nurse’s technician at Brookdale and was well known among the police officers who come and go through the emergency room every night.

She often cautioned her brother’s son when the boy was a teenager, Mr. Simon said.

"She worked in the emergency room, so she would see kids coming in with gunshot wounds and things like that, and she would call my son and tell him, ’This is what I’ve seen tonight,’" he said. “‘I saw a boy only 15 years old, and he’s dead from a gunshot wound. That’s why I tell you stay off the streets.’"

Senator Adams, the civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel and several other community leaders announced on Sunday a $3,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, and they offered protection for witnesses.

“When you grow up in New York, the last thing you’re supposed to do is squeal,” Mr. Siegel said. “This is not squealing. This is what a good citizen is supposed to do.”

Mr. Fortune, who is married to Ms. Simon’s sister, Atlyn, said the family would try to mark the holidays for the sake of the boy, Kieron.

“She already bought presents for her family,” he said.

He said that no one knew what she had bought for her son. “It’s a mystery,” he said. “It’ll be a surprise at Christmas.”

    She Aided Victims of Shootings, and She Became One, NYT, 17.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/nyregion/17shot.html

Op-Ed Contributor

Clause and Effect

December 16, 2007
The New York Times
By ADAM FREEDMAN

LAST month, the Supreme Court agreed to consider District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down Washington’s strict gun ordinance as a violation of the Second Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms.”

This will be the first time in nearly 70 years that the court has considered the Second Amendment. The outcome of the case is difficult to handicap, mainly because so little is known about the justices’ views on the lethal device at the center of the controversy: the comma. That’s right, the “small crooked point,” as Richard Mulcaster described this punctuation upstart in 1582. The official version of the Second Amendment has three of the little blighters:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The decision invalidating the district’s gun ban, written by Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, cites the second comma (the one after “state”) as proof that the Second Amendment does not merely protect the “collective” right of states to maintain their militias, but endows each citizen with an “individual” right to carry a gun, regardless of membership in the local militia.

How does a mere comma do that? According to the court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses: one “prefatory” and the other “operative.” On this reading, the bit about a well-regulated militia is just preliminary throat clearing; the framers don’t really get down to business until they start talking about “the right of the people ... shall not be infringed.”

The circuit court’s opinion is only the latest volley in a long-simmering comma war. In a 2001 Fifth Circuit case, a group of anti-gun academics submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief arguing that the “unusual” commas of the Second Amendment support the collective rights interpretation. According to these amici, the founders’ use of commas reveals that what they really meant to say was “a well-regulated militia ... shall not be infringed.”

Now that the issue is heading to the Supreme Court, the pro-gun American Civil Rights Union is firing back with its own punctuation-packing brief. Nelson Lund, a professor of law at George Mason University, argues that everything before the second comma is an “absolute phrase” and, therefore, does not modify anything in the main clause. Professor Lund states that the Second Amendment “has exactly the same meaning that it would have if the preamble had been omitted.”

Refreshing though it is to see punctuation at the center of a national debate, there could scarcely be a worse place to search for the framers’ original intent than their use of commas. In the 18th century, punctuation marks were as common as medicinal leeches and just about as scientific. Commas and other marks evolved from a variety of symbols meant to denote pauses in speaking. For centuries, punctuation was as chaotic as individual speech patterns.

The situation was even worse in the law, where a long English tradition held that punctuation marks were not actually part of statutes (and, therefore, courts could not consider punctuation when interpreting them). Not surprisingly, lawmakers took a devil-may-care approach to punctuation. Often, the whole business of punctuation was left to the discretion of scriveners, who liked to show their chops by inserting as many varied marks as possible.

Another problem with trying to find meaning in the Second Amendment’s commas is that nobody is certain how many commas it is supposed to have. The version that ended up in the National Archives has three, but that may be a fluke. Legal historians note that some states ratified a two-comma version. At least one recent law journal article refers to a four-comma version.

The best way to make sense of the Second Amendment is to take away all the commas (which, I know, means that only outlaws will have commas). Without the distracting commas, one can focus on the grammar of the sentence. Professor Lund is correct that the clause about a well-regulated militia is “absolute,” but only in the sense that it is grammatically independent of the main clause, not that it is logically unrelated. To the contrary, absolute clauses typically provide a causal or temporal context for the main clause.

The founders — most of whom were classically educated — would have recognized this rhetorical device as the “ablative absolute” of Latin prose. To take an example from Horace likely to have been familiar to them: “Caesar, being in command of the earth, I fear neither civil war nor death by violence” (ego nec tumultum nec mori per vim metuam, tenente Caesare terras). The main clause flows logically from the absolute clause: “Because Caesar commands the earth, I fear neither civil war nor death by violence.”

Likewise, when the justices finish diagramming the Second Amendment, they should end up with something that expresses a causal link, like: “Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” In other words, the amendment is really about protecting militias, notwithstanding the originalist arguments to the contrary.

Advocates of both gun rights and gun control are making a tactical mistake by focusing on the commas of the Second Amendment. After all, couldn’t one just as easily obsess about the founders’ odd use of capitalization? Perhaps the next amicus brief will find the true intent of the amendment by pointing out that “militia” and “state” are capitalized in the original, whereas “people” is not.

Adam Freedman, the author of “The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese,” writes the Legal Lingo column for New York Law Journal Magazine.

    Clause and Effect, NYT, 16.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/opinion/16freedman.html

Police: Man Kills 2; 2 Dead Kids at Home

December 15, 2007
Filed at 6:07 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

LARGO, Fla. (AP) -- A teacher drowning in debt fatally shot his ex-wife and her roommate Friday, and police found two dead children at his house, authorities said. The body of an apparent suicide victim was found later in his van.

Police said it was not clear whether the body found in the van was that of the teacher, Oliver Thomas Bernsdorff, but Manatee County sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow said investigators have ''reason to believe the person is connected'' to the other four deaths.

Bernsdorff, 36, fatally shot his ex-wife, 27-year-old Jennifer Davis, and her 53-year-old roommate, Andrea H. Pisanello, in their Largo apartment Friday morning, Largo police Lt. Mike Loux said.

Police investigating those shootings identified Bernsdorff as a suspect and sent officers to his house in nearby Clearwater, about 20 miles west of Tampa. They found the children's bodies around 11 a.m., Clearwater police said.

Police did not release the children's identities, but Bernsdorff's Web pages said he was the single father of two children, ages 2 and 4, that he had with Davis. The victims were described as a boy and a girl found in a bedroom. Their causes of death were not released.

The Largo Police Department said in a statement that state troopers had attempted to stop Bernsdorff's van because it was driving erratically.

The van pulled off the road near the Sunshine Skyway, a bridge that connects St. Petersburg and the Brandenton area, and then ''continued to drive into the mangroves and then into the water,'' Largo police said. A person inside the vehicle apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

A neighbor, 41-year-old Tammy Pleasant, said Bernsdorff had been depressed since the breakup of his marriage but that she did not think he was capable of such violence. She said Bernsdorff was considered the neighborhood ''hippie'' because he had long hair, wore tie-dyed clothes and drove a multicolored van.

''He just didn't seem like that type of person. I've never seen any violent tendencies,'' Pleasant said.

In August, Bernsdorff filed for divorce from his wife. The divorce settlement required Davis to pay about $800 per month in child support, but as of October, she had not paid any and was $1,851 in arrears, according to court records obtained by The Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times.

The divorce records show Bernsdorff was in debt, including $135,000 in student loans, $27,000 owed the IRS, a $33,000 private loan and roughly $50,000 in credit card debt, the papers reported.

A posting on the Bernsdorff family Web site last updated in May said: ''Our family is going through major changes right now ... please stay tuned.'' The site says Bernsdorff is a GED teacher and a doctoral candidate.

The last login on his MySpace page was on Monday. The page says he was divorced, looking for serious relationships and the single custodial father of two young children ''who are simply amazing little human beings.''

    Police: Man Kills 2; 2 Dead Kids at Home, NYT, 15.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Florida-Slayings.html

Gunman Sent No Hate Mail to Colo. Center

December 15, 2007
Filed at 6:03 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

DENVER (AP) -- A gunman who killed four people in two shootings did not send hate mail to a Christian missionary training center where some of the victims were shot, authorities said Friday, backing off from their earlier statements.

Police now say Matthew Murray sent e-mails to an affiliated group in which he criticized Christians but did not threaten violence.

Police in Colorado Springs, where Murray opened fire at the New Life Church, had said in a court document this week that the 24-year-old had sent death threats to the Youth With a Mission center in the Denver suburb of Arvada.

Arvada Police Cmdr. Kathy Foos blamed the misstatement on miscommunication between police in Arvada and Colorado Springs.

The e-mails in question are separate from Internet screeds linked to Murray that bitterly condemned Christianity and threatened to kill believers. Police still have not said whether they are certain Murray wrote those diatribes.

Murray shot four people at Youth With a Mission's Arvada dormitory just after midnight Sunday, killing two. More than 12 hours later, he showed up 65 miles away at New Life Church in Colorado Springs and shot five more people, killing two of them.

Murray was shot and wounded by a volunteer security guard before he fatally shot himself, authorities say.

Murray had been kicked out of the Arvada center five years before, and the Internet postings he has been linked to criticize New Life. The missionary training center maintains an office at New Life.

After the shootings, Colorado Springs police filed court papers seeking a warrant to search Murray's home. Part of the documents said Murray had sent threatening e-mails to the training center and its director.

Officials of the training center said they had no knowledge of any hate messages before the shooting.

Arvada Cmdr. Kathy Foos said the e-mails referred to in the documents were actually sent to a separate Youth With a Mission chapter called King's Kids Arvada, which caters to people younger than 18.

That group ''received electronic communication from the gunman several years ago regarding his dissatisfaction with Christianity,'' Foos said. ''The communication implied Christians were 'hypocrites' with no threats of violence.''

Murray stopped e-mailing King's Kids officials after they asked him to, Foos said.

    Gunman Sent No Hate Mail to Colo. Center, NYT, 15.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Church-Shootings.html

Two Ph.D. Students Killed on L.S.U. Campus

December 14, 2007
Filed at 11:16 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Two students were found shot to death in an apparent home invasion at their Louisiana State University apartment, and officials decided to keep the campus open Friday while police searched for three suspects.

The victims, Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam, both international Ph.D. students, were found inside an apartment at the Edward Gay complex late Thursday night after authorities received a call seeking medical attention.

Both men had been shot once in the head, said Charles Zewe, an LSU system spokesman. Three men were seen leaving the area, and police were searching for them.

''From what we're being told, Komma was bound with a computer cable and shot,'' Zewe said. ''The other man was found near the door.''

The call to 911 was made by Allam's pregnant wife, who returned home and found the men dead, said Srinivasa Pothakamuri, a friend of Komma. Komma, a biochemstry student, was visiting the apartment at the time. Allam was in the chemistry program. Both men were from India, Zewe said.

No other violence was reported and the campus was not locked down, though officials were cautioning students about traveling to the university Friday morning and police patrols were increased on campus. Students were taking final exams, and many on the 30,000-student campus had already gone home for the semester break.

''Police actually think it was a straight home invasion and not a concern to the rest of the campus,'' said Kristine Calongne, a university spokeswoman.

An emergency text message was sent to students registered for an emergency alert system, but not all students received it, the university said. The problem was being investigated.

Calongne said only 8,000 students -- less than one-third of the student body -- had signed up for cell-phone notification. Officials also sent out an e-mail, voice mail message and posted a message to the LSU Web site. Many campuses implemented such emergency alert measures following the shootings at Virginia Tech earlier this year.

The apartment building where the shootings took place is designated for married and graduate students, and is near a field on the 2,000-acre campus where the university's band practices. It is on the edge of the campus, close to one of Baton Rouge's highest-crime areas and near an elementary school. The apartment complex, a cluster of pale yellow cinderblock, three-story buildings, is within sight of the transition offices of Louisiana Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal.

The killings were the first homicides on LSU's campus since the early 1990s, Calogne said.

--------

Associated Press Writer Mary Foster contributed to this story.

    Two Ph.D. Students Killed on L.S.U. Campus, NYT, 14.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-LSU-Students-Slain.html

Mother of School Plotter to Go on Trial

December 14, 2007
Filed at 11:49 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. (AP) -- A mother will be tried on charges of helping her 14-year-old son build up a stash of weapons that authorities say he intended to use in a school attack.

Michele Cossey, 46, was ordered Thursday to stand trial on charges of endangering the welfare of a child, unlawful transfer of a firearm, possession of a firearm by a minor and two misdemeanors. A third misdemeanor charge was dismissed.

Cossey, of Plymouth Meeting, is accused of illegally buying her home-schooled son, Dillon, a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle with a laser scope.

Dillon Cossey, who was arrested in October, felt bullied and tried to recruit another boy for a possible attack at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, authorities said.

Michele Cossey's attorney, Timothy Woodward, tried to have the charges dismissed. He pointed out that no ammunition was found and that minors are allowed to have guns in some circumstances.

''My client's actions may have been misguided but there is no evidence that these actions were malicious or malevolent,'' Woodward said.

Dillon Cossey is to be sentenced next week. He admitted in court that he planned a Columbine-style attack on the school, which could keep him in juvenile custody for up to 6 1/2 years. The attack never occurred.

    Mother of School Plotter to Go on Trial, NYT, 14.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Student-Arsenal.html

Op-Ed Contributor

Locavore, Get Your Gun

December 14, 2007
The New York Times
By STEVEN RINELLA

Anchorage

EVERY year, 15 million licensed hunters head into America’s forests and fields in search of wild game. In New York State alone, roughly half a million hunters harvest around 190,000 deer in the fall deer hunting season — that’s close to eight million pounds of venison. In the traditional vernacular, we’d call that “game meat.” But, in keeping with the times, it might be better to relabel it as free-range, grass-fed, organic, locally produced, locally harvested, sustainable, native, low-stress, low-impact, humanely slaughtered meat.

That string of adjectives has been popularized in recent years by the various food-awareness movements, particularly “localism.” Like many popular social movements, localism’s rallying cry is one of well-founded disgust: the average American meal travels 1,500 miles from field to fork, consuming untold gallons of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and fossil fuels along the way.

As a remedy, so-called locavores encourage a diet coming from one’s own “foodshed” — usually within 100 or 300 miles of home. The rationale of localism is promoted in popular books and Web sites: it leads to a healthier lifestyle and diet; brings money to rural communities; promotes eating meat from animals that are able to “carry out their natural behaviors” and “eat a natural diet”; allows consumers to visit the places where their food is raised; supports the production of foods that have fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides; and it keeps us in touch with the seasons.

While those sound suspiciously similar to the reasons many Americans choose to hunt, the literature of localism neglects the management and harvest of wildlife. This is a shame, because hunters are the original locavores. When I was growing up in Michigan, my family ate three or four deer every year, along with rabbits, squirrel, ducks and grouse that were harvested mostly within eight miles of our house.

I carried that subsistence aesthetic into adulthood. During my first semester away at college, for instance, my brother and I killed four deer on land that was 11 miles from campus; we never purchased a pound of industrially raised meat. We’d gone local and organic before anyone thought to put those two words together in a sentence.

Nowadays, however, with Vice President Dick Cheney blasting a donor in the face while shooting pen-raised quail, and the former rock star Ted Nugent extolling his “whack ’em and stack ’em” hunting ethos, American hunters do not have a very lofty pedestal from which to defend their interests. We could gain a great deal by refocusing the debate onto our relationship with a sustainable, healthful food supply.

There’s an obvious place to start: Even most nonhunters are aware of the deer overabundance in suburban areas. Annually, whitetail deer cause $250 million in residential landscaping damage; deer-vehicle collisions injure 29,000 people and kill 1.5 million deer; and 13,000 Americans contract Lyme disease.

State and federal wildlife management agencies contend that public hunting is the only cost-effective long-term management strategy. Yet they are forced to experiment with costly deer-control measures like high-wire fencing (it can cost $10,000 to $15,000 per mile), infertility drugs ($550 per deer), police sharpshooters ($100 to $250 per deer)and trap-and-euthanize operations ($150 to $500 per deer).

Why? Invariably, the answer comes down to a handful of factors: landowner aesthetics, liability concerns, social attitudes about guns, firearm-discharge restrictions and states’ public-relations concerns. Or, in short, because of tensions between hunters and the public.

While many people will never give up their opposition to killing Bambi, others may change their minds when they realize that destroying a deer’s reproductive abilities or relying on the automobile for population control is really no less wasteful than tossing fresh produce into a landfill.

Maintaining the ability to cull semi-rural and suburban deer herds is just one of many struggles facing hunters today, along with battling land development on wintering grounds, limiting oil exploration in our last wilderness strongholds of Alaska and combating the introduction of livestock diseases into wild animal herds in the Midwest. But an emphasis on resort-based quail shooting and whack-’em lingo are not going to persuade the critics.

Hunters need to push a new public image based on deeper traditions: we are stewards of the land, hunting on ground that we know and love, collecting indigenous, environmentally sustainable food for ourselves and our families.

Steven Rinella is the author of “The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine” and the forthcoming “American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon.”

    Locavore, Get Your Gun, NYT, 14.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/opinion/14rinella.html

FBI May Have Been Warned About Rampage

December 12, 2007
Filed at 9:57 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

DENVER (AP) -- Federal authorities were alerted to anti-Christian postings apparently written by Matthew Murray only hours after he opened fire on a missionary center and just before his deadly rampage at a Colorado megachurch, the Web site's administrator said.

Joe Istre, president of the Association of Former Pentecostals, which operates the site, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he and other forum participants had grown familiar with the frequent and disturbingly dark poetry and obsessions of one participant, whose nickname was nghtmrchld26.

But when that same author -- believed to be Murray -- left at least 11 posts on the day of the twin shootings warning that he wanted to kill Christians, a forum participant immediately contacted the FBI, Istre said.

''I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill,'' one threat posted by nghtmrchld26 said.

Istre said he received a message from a board member who claimed to have contacted the FBI about a half-hour before the bloodshed at New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

''My reaction was disbelief, but then almost horror,'' Istre said of Murray's violence. ''This guy was posting on our forums, and we are a support group out to help people, to try to get them to calm their fears and get them into a productive life. And here we are conversing with a dude who was a killer.''

Denver FBI spokeswoman Rene Vonder Haar said the agency began an investigation immediately after receiving a phone call at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, but she refused to discuss the nature of the call.

Vonder Haar said the information was passed on to police in Arvada, where two members of Youth With A Mission had been killed earlier Sunday, and Colorado Springs.

But Colorado Springs police Sgt. Scott Schwall said police there didn't learn the Murray family home's address in Englewood until after the church shootings.

On Wednesday, two services were planned to remember the four victims killed Sunday. Members of Youth With A Mission and members of New Life Church were to gather to worship, pray and mourn.

Arvada police spokeswoman Susan Medina said police cannot say with certainty who nghtmrchld26 is. Istre also said his forum agreed to turn over all relevant information, and provided the FBI the Internet Protocol address of nghtmrchld26 to help confirm the poster's identity.

The Denver Post reported Wednesday that Murray also was apparently posting to a different forum under the name DyingChild--65, and may have foretold of his rampage there, too. In one posting, he references the one of the Columbine killers and the gunman who opened fire at Virginia Tech. He also mentioned Ricky Rodriguez, who stabbed a prominent member of a church once known as the Children of God, then shot himself in the head in 2005. The group had been accused of sexually and physically abusing child members during the 1970s and 1980s.

''Like Cho, Eric Harris, Ricky Rodriguez and others, I'm going out to make a stand for the weak and the defenseless this is for all those young people still caught in the Nightmare of Christianity for all those people who've been abused and mistreated and taken advantage of by this evil sick religion Christian America this is YOUR Columbine,'' the newspaper quoted the post as saying.

The Gazette of Colorado Springs reported Murray also posted rants under the name ''Chrstnghtmr.''

Ultimately, Istre said he believes the ex-Pentecostal forum helped the man, and he doesn't know what more the group could have done to prevent the bloodshed.

''My gut instinct is that he was coming on our forums and posting all this stuff to provoke a negative reaction to where he'd be rejected again, so he can have another trophy, to say, 'I've been rejected by another organization, so here is my chance to strike back at the world.' I think in our organization he discovered an acceptance he probably never ran into.''

Murray, 19, was dismissed from Youth With a Mission in 2002 for what the training center has described only as health reasons. Youth With a Mission maintains an office at New Life Church's World Prayer Center.

An autopsy Tuesday determined that Murray killed himself with a bullet to the head after he was brought down by gunfire from a volunteer security guard at the church, authorities said.

    FBI May Have Been Warned About Rampage, NYT, 12.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Church-Shootings.html

Six shot at Vegas school bus stop

11 December 2007
USA Today
By Alan Gomez and William M. Welch

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas police say six young people were injured, two of them seriously, when a pair of armed youths opened fire on students who had gotten off a school bus Tuesday.

The shooters escaped on foot, police said.

Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie said the shooting appeared to be "a follow-up" to a morning fight at Mojave High School that resulted in the arrest of three students.

Clark County School District police Lt. Ken Young said the fight appeared to be "a dispute over a girlfriend," and that police were investigating whether the shooting was gang related.

"This is not a random act," Gillespie said. "Somebody was waiting there for a particular individual or individuals."

One of the victims, an adult male, was in critical condition after surgery for wounds to the torso, said Cheryl Persinger, a spokeswoman for University Medical Center. A second, a teen male, was in serious condition after surgery for torso wounds, she said.

Four others suffered lesser injuries to their extremities, she said, and one was released, she said.

Las Vegas police Officer Jose Montoya said the shooting happened around 2 p.m. as students were getting off a bus from Mojave High School at a street corner in the northeastern part of Las Vegas.

"As the group of students got off the bus and were walking, they were approached by two male juveniles that both had firearms and began shooting at the group of students," he said.

"The individuals who did the shooting took off running on foot," he said.

Jose Garcia, 13, said that students started huddling into groups after getting off the bus, and that trouble escalated after the bus pulled away.

"I guess they were going to start fighting, and I heard gunshots, and everybody started running," Jose said.

The freshman at Mojave High School said he sprinted home, jumping a fence into his backyard. He said he didn't know any of the people involved in the shooting but was still shaken by it hours later.

"I was freaked out," he said.

Karel Sylvanus, a retired Southern Baptist preacher, was inside his home when he heard the gunshots.

"They were running all over. Kids were screaming, cars were stopping," he said.

Sylvanus said the shooting is shocking because he lives in a calm neighborhood. He said he's never heard of gang activity or large shootings in the 20 years he's lived there.

"It's upsetting, but we're just trusting the Lord and letting him take care of it," Sylvanus said.

Montoya said department gang detectives were participating in the investigation and that police "hope to have (the shooters) identified or arrested shortly."

"We did have some witnesses, other kids in the group. Hopefully, some in the group will be able to identify them," he said.

Las Vegas has had problems with gang violence in recent years. KLAS-TV reported in 2006, citing the police's gang task force's numbers, that gang membership in the city had risen to 7,500 from 5,900 in two years.

County school Superintendent Walt Rulffes said the school would reopen today with increased security.

    Six shot at Vegas school bus stop, UT, 11.12.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-11-bus-stop-shooting_N.htm

Colo. gunman killed self, autopsy finds

11 December 2007
USA Today
By Patrick O'Driscoll

DENVER — The Colorado man who shot and killed four people and wounded five in attacks at a missionary center and a church died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the medical examiner in Colorado Springs ruled Tuesday.

The Colorado Springs Police Department said an autopsy by the El Paso County Coroner's Office concluded that Matthew Murray, 24, "fired a single round killing himself" after security guard Jeanne Assam at New Life Church shot him "multiple times" during his rampage Sunday afternoon.

The two teenage sisters whom Murray killed at the church, Stephanie and Rachael Works, died of single gunshots, the coroner said.

The church has scheduled a "family meeting" tonight to "pray, mourn and begin our healing process," senior pastor Brady Boyd said in a letter.

Boyd said remaining performances of New Life's Wonderland Christmas music show are canceled out of respect for the victims' families and "the great sorrow church members are feeling."

The Youth With a Mission training center in Arvada, Colo., where Murray began his murder spree early Sunday, has scheduled a memorial today for two staffers who died there: Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24. Police in Arvada, a city north of Denver, got a court warrant Tuesday to search a computer they seized in his home in Englewood, 15 miles south of Denver.

"Now we will start the process of trying to determine what was on the computer and any websites that might be linked to the suspect," Arvada police spokeswoman Susan Medina said.

Murray showed up at the church in Colorado Springs, 80 miles from Arvada, at about 1 p.m.

News reports by KUSA-TV in Denver said Murray is believed to have posted anti-Christian statements on a website for former evangelical Christians, the last one sent in the hours between the two attacks. The TV station said the posts were removed from the site after the shootings. KUSA is owned by Gannett, which also owns USA TODAY.

"Until we can confirm that (Murray wrote the posts), we cannot speculate about if it is (him) or not," Medina said. She would not say if Arvada police have contacted the website's operators.

Contributing: Associated Press

    Colo. gunman killed self, autopsy finds, UT, 11.12.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-11-church-shooting_N.htm

Police See Links in Colorado Shootings

December 10, 2007
The New York Times
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Police were investigating today whether one gunman was responsible for two shooting incidents at religious institutions in Colorado Sunday that left five dead and four wounded.

“Given the circumstances, I think it is a good possibility that the two are linked,” said Gary Creagor, the deputy police chief of the Denver suburb of Arvada, according to the Associated Press. “But we have to prove that they are.”

Police Chief Don Wick of Arvada said there was “reason to believe” that the deadly attacks were related.

Police were searching a home in Englewood, about 15 miles south of Denver, early today in connection with the shootings. Even the bushes in front of the house were seen being scrutinized, The A.P. reported. The two shootings — at a missionary training center near Denver and at an evangelical megachurch in Colorado Springs — were 12 hours and 70 miles apart.

The pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs said that his church increased security after learning of the Denver area shootings, and that helped limit the loss of life. Speaking at a broadcast news conference today, Pastor Brady Boyd said “a hundred” people might have been shot if a woman security guard — who is a parishioner — had not stopped the gunman as he entered the church after shooting people in the parking lot.

He said extra security guards had been posted after the earlier shooting. He said the gunman appeared to have no connection to the church, and he described the incident as a “senseless, random attack.”

The first shooting occurred at about 12:30 a.m. in Arvada, 15 miles west of Denver, at a dormitory of Youth With a Mission, an interdenominational Christian organization with hundreds of centers around the country that train young people for short-term missionary service around the world.

Witnesses said the gunman, in his 20s and wearing a dark jacket and a dark skullcap, spoke to several staff members, insisting that he was not homeless and asking to spend the night. After a 30-minute discussion grew heated, he was turned away. When a staff member asked for help from others to usher him out, he drew a handgun, shot a woman and a man to death and wounded two other staff members.

He fled on foot into the snowy night, witnesses said. As ambulances rushed the wounded away, heavily armed police teams with dogs searched the snow-covered ground of surrounding neighborhoods while local residents locked their doors and windows. But no trace of the man was found in the area.

Just over 12 hours later in Colorado Springs, an hour’s drive to the south of Arvada, a gunman also clad in dark clothing invaded the grounds of the New Life Church, a 14,000-member institution founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who resigned in disgrace last year after acknowledging a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute.

Wearing combat boots and carrying an assault rifle and at least one pistol, the gunman, apparently without provocation, opened fire in a parking lot and shot four people, one of them fatally, as bystanders dashed for cover. There were about 7,000 worshipers inside the church when the shooting erupted, a church official said.

One of the victims injured in that attack died on Sunday night, said Amy Sufak, a spokeswoman for Penrose Community Hospital in Colorado Springs. The dead were identified as the sisters Stephanie Works, 18, and Rachael Works, 16. Their father, David Works, 51, remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds to the abdomen and groin.

The Colorado Springs chief of police, Richard Myers, said that after the parking-lot shootings the assailant ran into the 10,000-seat church with his high-powered rifle, and was confronted by an armed church security guard, who shot and killed him. Neither was identified as of midday.

At a news conference last night, Chief Myers praised the security guard, whom he did not name, and said her actions had undoubtedly saved lives. In the aftermath, he said, the police did not immediately approach the body of the gunman because of suspicions that he was carrying one or more explosive devices. The church was swiftly evacuated.

The church and other buildings on the campus-like grounds were evacuated and searched. Officers found several smoke-generating devices on the church campus, Chief Myers was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. Their intended purpose was not clear.

The pastor of the New Life Church, the Rev. Brady Boyd, said he had watched the horror unfold from his second-floor office. “My heart is broken today for the people who lost their lives,” he said. But he noted that the church had security and that “many, many” lives had been spared by the actions of the security guard.

Peter Warren, director of the training center in Arvada, said that a Christmas banquet had been held at the mission building Saturday night and that the doors had been locked about midnight. A half-hour after the closing, the man appeared and asked for an accommodation.

Among those who spoke to him, Mr. Warren said, was Tiffany Johnson, 26, of Minnesota, the director of hospitality for the training site. Ms. Johnson was killed, as was Philip Crouse, 24, of Alaska. Two men were wounded, Charlie Blanch, 22, and Dan Griebenow, 24. One was in critical condition and the other in stable condition after being hospitalized.

Jeff Kass contributed reporting from Arvada, Colo. and John Holusha from New York.

    Police See Links in Colorado Shootings, NYT, 10.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/us/10cnd-shoot.html?hp

Funerals begin for Omaha mall victims

9 December 2007
USA Today

OMAHA (AP) — Families and friends filed into churches Monday to remember and grieve the victims of a gunman's deadly rampage at a department store.

Funerals for Von Maur employees Janet Jorgensen, Dianne Trent, Gary Joy and shoppers John McDonald and Gary Scharf were set for Monday. They were killed when Robert Hawkins, 19, unleashed a hail of bullets last week.

"I'm just saddened that a wholesome person like her would be taken," said Ken Jansen, speaking outside the service for Jorgensen, 67.

White limousines and a hearse lined the circular drive outside St. John's Church at Creighton University before the service for McDonald, 65.

On Sunday, loved ones remembered Jorgensen at a visitation as someone who helped her husband fight cancer and found time to bake birthday cakes for relatives and go fishing with her grandchildren. The Omaha woman also was planning the wedding for one of her granddaughters.

"Her personality was wonderful," niece Karen Schaefer said.

Trent, a 53-year-old store employee who tended flowers on her porch and chatted with her neighbor over tea, also had a visitation Sunday. Divorced many years ago and with no children, Trent lived in a northwest Omaha town house with a small dog and two cats, neighbor Errol Schlenker said.

"A very incredibly sweet person," Schlenker said last week. "She was a middle-of-the-road American, a dedicated worker. She was just a decent person who lived a good life here."

Police said Hawkins, of nearby Bellevue, fired more than 30 rounds with an AK-47 assault rifle on Thursday. He killed eight people, then himself.

The mall reopened Saturday, but Von Maur remains closed.

Hawkins' family expressed sorrow for the shootings and hope that the community could eventually be healed.

"The Hawkins family extends its sincerest condolences to all those impacted by this senseless and horrible event," the family said in a statement released to The Associated Press on Saturday. "While no words can ease the pain and grief, our family prays that at some time, in some way, our community can be healed in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy."

The Von Maur company, which operates stores across the Midwest, said it had established a memorial fund with the local United Way for the shooting victims and their families and invited public contributions. It also said it was helping families of the eight victims with funeral arrangements and grief counseling.

Visitations were scheduled Monday for the three other shooting victims, Beverly Flynn, Angie Schuster and Maggie Webb. Their funerals were set for Tuesday.

Members or adherents of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., were protesting at some of the funerals. The church, founded by the Rev. Fred Phelps, has gained notoriety for picketing funerals of military men and women who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Among the group's signs Monday was one that said "God sent the shooter," referring to 19-year-old Robert Hawkins, who killed eight people, wounded three others and then killed himself Wednesday inside the Von Maur store at Westroads Mall.

    Funerals begin for Omaha mall victims, UT, 9.12.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-09-mall-services_N.htm

Services to Begin for Omaha Mall Victims

December 9, 2007
Filed at 3:21 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Visitations, wakes and vigils were set to begin Sunday for several victims of the deadliest mall shooting on record in the United States.

However, some people grieved Saturday at the Westroads Mall, where three days earlier eight people were fatally shot by a suicidal teenager.

''I come out here almost every morning, and (today) it was kind of just an eerie feeling of, I don't know, quiet,'' said Marge Andrews, 49, who regularly walks the mall with a friend. She and her husband John, 51, came Saturday to buy Christmas presents -- sporting goods for their sons, volleyball clothes for their daughter.

''It doesn't feel like a Christmas feeling,'' John Andrews said.

The Von Maur department store, where 19-year-old Robert Hawkins opened fire with an AK-47 before taking his own life, remained closed.

A makeshift memorial had been assembled at its inside entrance. Wreaths were mounted on tripods just outside the doors and a note from management said the store will reopen soon. No date was given.

Police acknowledged there was extra security in the area but said they couldn't discuss specifics. Mall security guards were unarmed.

Hawkins' family released a statement to The Associated Press through the Rev. Mark Miller of Faith Presbyterian Church in La Vista in which they said they hope the community can heal. Services had not yet been arranged for Hawkins.

Funerals for several victims were scheduled for Monday.

Separate visitations for Von Maur department store employees Janet Jorgensen, 67, Gary Joy, 56, and Dianne Trent, 53, were scheduled for Sunday in Omaha, while another was planned that day for John McDonald, 65, in his hometown of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Additional information about the shooter continues to surface.

Prosecutors say Hawkins had been allowed to walk away from state-mandated care in the summer of 2006 -- four years of treatment and counseling, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars -- but not because he was prepared to face society on his own.

''There was really nothing more that we could offer him that he was willing to participate in,'' said Sandra Markley, Sarpy County's lead juvenile prosecutor.

Hawkins became a ward of the state through Sarpy County Juvenile Court in 2002, after a stay in a Missouri treatment facility for threatening to kill his stepmother.

The juvenile court system could have maintained oversight of Hawkins for nine more months because he hadn't yet turned 19 -- that occurred last May. However prosecutors, defense lawyers and Hawkins' state-appointed guardians decided to end further supervision.

During his years as a state ward, Hawkins was diagnosed with depression, attention deficit disorder, impulsiveness, hyperactivity, and a disorder characterized by negativity and hostility toward authority figures.

Prosecutors say his criminal record while under court supervision wasn't remarkable. He was convicted of third-degree assault and for offering to sell drugs at school.

''Unfortunately, we had no evidence that he presented a threat,'' Markley said.

------

Associated Press Writer Nelson Lampe in Omaha and Josh Funk and Nate Jenkins in Papillion contributed to this report.

------

On the Net:
 
Westroads Mall: http://www.westroadsmall.com/

Von Maur: http://www.vonmaur.com/ 

    Services to Begin for Omaha Mall Victims, NYT, 9.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Mall-Shooting.html

From ‘Troubled’ to ‘Killer,’ Despite Many Efforts

December 8, 2007
The New York Times
By ERIC KONIGSBERG

OMAHA, Dec. 7 — “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” A sign bearing these severe but hopeful words marks the entrance to Cooper Village, a residential treatment facility for teenagers along the rural northern edge of Omaha.

Robert A. Hawkins, as a ward of the State of Nebraska, received extensive care at Cooper — private psychotherapy, family therapy, drug counseling — from 2003 to 2005.

It was his longest stop in a five-year journey through a maze of juvenile-services programs that began when he was 13 and was charged with making homicidal threats toward his stepmother.

On Wednesday, just a few miles away, Mr. Hawkins, 19, took a semiautomatic assault rifle into the largest mall in the state and opened fire, killing eight people before turning the gun on himself. It was the deadliest attack in Nebraska since Charles Starkweather killed 10 people here in 1957-58.

“I’ve just snapped,” Mr. Hawkins wrote in one of two suicide notes the police released on Friday.

But his actions did not come without warning signs; nor were these signals ignored. The rampage appears to be not so much a case of a young man slipping through the cracks, as a tragedy in which measured vigilance ended up not being enough.

“We all cared about this child,” said Sandra K. Markley, a deputy county attorney who represented the state in a juvenile case involving Mr. Hawkins and played a role in determining his course of treatment. “I’ve been reviewing his file, and, of course, there is a lot of second-guessing. But there were no indications that he was harmful in this way.”

That is the point state officials have emphasized. Todd Landry, the director of children and family programs for the Department of Health and Human Services, said at a press conference Thursday that “all appropriate services were provided when needed and as long as needed.”

The state estimates it spent more than $265,000 on Mr. Hawkins’s care.

“He was in good facilities,” Ms. Markley said. “He had good supervision. It didn’t all go perfectly, of course. But we deal with a lot of troubled children, and, as far as we could tell, he was no more troubled than many of them.”

But even with the intervention, said Denis McCarville, who runs Cooper Village, the state failed Mr. Hawkins.

“If this were a physical health issue — if he had leukemia — you would not say that as much as possible had been done,” Mr. McCarville said. “This was not pursued. As you can see, there continued to be issues.”

In a suicide note to his family, Mr. Hawkins described himself as “a constant disappointment,” apologized for “what I’ve put you through” and wrote that he did not want anyone to miss him.

“Just remember the good times we had together,” he wrote. “I love you mommy. I love you dad.” The note went on to express his love for several others, closing with “P.S. I’m really sorry.”

His was hardly an idyllic childhood. Mr. Hawkins’s parents divorced when he was 3. Officials said that from that point, he lived with his father, Ronald Hawkins, who was in the Air Force, and his mother had little involvement in his life. Both parents remarried and eventually divorced again. A juvenile petition filed in 2002 listed Mr. Hawkins’s father’s address but stated that his mother’s whereabouts were unknown.

In May that year, after Mr. Hawkins threatened to kill his stepmother, he was admitted to the Piney Ridge Center in Waynesville, Mo. Court records show that by that September, he had been hospitalized twice for psychiatric problems, and doctors had diagnosed attention-deficit disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, a mood disorder and “parent/child relational problems.”

When his military health insurance ran out, the elder Mr. Hawkins applied for his son to become a ward of the state. The boy moved in and out of foster care, in and out of school — last year, he eventually dropped out of high school — and through residential facilities, including Cooper Village.

“The circumstances of being out of his home from the age of 13 until whenever — that was obviously hard on him,” Ms. Markley said. “But we felt that he had to be removed from his home for the sake of his stepmother’s safety. His father was dealing with a very difficult child.”

She added: “But his father tried very hard. He participated in the family therapy sessions.”

In 2003, while in foster care, Mr. Hawkins was charged with third-degree assault after a fight at Papillion-LaVista High School. In March 2005, he was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Later that year, he was ordered to complete a chemical dependency program that included attending one Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting a week.

“At the end, marijuana was one of the big issues for him,” Ms. Markley said.

Dennis Marks, the Sarpy County public defender who once represented Mr. Hawkins, said Mr. Hawkins had been “making progress” through his treatment.

“There were a lot of services provided,” Mr. Marks said. “But it’s up to the individual after that.” He cited one of Mr. Hawkins’s caseworkers, Angie Pick, as “excellent.”

But by August 2006, the state had terminated its custody of Mr. Hawkins, saying “the child is nonamenable to further services.” Officials said he had refused to participate in drug treatment. Although he was 18 by then, the age of majority in Nebraska is 19, and the termination, officials said, was based more on exasperation than evidence that Mr. Hawkins was rehabilitated.

Mr. McCarville, the director of Cooper Village, said that decision was regrettable. “The state could have ordered him to continue treatment,” he said. “Instead, the state made the decision to terminate. Even for a youth that received over $265,000 worth of treatment, you can’t say, ‘Well that’s enough.’”

For many of those who had tried to help Mr. Hawkins, it was jarring on Friday to see three photographs of him taken from a store surveillance video. The pictures show that he walked in, left and returned six minutes later, ready to kill, said Officer Bill Dropinski, a spokesman for the Omaha Police Department, which released the images.

In the first photograph, Mr. Hawkins appears to be unarmed as he enters the Von Maur department store in a black sweatshirt and sneakers. In the second picture, he again enters the store, this time apparently with a weapon tucked under his right arm. In the third photo, he is outside the store’s third-floor elevator with the rifle raised, taking aim.

Investigators are studying the rest of the surveillance tape.

“We want to get some idea of how to stop this, if it were to unfortunately ever happen again,” Officer Dropinski said. “Was there anyone who could have possibly stopped him?”
 

Susan Saulny contributed reporting.

    From ‘Troubled’ to ‘Killer,’ Despite Many Efforts, NYT, 8.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/us/08gunman.html?hp

Shots fired in Pa. mall parking lot

7 December 2007
USA Today

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Shots were fired in the parking lot of a shopping mall Friday during an apparent holdup of an armored car, officials said.

People ran into the mall for safety after the gunfire began. Bank of America spokesman Ernesto Anguilla said the shooting was apparently related to an attempted holdup of an armored car.

"None of our associates or customers were injured," Anguilla said.

Television footage showed three bullet casings in the parking lot of the South Mall, where police converged shortly after 10:30 a.m.

An employee headed to work noticed a vehicle in the parking lot between the bank and the mall entrance and became suspicious, said Shawn Southard, a spokesman for mall owner Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust.

The employee alerted mall security, who in turned contacted police, Southard said.

Patty Dudley, a shopper from Macungie, said she was at Stein Mart in the mall when employees ushered her and other customers to the back of the store. They told her something had happened outside and customers could not leave.

"I was just making a return and then I was hiding under a clothing rack," she told The Morning Call, an Allentown newspaper.

The shooting occurred just over the Allentown city line in Salisbury Township. Police officials there declined immediate comment.

    Shots fired in Pa. mall parking lot, UT, 7.12.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-07-pa-mallshooting_N.htm

Omaha massacre unlikely to alter gun laws

Fri Dec 7, 2007
9:09am EST
Reuters
By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Once again there has been a mass shooting in the United States, this time in a Nebraska shopping mall. Once again there is no national outcry for gun control.

A 19-year-old man shot and killed eight people and then himself in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday with a semi-automatic AK-47 that police say he stole from his stepfather.

Leading presidential candidates for the November 2008 U.S. election issued statements expressing sorrow and support for the victims. None called for tighter gun laws, which are traditionally left to state and local authorities.

The crime revived memories of a massacre in April at Virginia Tech university, where a student killed 32 people.

There has been a string of such shooting sprees in recent years, but little resonance among national politicians.

The right to bear arms is fiercely defended as a U.S. constitutional right by large numbers of collectors, hunters and advocates of home security, cherished the way civil libertarians champion the right to free speech.

Yet the issue is controversial enough to draw in the Supreme Court, which said last month it would review an appeals court ruling that struck down a 31-year-old ban on private possession of handguns in Washington, D.C.

"Although people who favor increased gun control in the United States are a substantial majority, those who oppose it are far more intense in their opposition and far more likely to vote on the basis of that issue alone," said Bill Galston, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

He cited the 1994 elections when the Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress. Some political analysts attributed the rout to backlash against a Democratic-led ban on assault weapons. That law was allowed to expire 10 years later.

"I might want to qualify that judgment, but the fact that it's widely believed and that there is some basis for it is enough to determine political behavior," Galston said.

GUN LOBBY

A Pennsylvania state representative who last month helped defeat a proposal to limit hand gun purchases to one per person per month said he would support tougher sentencing laws for people who acquire and use illegal guns, but that law-abiding citizens should not have their rights infringed.

"I received thousands of e-mails with some of these gun control measures. Once again, it's the right to bear arms and many of our citizens don't want that right taken away," said Ron Marsico, chairman of the state House Judiciary Committee and a Republican.

Besides, he said, no law may have prevented the Omaha tragedy.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, disagrees. He said European countries have enacted effective gun control laws and that U.S. politicians are cowed by the gun lobby as exemplified by the National Rifle Association.

"There is the mythology advanced by the gun lobby of the Wild West and the individual frontiersman single-handedly holding off the British and the Indians and the bears simultaneously," said Helmke.

"They've got politicians nervous about anything that's even got the word gun in it."

    Omaha massacre unlikely to alter gun laws, R, 7.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0564256720071207

Police Release 911 Calls From Shooting

December 7, 2007
Filed at 3:34 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Three quick gunshots, then nothing. Then a gasp, and again, nothing. Then more gunfire, and a 911 operator's questions going unanswered.

The Omaha Police Department released tapes Thursday of 911 calls made around the time teenage gunman Robert A. Hawkins' bullets tore through a crowded shopping mall. He would kill eight people and himself inside the Von Maur department store before it was over.

One caller who hasn't been identified wouldn't -- or couldn't -- answer an operator's questions as the sound of gunfire echoed in the background.

The recording begins with three distinct ''pops.''

The next sound is a gasp.

''911. What's your emergency?'' the operator asks.

The operator gets no response -- just 47 seconds of the staccato patter of gunfire, broken by pauses, before the line goes dead.

Some of the 911 calls came from loved ones who merely heard about the shooting. But others came from those inside the mall, like a woman who took cover as she told of hearing dozens of shots.

Operator: ''What's your emergency?''

Woman: ''I'm at Von Maur and I think there's shots being fired all over the place.''

Operator: ''Yeah. We're on our way out there. Anybody been hit?''

Woman: ''I haven't seen anything. I am hiding in a clothes rack.''

Operator: ''OK. We're on our way out there, ma'am.''

Woman: ''I mean, there's been like, 50 gunshots.''

An operator asks another woman calling from the mall if she had seen if anyone was shot. The woman says she hasn't, then another woman nearby can be heard screaming frantically.

''Oh my God! Everybody's shot up in there! Oh my God, help us!'' she says.

Jodi Longmeyer, who works in the human resources department of Von Maur, told an operator she saw the shooter open fire.

Longmeyer: ''He came up the elevator and opened fire in the elevator area.''

Operator: ''Walked off the elevator and started firing?''

Longmeyer: ''He started firing in the air.''

Longmeyer described Hawkins' gun, which police believe was an AK-47 assault rifle he stole from his stepfather.

Longmeyer: ''It was large. It was a very, very large gun.''

Operator: ''Was it like a pistol type gun?''

Longmeyer: ''It was big. It had, God. It looked like it wasn't a rifle. It looked like an automatic type of gun.''

Eventually, Longmeyer makes her way to a security camera.

She gasps. ''Oh my gosh. Wait a minute ... It looks like the gun is lying over by customer service. There's an officer there now. I wonder if he ... there by customer service. ... It looks like he might have killed himself.''

Longmeyer starts to cry, and the operators ask if she sees the gunman.

Longmeyer: ''I see him lying by the gun. Correct.''

By that time, police had made their way to the body.

------

Associated Press writer Sophia Tareen in Omaha contributed to this report.

    Police Release 911 Calls From Shooting, NYT, 7.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Mall-Shooting-911-Calls.html

Mall Employee Describes Deadly Shooting

December 7, 2007
Filed at 11:14 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- For almost 30 harrowing minutes, Jodi Longmeyer recounted to a 911 dispatcher what she could see and hear of a teenage gunman's deadly rage in a mall department store -- and then broke down, she said Friday.

As she told the dispatcher she could see Robert A. Hawkins' body lying next to a gun, her voice cracked, and she began to cry -- a mixture of sadness and relief that the crisis was over. Nine people, including the gunman, were dead.

''I had seen more than I wanted to see,'' Longmeyer told NBC's ''Today'' show Friday, describing the call.

Longmeyer, who is a human resources manager at Von Maur, agonized with the operator while barricaded in an employee locker room at the store. Tapes of her 911 call were released Thursday, a day after the tragedy unfolded.

She saw the gunman step off the mall elevator on the third floor. He was dressed in dark clothes. She saw his gun, watched him open fire.

Then she hit the floor.

''I just saw someone up here in the locker room and she's got a lot of blood on the floor,'' Longmeyer told the dispatcher.

Minutes later, shaking and scared, Longmeyer was able to get into a security room, where she described what she could see on live surveillance of the department store.

She gasped.

''Oh my gosh,'' she told the dispatcher. ''It looks like the gun is lying over by customer service. It looks like he might have killed himself,'' Longmeyer said, her voice rising as she started to sob.

Longmeyer's account, one of more than a dozen 911 calls placed during Wednesday's shooting, offered new details about what happened inside the shopping mall on Omaha's west side.

New details also surfaced about the gunman.

State officials said Hawkins spent four years in a series of treatment centers, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002.

Finally, in August 2006, social workers, the courts and his father all agreed: It was time for Hawkins to be released -- nine months before he turned 19 and would have been required to leave anyway.

The group homes and treatment centers were for youths with substance abuse, mental or behavioral problems. Altogether, the state spent about $265,000 on Hawkins, officials said.

The aftermath of Wednesday's killings left some who knew Hawkins questioning if more should have been done.

''He should have gotten help, but I think he needed someone to help him and needed someone to be there when in the past he's said he wanted to kill himself,'' said Karissa Fox, who said she knew Hawkins through a friend. ''Someone should have listened to him.''

Todd Landry, state director of children and family services, said court records do not show precisely why Hawkins was released. But he said if Hawkins should not have been set free, an official would have raised a red flag.

''It was not a failure of the system to provide appropriate services,'' Landry said. ''If that was an issue, any of the participants in the case would have brought that forward.''

After reviewing surveillance tape, a suicide note and Hawkins' last conversations with those close to him, police said they don't know -- and may never know -- exactly why Hawkins went to the Von Maur store at Westroads Mall and opened fire.

But he clearly planned ahead, walking through the store, exiting, then returning a few minutes later with a gun concealed in a balled-up sweat shirt he was carrying, authorities said.

Police said they have found no connections between the 19-year-old and the six employees and two shoppers he killed. ''The shooting victims were randomly selected,'' as was the location of the shooting, Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren said.

Acquaintances said that Hawkins was a drug user and that he had a history of depression. In 2005 and 2006, according to court records, he underwent psychiatric evaluations, the reasons for which Landry would not disclose, citing privacy rules.

In May 2002, he was sent to a treatment center in Waynesville, Mo., after threatening his stepmother. Four months later, a Nebraska court decided Hawkins' problems were serious enough that he should be under state supervision and made him a ward of the state.

He went through a series of institutions in Nebraska as he progressed through the system: months at a treatment center and group home in Omaha in 2003; time in a foster care program and treatment center in 2004 and 2005; then a felony drug-possession charge later in 2005. Landry said the court records do not identify the drug.

The drug charge was eventually dropped, but he was jailed in 2006 for not performing community service as required.

On Aug. 21, 2006, he was released from state custody.

Under state law, Landry said, wards are released when all sides -- parents, courts, social workers -- agree it is time for them to go. Once Hawkins was set free, he was entirely on his own. He was no longer under state supervision, and was not released into anyone's custody.

''When our role is ended, we try to step out,'' said Chris Peterson, director of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

About an hour before the shootings, Hawkins called Debora Maruca-Kovac, a woman who with her husband took Hawkins into their home because he had no other place to live. He told her he had written a suicide note, Maruca-Kovac said. In the note, Hawkins wrote that he was ''sorry for everything'' and would not be a burden on his family anymore.

The shoppers killed were Gary Scharf, 48, of Lincoln, and John McDonald, 65, of Council Bluffs, Iowa. The employees killed were Angie Schuster, 36; Maggie Webb, 24; Janet Jorgensen, 66; Diane Trent, 53; Gary Joy, 56; and Beverly Flynn, 47, all of Omaha.

Also Thursday, Bellevue police arrested a 17-year-old friend of Hawkins who they said threatened to kill a teenage girl who had made remarks about Hawkins that offended his friend, Chief John Stacey said.

The teen was being held in a juvenile detention center on suspicion of making terroristic threats, Stacey said. Police found a rifle and two shotguns at the teen's house, weapons he had access to, the chief said.

------

Associated Press writers Nate Jenkins in Lincoln, Neb., and Oskar Garcia, Anna Jo Bratton and Henry C. Jackson in Omaha contributed to this report.

    Mall Employee Describes Deadly Shooting, NYT, 7.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Mall-Shooting.html

Searching for Clues to a Young Killer’s Motivation

December 7, 2007
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY and ERIC KONIGSBERG

OMAHA, Dec. 6 — The authorities on Thursday scoured surveillance tapes and studied text messages, voice mail and letters that a gunman sent before he stepped from a third-floor elevator in a shopping mall here and killed eight people.

With an assault rifle concealed in a hooded sweatshirt, the police said, Robert A. Hawkins, 19, walked into the Von Maur department store Wednesday afternoon, ducked out, then soon returned. His behavior was peculiar enough to draw the attention of unarmed security guards at the Westroads Mall, Police Chief Thomas Warren said, but by the time officers arrived six minutes later, Mr. Hawkins had killed five women, three men and then himself.

“From the time he entered the store to the time he rode up on the elevator, mall security did not have a chance to intervene,” Chief Warren said. “Shortly thereafter was the shooting incident.”

The rampage cast a pall over the city, where holiday music on the radio was interrupted with bulletins about the shooting. In a news conference here Thursday, the police chief read the names of the victims, who ranged in age from a woman who was 14 days from her 25th birthday to a 66-year-old woman who had wrapped gifts in the store since it opened.

To get to the sprawling shopping center on the city’s western edge, Mr. Hawkins drove 20 miles from nearby Bellevue, where he had been living with a family. The police said he probably selected the mall because it was near the home of a friend he visited shortly before the shooting, one of many farewell messages he delivered Wednesday.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the picture that began to emerge of Mr. Hawkins included familiar images — a young man facing depression, alienation, abandonment, rejection — but plenty of pieces that did not entirely fit together. Several people who knew him described him as an outgoing young man who would offer hugs to cheer others.

Before the shooting, though, he told friends he had been fired from his job at McDonald’s. Friends said that his girlfriend of the past two years had broken up with him a few days earlier and that he was despondent about that.

“This was an ugly act of cowardice,” Mayor Mike Fahey of Omaha said Thursday.

The police recovered an AK-47-style semiautomatic weapon at the store, which the authorities said Mr. Hawkins had apparently stolen from his stepfather. He carried two magazines with 30 rounds each, the police chief said, “the capacity to fire multiple rounds in a short period of time.”

Mr. Hawkins worked his way through the store, passing an atrium that opened onto the second floor. He startled shoppers at display cases and moved toward the customer service area, where employees were wrapping gifts. All the time, the police said, he was firing his weapon.

The terror was evident in one of the first 911 calls to the Omaha Police Department shortly after lunchtime: There was no voice on the line; the only audible sound was rapid, distant gunfire. The police said there were no reports of conversation between the gunman and shoppers.

“We have not been able to determine why he chose that location, other than the fact that it was a very busy mall, a public place,” Chief Warren said.

As churches across the city held memorial services for the victims, local, state and federal authorities tried to piece together details of Mr. Hawkins’s life. The police seized his computer, interviewed friends and sorted through a juvenile record that began in 2002, when he became a ward of the state.

Kevin Harrington, who lived near the house where Mr. Hawkins had been staying, said Mr. Hawkins and his friends “were into drinking and drugs and not much else.” Mr. Harrington’s daughter, who is 16 and did not want to be identified by name, said she had spent a lot of time with Mr. Hawkins and his friends over the last year.

The morning of the shooting, she said, she had ridden to school with Mr. Hawkins’s former girlfriend, who was distraught over the breakup. “She said that Robbie told her she would never find anybody better than him,” she recalled. In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Harrington’s daughter also said Mr. Hawkins had once threatened to kill her because he suspected her of stealing a CD player from his car.

“He told me he was going to kill me and he was going to kill my family and burn my house down,” she said. “I just thought he was just hot air, so I didn’t go to the police.”

Mr. Hawkins spent much of his time with five or six other teenagers, including the two sons of the woman who took him into their Bellevue home when his foster parents threw him out. That woman, Debora Maruca-Kovac, said she thought of him as “kind of like a pound puppy” no one else wanted.

Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services records show that Mr. Hawkins had at least a five-year history of troubling behavior, including violent threats and drug use. In May 2002, just after he turned 14, he was voluntarily admitted to a treatment center in Waynesville, Mo., after making homicidal threats against his stepmother.

He became a ward of the state that year and later bounced from foster care to his father’s home to jail, for failing to comply with a court order to perform community service. He was charged in March 2005 with a misdemeanor for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

“The tragedy was not a failure of the system to provide appropriate quality services for a youth who needed it,” said Todd Landry, director of the Division of Children and Family Services. Last year, Mr. Hawkins’s state supervision was terminated by agreement of the court, the state, his therapist and his father.

Before dropping out of Papillion-La Vista High School in March 2006, Mr. Hawkins struggled as he drifted in and out of classes during his junior and senior years. Jim Glover, the principal, said he missed school, neglected homework and performed poorly, but was not violent. “We never saw any hostile side of Robert,” Mr. Glover said. “He was very laid-back.”

Jessica Reeder, who lives in Bellevue and remembered seeing Mr. Hawkins at McDonald’s, said he never looked troubled. But, Ms. Reeder added, “you never know who lives next door.”
 

Catrin Einhorn contributed reporting from Chicago, and Josh Swartzlander from Lincoln, Neb.

    Searching for Clues to a Young Killer’s Motivation, NYT, 7.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/us/07mall.html

Shootings renew debate on mall security

6 December 2007
USA Today
By Judy Keen and Rick Hampson

OMAHA — One American ideal — the bright, busy shopping mall, festooned for the holidays — has been clouded by another classic American type: the disturbed gunman eager to kill and die in a blaze of infamy.

By the time Robert Hawkins pulled the trigger for the last time Wednesday, the Westroads Mall was the scene of the nation's bloodiest attack in a shopping mall. The 19-year-old used an assault rifle to kill eight people and wound three others. Then he turned the gun on himself.

It was the latest in a series of incidents to suggest that glittering indoor shopping emporiums, attractive because of their climate, order and parking, also can be particularly vulnerable to attacks. With its open spaces, its crowds, its accessibility, a mall can be a predator's dream.

In February, an 18-year-old gunman was fatally shot by police after he killed five people and wounded four others at Trolley Square shopping center in Salt Lake City. Last month, a Somali immigrant accused of plotting to blow up an Ohio mall was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

Such incidents are "lessons" for terrorists and deranged people, according to Charles Bahn, a New York forensic psychologist. "They show that the mall is a place where you can make an impression, and where you can find multiple victims."

That's largely why U.S. security officials have been concerned — particularly since the 9/11 attacks — that malls could become "soft targets" for terrorists: places where large groups congregate and that are difficult to secure. Each year, the FBI and Homeland Security Department send out holiday-season "awareness" bulletins about shopping mall security.

Malls across the nation have heeded calls to boost security by hiring more guards and installing surveillance cameras, but they remain easily accessible areas of commerce — in contrast to those in Israel, where metal detectors and car searches are used to prevent bombings and other violence.

Security analysts say that despite tragic incidents such as Wednesday's shootings, malls — like schools and college campuses — remain quite safe. And they warn that trying to make them safer, Israeli-style, could threaten malls' future by making them less successful.

Metal detectors are anathema to malls and stores, which do everything they can to invite shoppers in. The problems are obvious, says Ed Bridgeman, head of the criminal justice program at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College: "You have belt buckles, change in pockets. Going through a checkpoint could be the kind of thing that drives people to QVC" — the TV shopping network.

Even the day after the shooting, few shoppers in Omaha said they thought much would — or should — change with mall security.

Kathleen Hesselink, 73, went to the Crossroads Mall here to shop and have lunch with her daughter. "It was a random occurrence," she said of the Westroads attack, "and we just can't live in fear of that."

FBI Director Robert Mueller struck a similar note. Incidents such as Wednesday's are extremely rare, he said. "We are an open and free country, and we don't want guards at every doorway," he said. "Trying to prevent an incident like this is exceptionally difficult."

Considering how many people go to malls — 190 million a month, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers — they have relatively little crime, says Robert McCrie, professor of security management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

A big reason, he says: "Geography." Partly by design, McCrie says, many malls are far from areas in which crime is high. On the list of a typical mall manager's security concerns, he says, the possibility of a random shooting is far behind auto theft, shoplifting and loitering.

Most guards don't have guns

David Keating, spokesman for General Growth Properties, the Westroads Mall's corporate owner in Chicago, says the company is reviewing security at its 200 malls. He says patrols are increased during the holiday season.

Last year, a Justice Department-funded study found little investment in extra security at big shopping centers and inadequate emergency plans. The Police Foundation report, based on a survey of state homeland security advisers and mall security directors, said some shopping centers had 100% turnover in security officers each year.

Most mall security guards, including those working Wednesday at Westroads, do not carry guns. Among the report's other findings:

•High turnover rates among security personnel have undermined training programs. "At any given time, the security staff includes a good number of new recruits who … have not received anything beyond basic company training."

•The most significant gap in emergency-preparedness efforts was a lack of coordination between mall security and separate security units in department stores.

•Just one-third of mall security directors said they had rehearsed emergency plans with local law enforcement agencies. And none of the malls visited by researchers conducted joint exercises with police or other first responders.

Robert Davis, the foundation's research director at the time of the report, said some mall security managers were told by mall owners not to cooperate with the review. The malls reviewed were not identified out of concern about making security gaps public.

Metal detectors at the mall?

Robert Rowe of ASIS International, an association of private security managers that assisted the researchers, says the Westroads Mall in Omaha was not among those studied.

Rowe says he supports installing metal detectors at mall entrances, as Israel does. He admits such precautions are "not perceived well" in the USA. But he adds that "it might come to that" — as it did at some high schools after the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

In Omaha a day after the shooting, shoppers tried to put the massacre in perspective. Most vowed to be more vigilant but expressed doubts about security measures that would make it more difficult to enter shopping malls.

•Judy Mosher, 47, a mother of four: "As I was walking around Target today, I was a little more aware. You can live your life terrified, or you can live your life. One person shouldn't change what America does." Even with metal detectors at the door, she said, Hawkins "still would have gotten through."

•Jeff Cox, 49, a restaurant manager: "I haven't always been aware of what's going on around me, but I will be now." Metal detectors? "I don't think we need to go down that road. It's too intrusive."

•Gary Schubert, 48, a pharmaceutical consultant who once worked at Westroads: "The slayings will "make me look over my shoulder a bit more." He said department stores and malls should be required to hire at least one trained security guard. His thoughts on metal detectors: "That goes without saying."

Gunman was ready to die

More details about the shootings emerged Thursday. Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren gave this account of what happened:

Hawkins arrived at the mall prepared to die. He had left a suicide note predicting that he was about to become famous. He had left voice-mail messages for his mother and written a will leaving her his car. He had exchanged text messages with his ex-girlfriend. He had a conversation with a friend, and then visited another friend who lived near the mall.

When he walked in the mall's south entrance, security cameras showed he "appeared to be concealing something balled up in a hooded sweatshirt" — an AK-47 rifle he'd taken from his stepfather's home and stored at his father's house. He carried two 30-round magazines of ammunition.

The mall's unarmed security guards "spotted Mr. Hawkins at the front entrance and placed him under surveillance at that time based on his actions," Warren said. He said they "did not have a chance to intervene" before he started firing.

Hawkins took an elevator to the third floor of the Von Maur department store. Upon stepping out of the elevator, he started firing at people on the floor. He circled an atrium and shot one victim on the second floor as terrified shoppers and employees ran for cover in changing rooms and behind racks.

Six of those fatally wounded were store employees; two were customers. They appeared to have been chosen at random.

The first 911 call was made at 1:43 p.m. Dispatchers sent out an alert two minutes later, and the first police officer arrived four minutes after that. By then, the shooting was over.

Warren said it's not clear why Hawkins chose the mall, "other than the fact that it was a very busy mall, a public place."

Hawkins had been troubled for years. He was a ward of the state from 2002 to 2006 and dropped out of high school. His former principal, James Glover, said Hawkins wasn't a loner but had a very small group of friends, and was not involved in extracurricular activities.

He was due in court in two weeks on a charge of possessing alcohol as a minor. He recently had broken up with his girlfriend and been fired by the McDonald's where he worked. The head of a family with whom he was living said he had been accused of stealing $17.

Debora Maruca-Kovac said she took in Hawkins a little more than a year ago, after he was kicked out of his family's house. He was friends with her sons.

Maruca-Kovac told CBS' Early Show that Hawkins came into their household as "a little lost puppy … scared and lonely. … He just needed a chance to get on his feet. I didn't see a lot of anger." She said he was depressed but seemed to be improving.

Maruca-Kovac said she found a handwritten suicide note on the floor by Hawkins' bed saying that he loved his parents, and that now he would be famous.

The type of shootings carried out by Hawkins "has become a cultural scenario," says James Garbarino, a Loyola University Chicago psychologist. "This public, grandiose, homicidal gesture, coupled with suicide, going out in a blaze of glory … (is a sign of) someone who is very depressed and full of self-loathing."

Chris Lindsey, an insurance company worker, says the big question is: What prompted Hawkins to do something so terrible? "After it does blow over, I hope we can get back in a holiday mood."

Hampson reported from New York. Contributing: Kevin Johnson and Mimi Hall in Washington; Patrick O'Driscoll in Denver; Chris Joyner and Kathleen Baydala of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.; John Eckberg of The Cincinnati Enquirer; Lee Rood and Paula Lavigne of The Des Moines Register; and the Associated Press.

    Shootings renew debate on mall security, UT, 6.12.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-06-mall_N.htm

Lives, loves cut horribly short

6 December 2007
USA Today
By Donna Leinwand

Angie Schuster, born on Valentine's Day, had found her true love.

A surprise awaited her at Christmas: Her boyfriend of 18 months intended to propose, says her brother-in-law Jeff Kenkel of Omaha.

"They were planning their lives together. She was in a really good place in her life," Kenkel says.

That life, filled with children, family and friends ended Wednesday at the Von Maur store in the Westroads Mall in Omaha where Schuster managed the children's department. Schuster, 36, was one of six employees and two customers gunned down by a teenager.

Also killed were fellow store employees Beverly Flynn, 47, Dianne Trent, 53, Janet Jorgensen, 66, Maggie Webb, 24, and Gary Joy, 56, and customers John McDonald, 65, from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Gary Scharf, 48, a businessman from Lincoln, Neb.

Friends and children, especially her nieces and nephew, colored Schuster's life, Kenkel said. Sunday, she had accompanied her sister, Donna, and the kids to a birthday party held at a zoo, he says.

"She loved kids. She was just a great aunt and very involved with them," he says. "Every friend she ever had in her life, she kept in touch with — from childhood, from college — everybody loved her."

Schuster grew up in Iowa. She graduated with bachelor's degrees in elementary education and art from University of Northern Iowa in 1994 where she belonged to Kappa Delta Pi, an honor society for education, says Liz Conklin, a university official.

Schuster moved to Omaha after school to be near one of her two sisters. She had planned to be a teacher but took a job at a children's store instead, Kenkel said. She had worked at Von Maur for 10 years and had passed up promotions because she enjoyed what she was doing, he said.

"She really dedicated herself to her job," he said. "She was just the sweetest person in the world. We're devastated."

Thursday, scores of friends from Omaha's Keystone neighborhood mourned Janet Jorgensen, a longtime resident known for her warm welcome and open door, says family friend and neighbor Paul Huntimer. "We're one big family in this neighborhood, and she was very much a role model," Huntimer said.

The mother of two daughters and a son and grandmother of 10, Jorgensen and her husband, Ron, marked their 50th wedding anniversary Sept. 27. They planned a celebration with family in the spring, Huntimer said.

Jorgensen, who had worked as a salesperson at Von Maur for 14 years, was organizing a granddaughter's wedding.

"She had 10 grandchildren, and that was her life. She loved to fish with her husband and grandchildren. It's a very close family," Huntimer said.

"She was just a super woman who would do anything for you," he said. "Her neighbors loved her. She was loved dearly by everybody."

When the gunman began firing in Von Maur's customer service area, John McDonald and his wife, Kathy, were waiting to get a gift wrapped, said John's cousin David Burke, 70, of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

They took cover under chairs, he said. "Apparently, John wasn't hidden well enough, and the gunman saw him and shot him," Burke said.

McDonald, a Creighton University graduate, worked on computers at Enron until retirement, Burke said. He continued to tinker with computers, building several for home use. He was also an avid bicyclist, Burke said.

Burke had joined his cousin two days earlier for dinner and a movie. They exchanged photos of the McDonalds' seven grandchildren and the Burkes' two.

"It's really hard to believe we won't be doing that anymore," he said.

Beverly Flynn of Omaha, was the gift wrapper at Von Maur.

"A fine human being has been taken from us prematurely," wrote Sandy Dodge, president of NP Dodge, the real estate company where Flynn also worked as an agent.

Flynn was known there for her signature housewarming gift: a rosebush planted in the new homeowner's yard.

"Beverly was the kind of person and associate we all admire," Dodge said. "She showed her good sense of humor in a teasing sort of way and was very well liked."

Gary Scharf, a businessman, had stopped at Von Maur on his way home to Lincoln. A graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he sold agricultural products.

His former wife, Kim Scharf, says he was devoted to helping people.

"I called him my Dudley Do-Right," she says. "You'd never meet a more honorable and loyal man."

Dianne Trent, 53, a store employee, spent warm evenings tending flowers on her porch, drinking tea and chatting with her neighbor, Errol Schlenker.

She lived in a northwest Omaha town house with her small dog and two cats, Schlenker said.

"A very incredibly sweet person," Schlenker said. "She was just a decent person who lived a good life here."

Contributing: Oren Dorell, wire reports; All victim photos by AP

    Lives, loves cut horribly short, UT, 6.12.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-06-victims_N.htm

Gunman at an Omaha Mall Kills 8 and Himself

December 6, 2007
The New York Times
By ARDY FRIEDBERG and MONICA DAVEY

OMAHA, Dec. 5 — A gunman in camouflage and wielding a rifle opened fire on Wednesday in a department store at a mall here crowded with holiday shoppers, killing eight people and wounding five others, before turning the gun on himself.

The gunman, identified by the authorities as Robert A. Hawkins, who was 19 or 20, of nearby Bellevue, was described by friends as a depressed person who had lost his job at a McDonald’s restaurant earlier in the day.

Shoppers and store clerks described a scene of panic and chaos after hearing shots even as a pianist at the store played on.

Many witnesses, still in disbelief about what they had heard, dived into closets and storage rooms, crouched in dressing rooms, crowded behind desks and then began what became a long and terrifying wait, punctuated by more and more shots.

“All I could think was where is he, what if he comes through that door, what if he comes through right now,” recalled Kevin Kleine, 29, a shopper who hid in a storage room with her 4-year-old daughter, Emily, and four women she had never met, including an expectant mother.

The group pushed every table, rack and garbage can they could find against the door and huddled behind clothes, making hushed calls to 911, to their husbands and to their parents.

Then began the long wait, Ms. Kleine said, 30 minutes, staring at that door.

Many here said they could not fathom such a crime’s occurring in this relatively quiet city.

It was believed to be the deadliest single shooting incident in Nebraska history. As the state’s most populous city with 419,000 residents, Omaha, along the Missouri River, has elements of urban woes like drugs and gangs.

“I’ve never even heard gunshots here before,” Ms. Kleine said. “Honestly, I didn’t know what they sounded like until today, and I thought I never would.”

The violent crime rate here jumped 7.6 percent last year over 2005, The Omaha World-Herald reported this fall. Over all, such crimes have diminished since 2001, the paper reported, noting that the violent crime rate was less than that of some other Midwestern cities like Des Moines and Kansas City, Mo.

Visitors to the Westroads Mall said they were eating lunch or browsing in stores when three or four shots sounded just after 1:30 p.m. on the third floor of the Von Maur department store.

Witnesses said they could not see where the shots had come from and scanned up and down the three floors of the mall, unsure how to escape something they could not see.

Others said they dismissed the noises as balloons popping or construction noises.

But quickly, as four more shots popped, people scrambled for cover. Some screamed. Others ran, dropped to the floor or searched for doors, dressing rooms and employee lounges.

Some people told of horrific images they saw. A man talking on his cellphone and then falling to the floor. Someone shot in the back of the head, covered in blood. Someone else shot on the second floor while looking up an escalator.

Mickey Vickroy, 74, a worker in the gift wrap section of Von Maur’s, said she saw her manager on his side and another co-worker on his back. She saw another woman crumpled, and a young man flat on his back, motionless.

“These were people you knew,” Ms. Vickroy said, “people you work with.”

Witnesses said they heard at least 15 shots in all, maybe more.

Scores of police officers began swarming to the mall six minutes after the first call, police officials said. They locked down the mall.

Police helicopters circled overhead as officers searched for the gunman. Clusters of shoppers and workers, meanwhile, hid, unsure what would come next.

The police went store to store, department to department, finding clusters of people and ushering them out — hands over their heads to show that they were not the gunman — to safety outside. There, some wept and clutched one another in the frozen air.

Eventually, the police found the Mr. Hawkins’s body. A suicide note was found, they said.

Outside the house in Bellevue where Mr. Hawkins had lived, Debora Kovac, whose family had taken him in, said he had wrestled with problems. He was estranged from his family. In the last two weeks, Ms. Kovac said, he had lost his girlfriend.

“He was like a lost pound puppy,” she said. “Nobody wanted him.”

Less than an hour before the shooting, Mr. Hawkins had called Ms. Kovac, she recounted. He apologized to her for all the trouble he had caused, she said. He also left a note.

“We tried to get him to come to the house, but he said it was too late,” Ms. Kovac said. “When we heard about the shooting, I had a sick feeling about it.”

She said that he obtained a weapon on Tuesday evening from his father’s home and that at the time he said he planned to use it for target shooting on Wednesday.

Late Wednesday, law enforcement officers prepared to search the Bellevue house.

Among the five injured, two were listed in critical condition, hospital officials said. The injuries varied widely. One victim was treated at the Nebraska Medical Center and sent home, officials said, having cut his face when he hit a clothing rack trying to seek cover.

At his home in west Omaha on Wednesday evening, Jeff Schaffart, among those wounded by the gunfire, said, “I’m damn lucky to be alive.”

Mr. Schaffart nursed a wound through the left arm and a finger.

“I assume I have to come to grips with it at some point, why I didn’t get shot in the head, why I didn’t get killed,” he said.

A 61-year-old man was listed in critical condition and underwent surgery into the evening for a shot to his upper left chest.

“What’s clear was the high fatality rate,” said Dr. Robert Muelleman, director of the medical center’s emergency department. “We knew he had a high-velocity weapon.”

Late in the day at a Hampton Inn not far from the mall, more than 30 family members and friends of the victims waited in a conference room to hear about loved ones. Names had not been formally issued for the people who had waited since early afternoon.

Red Cross workers, chaplains and mental health counselors joined them to wait.

“People are obviously very concerned,” Dena Howard, a Red Cross official, said. “But they haven’t heard anything yet.”

From the hotel, five bands of white Christmas lights around the Von Maur store glowed.

Statements of sympathy began flowing in from around the country, and prayer services were planned.

Gov. Dave Heineman described the night as a difficult one for the entire state and sent condolences to victims’ families.

Just hours before the shooting, President Bush had been here for a fund-raiser.

“Having just visited with so many members of the community in Omaha today, the president is confident that they will pull together to comfort one another as they deal with this terrible tragedy,” the White House said in a statement.

The incident was the second mass shooting at a mall by a young adult this year. In February, an 18-year-old killed five people and wounded four more in Salt Lake City before the police killed him.

The Westroads Mall is in western Omaha, near Warren Buffett’s Borsheim jewelry store. Once near the city’s edge, with cornfields in the distance, the shopping center is now surrounded by suburban development.

As the authorities searched for evidence in the mall, the state’s largest, yellow police tape encircled the sprawling parking lot.

The Von Maur store features live piano music in all its Midwestern stores. Kathy Hegarty of Plattsmouth was shopping in the men’s department with her husband, Jim, when she heard gunshots.

“After the third sequence, I was so scared I was just trying to stop from losing control,” Ms. Hegarty said.

The couple hid in the men’s dressing room with four others.

They called 911. They called their daughter. They prayed.

“We’ve always felt like this was a safe place, a good place to raise your children,” she said. “People are Midwesterners, strong and solid and sensible. But it can happen anywhere.”

Ardy Friedberg reported from Omaha, and Monica Davey from Chicago. Reporting was contributed by Jeff Zeleny and Chris Burbach from Omaha, and Catrin Einhorn from Chicago.

    Gunman at an Omaha Mall Kills 8 and Himself, NYT, 6.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us/06omaha.html?hp

Nine dead in Nebraska mall shooting

Wed Dec 5, 2007
6:57pm EST
Reuters

OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire inside a crowded shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, killing eight people and then himself, police said.

Five people were wounded in the rampage at the Westroads Mall, two of them critically, according to hospital spokesmen. One man with a chest wound was in surgery.

Witnesses reported hearing as many as two dozen gunshots, telling a local television station the gunman shot one man in the head from a third-floor balcony and others at point-blank range as he moved through the mall.

"It was horrible, just horrible," one woman told KETV, saying she hid under a clothes rack when the shooting started.

Another witness at the mall, busy with pre-Christmas shoppers, said she heard someone shout: "It's a gunman, run!"

Most of the victims were shot inside one department store and the motive for the rampage was still being investigated, said Sgt. Teresa Negron of the Omaha Police Department.

"We do not believe that we have any other shooter," she told reporters. "The person we believe to be the shooter has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound."

Mass shootings periodically shock the United States, where gun ownership is widespread and the right to bear arms is a hotly contested constitutional issue.

In mid-April, Virginia Tech university became the site of the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history when a student killed 32 people and then himself.

In October 2006, a milk truck driver tied up and shot 10 Amish schoolgirls in their classroom in Pennsylvania, killing five of them before turning the gun on himself.

According to KETV in Omaha, the county sheriff's office said it was given a note involving a 19-year-old man that could be interpreted as "suicidal." The note was found by someone after the shooting, although it was not clear where.

One woman told KETV she saw the gunman firing into the air inside the department store.

"I saw the guy in the children's department. He was tall, real tall," she said. "He had his hand straight up in the air, just shooting, not saying anything."

Jeffrey Peck, manager of a leather goods store, said mall workers ran up to tell him to close up his store.

"I told the customer to go into the back room and, as I was shutting the gate, I heard two gunshots ring out," he said.

Some of those shot were waiting in line to get Christmas presents wrapped at Von Maur, an upscale department store and one of the anchors of the mall.

Shoppers and store workers were trapped inside the mall, which has roughly 135 stores, and huddled behind locked doors or inside dressing rooms. Others streamed out of mall exits with their hands raised.

President George W. Bush gave an address in Omaha on Wednesday morning but had left the city hours before the incident.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern, David Hendee and John O'Callaghan, Editing by Frances Kerry)

    Nine dead in Nebraska mall shooting, R, 5.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0564256720071205

TIMELINE: Omaha incident latest in U.S. shootings

Wed Dec 5, 2007
5:52pm EST
Reuters

(Reuters) - A gunman opened fire from a balcony in a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, killing eight people, wounding five before taking his own life, police said.

Following is a chronology of some of the deadlier mass shootings in the United States in recent years:

March 1998 - At Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, two boys aged 13 and 11 pulled a fire alarm and began shooting teachers and classmates as they left the school, killing four students and a teacher.

April 1999 - Two students shot to death 12 other students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves.

July 1999 - A day trader killed his wife and two children before shooting nine people to death at two Atlanta brokerages. He then killed himself.

September 1999 - A 47-year-old loner killed seven people in a Fort Worth, Texas, Baptist church. Then he killed himself.

November 1999 - A Xerox copier repairman in Honolulu gunned down seven co-workers before fleeing, triggering one of the biggest manhunts in Hawaii history. He was located and surrendered to police after a five-hour armed standoff.

March 2005 - A 16-year-old high school student gunned down five students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School in far northern Minnesota before killing himself. He also killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion elsewhere on the Chippewa Indian reservation.

October 2, 2006 - A local milk truck driver who was not Amish, tied up and shot 10 Amish schoolgirls aged 6 to 14 in their classroom, killing five of them before turning the gun on himself in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, about 60 miles (97 km) west of Philadelphia.

April 16, 2007 - A university in Blacksburg, Virginia, Virginia Tech, became the site of the deadliest rampage in U.S. history when a gunman killed 32 people and himself.

December 5, 2007 - A gunman opened fire from a balcony in a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, killing eight people and wounding five, before taking his own life, police said.
 

(Writing by Paul Grant, Washington Editorial Reference Unit, editing by Philip Barbara)

    TIMELINE: Omaha incident latest in U.S. shootings, R, 5.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0542758420071205

Stun Gun Used on Pregnant Woman in Ohio

November 29, 2007
Filed at 11:36 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

TROTWOOD, Ohio (AP) -- A policeman forced a pregnant woman to the ground and used a stun gun on her when she refused to answer the officer's questions and resisted being handcuffed, authorities said Thursday.

The woman went to the police department in this Dayton suburb on Nov. 18 to ask officers to take custody of her 1-year-old son, said Michael Etter, Trotwood's public safety director.

The woman told the officer she was ''tired of playing games'' with the baby's father, Etter said. The woman refused to answer questions, became frustrated and tried to leave with the child, Etter said. The officer feared allowing her to leave could jeopardize the child and he decided to detain her to get more information.

He said the officer grabbed the woman, got the child away from her and forced her to the ground. When she resisted being handcuffed and tried to get away, the officer used the stun gun on her, Etter said.

The woman wore a winter coat and did not tell the officer she was pregnant, Etter said. ''She was totally uncooperative,'' he said.

The woman was arrested for obstruction and resisting arrest and transported to jail, Etter said. When she arrived at the jail, it was discovered that she was pregnant, and an officer took her to the hospital, he said. The condition of the woman and the fetus was not known.

The FBI is investigating the arrest and Etter said the police department is conducting its own probe to determine whether excessive force was used.

He said the officer remains on duty.

    Stun Gun Used on Pregnant Woman in Ohio, NYT, 29.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Pregnant-Woman-Stun-Gun.html

Teen Charged in Grad Student's Death

November 28, 2007
Filed at 9:01 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

CHICAGO (AP) -- A teenager was charged Wednesday in a series of violent crimes around the University of Chicago campus, including the fatal shooting of a student who was just weeks away from receiving his doctoral degree.

The 16-year-old, whose name was not released, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted robbery with a firearm, and one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm in connection with the shooting of Amadou Cisse, 29, said police spokeswoman Laura Kubiak.

Cisse was shot in the chest steps from his home near the university on Nov. 19. It happened less than an hour after a university staff member was shot at while walking nearby and two female students were robbed at gunpoint, police said.

The teen also was charged with three counts of armed robbery in connection with those attacks, Kubiak said.

Cisse earlier this month successfully defended his dissertation, a study of how molecules diffuse and migrate through polymers.

The University of Chicago invited the family to send a member to accept the degree on Dec. 7, offering to pay the expenses, according to Cisse's 27-year-old brother, Alioune, a computer engineer. But Cisse's mother said no one would travel from their home in Dakar, Senegal to pick up the degree.

''No, no, no, absolutely no. I will not come,'' Seynabou Cisse, a pediatric nurse and widowed mother of three told the Chicago Sun-Times.

''It has hit my family very hard,'' she added. ''I am not coming to America. I just can't.''

Cisse's father, a military officer, was killed in Gambia.

''Our father died outside of the country. Now Amadou. So my mother is in shock,'' Alioune told the newspaper. ''My mother was asking me this afternoon if the death penalty exists in Chicago. That's how angry we are here.''

His brother's body, shipped home by the U. of C., arrived in Dakar on Friday, and the Muslim family held a small burial service, Alioune said.

    Teen Charged in Grad Student's Death, NYT, 28.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-UofC-Student-Shot.html

Police: 5 dead in murder-suicide in Md.

23 November 2007
USA Today
By Lubna Takruri, Associated Press Writer

LAYTONSVILLE, Md. — A gunman shot and killed his ex-wife, their three children and himself in a small-town park as the woman prepared to hand over custody, police said Friday.

Their bodies were found Thursday evening in the tiny community of Unity when Maryland-National Capital Park Police officers stopped in the deserted park after noticing two cars with their engines running, said Wayne Jerman, Montgomery County assistant police chief.

The bodies of Gail Louise Pumphrey, 43, of Woodbine, and the three children — ages 6 to 12 — were found in the cars, Jerman said. David Peter Brockdorff, 40, of Frederick, was found nearby with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police said they recovered a .22-caliber rifle near his body.

The children included two boys, ages 6 and 12, and a 10-year-old girl, police said. Authorities did not release their names, saying they first wanted to contact the children's schools.

Pumphrey had met with Brockdorff to hand over custody of the children, according to investigators. Police did not know how long the children were to stay with their father.

Investigators did not know when the shots were fired, and no neighbors reported hearing gunshots, Jermain said.

The couple had a history of domestic violence, police said. They divorced in 2005.

Authorities blocked off roads Thursday in Unity, near the town of Laytonsville and about 25 miles northwest of Washington. The 1.5-acre park is in a sparsely populated area of mostly woods and farmland.

Residents gathered Friday at a general store down the road from the park and talked about the tragedy over pancakes and burgers.

"It's really shocking," said Sunshine Store cashier Christine Flaim, 24, who heard the sirens and helicopter from her home nearby. "This is a place where everyone knows everyone."

"I don't recall ever hearing of a murder here," she said. "Everyone is concerned and worried."

There have been several domestic killings involving children in Maryland this year.

In April, a father hanged his two young children before committing suicide in rural Boyds, in Montgomery County. In March, the remains of four young children were found in a town house in neighboring Frederick. The father's body was found hanging from a bannister, and the mother remains missing.

    Police: 5 dead in murder-suicide in Md., UT, 23.11.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-11-23-murder-suicide_N.htm

Killing of Chicago Student Unsettles Campus Life

November 22, 2007
The New York Times
By CATRIN EINHORN

CHICAGO, Nov. 21 — The students stood in a circle on the campus quadrangle at the University of Chicago and held slender white candles as they remembered a gentle graduate student from Senegal who was killed early Monday, weeks before he was to receive his doctorate.

The student, Amadou Cisse, 29, was shot to death near his apartment, just off campus. The police said he might have been the victim of an attempted robbery.

The killing was one of three violent crimes within an hour and a few blocks of one another, according to the police and university officials. About 12:30 a.m., a male university employee was chased and shot at, but escaped serious injury. At 1:15, two female undergraduates were robbed by a man who said he had a gun. Minutes later, Mr. Cisse was fatally wounded.

Police officials said they were investigating whether the crimes were related and issued a community alert with a picture of a car believed to be tied to the shooting of Mr. Cisse.

Some students questioned why the university waited nine hours before sending e-mail and phone alerts about the violence. A university spokeswoman, Julie A. Peterson, said, “I don’t know if it would have been a better decision to issue the alert in the middle of the night immediately following the shooting, but it’s a fair question to ask.”

Officials at Virginia Tech, where a gunman killed 32 people in April, faced criticism for failing to notify students sooner that a killer was on the loose.

The attacks shocked students at this university, long an island of privilege butted uncomfortably against areas of poverty and crime. While students said they were accustomed to minor crimes — bicycle thefts, car break-ins — Mr. Cisse’s death has sent ripples of fear through the campus. The last time a student died as a result of violent crime on or near the campus was in July 1977, officials said.

Since the attacks, students said, they have been leaving the library earlier than usual and taking extra care at night. “People with cars are offering to drive more people home,” said Amalia Beckner, 19. One night this week, she said, a fellow student insisted on driving her the block or so from a building to her dormitory.

Ms. Peterson said the school had taken “immediate measures to enhance safety.” The number of campus police cars patrolling from dusk to dawn has grown to 23 from 9, officials said, and two vans have been added to a program that offers late-night rides. There is also a new plan to open a campus police substation until construction ends on one that was previously planned.

Up the block from where Mr. Cisse was killed, an emergency phone connecting students to the campus police had been removed because of construction of a dormitory. “I think it’s unfortunate that the call box was not there,” Ms. Peterson said, “but we don’t know what difference that would have made, if any.” The box was back up and running on Tuesday.

Matthew Kennedy, 21, a student government vice president, said students were angry, yet somewhat resigned, about the death. “People want answers, and they want the university to protect them,” he said. “But the overwhelming sense is that this was a random act of violence, that this happens when you live in an urban environment.”

The attacks have lent a new urgency to longstanding questions about the relationship between the university, in Hyde Park, and surrounding neighborhoods. Mr. Cisse was killed just south of a boulevard-like expanse called the Midway. Campus buildings lining the Midway have long been seen as a symbolic divider between the university and the neighborhood of Woodlawn. “Once you cross this one little line, you feel like you’re in a different world,” said Fida Abuisneineh, 19.

Despite a rich history of community organizing, Woodlawn continues to struggle with poverty and violence, and community organizers calling for an end to the violence rallied Tuesday evening on the sidewalk where Mr. Cisse was killed.

Earlier, at the school’s candlelight vigil, a student cried as she talked of how Mr. Cisse, a teaching assistant, gave up weekends to help undergraduate pupils prepare for exams. A professor spoke of celebrating with him after he successfully defended his dissertation. And a Senegalese woman lamented the loss of a man who could have brought so much to Senegal, where he hoped to return.

The university plans to award Mr. Cisse’s doctorate, in chemistry, posthumously on Dec. 7.

    Killing of Chicago Student Unsettles Campus Life, NYT, 22.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/us/22chicago.html

Justices Will Decide if Handgun Kept at Home Is Individual Right

November 21, 2007
The New York Times
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would decide whether the Constitution grants individuals the right to keep guns in their homes for private use, plunging the justices headlong into a divisive and long-running debate over how to interpret the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

The court accepted a case on the District of Columbia’s 31-year-old prohibition on the ownership of handguns. In adding the case to its calendar, for argument in March with a decision most likely in June, the court not only raised the temperature of its current term but also inevitably injected the issue of gun control into the presidential campaign.

The federal appeals court here, breaking with the great majority of federal courts to have examined the issue over the decades, ruled last March that the Second Amendment right was an individual one, not tied to service in a militia, and that the District of Columbia’s categorical ban on handguns was therefore unconstitutional.

Both the District of Columbia government and the winning plaintiff, Dick Anthony Heller, a security officer, urged the justices to review the decision. Mr. Heller, who carries a gun while on duty guarding the federal building that houses the administrative offices of the federal court system, wants to be able to keep his gun at home for self-defense.

Mr. Heller was one of six plaintiffs recruited by a wealthy libertarian lawyer, Robert A. Levy, who created and financed the lawsuit for the purpose of getting a Second Amendment case before the Supreme Court. The appeals court threw out the other five plaintiffs for lack of standing; only Mr. Heller had actually applied for permission to keep a gun at home and been rejected.

The Supreme Court last looked at the Second Amendment nearly 70 years ago in United States v. Miller, a 1939 decision that suggested, without explicitly deciding, that the right should be understood in connection with service in a militia. The amendment states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The justices chose their own wording for what they want to decide in the new case, District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290. The question they posed is whether the provisions of the statute “violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.”

The court’s choice of words is almost never inadvertent, and its use of the phrase “state-regulated militia” was somewhat curious. The District of Columbia, of course, is not a state, and one of the arguments its lawyers are making in their appeal is that the Second Amendment simply does not apply to “legislation enacted exclusively for the District of Columbia.”

For that matter, the Supreme Court has never ruled that the Second Amendment even applies to the states, as opposed to the federal government. It has applied nearly all the other provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states, leaving the Second Amendment as the most prominent exception. The justices evidently decided that this case was not the proper vehicle for exploring that issue, because as a nonstate, the District of Columbia is not in a position to argue it one way or another.

Because none of the justices now on the court have ever confronted a Second Amendment case, any prediction about how the court will rule is little more than pure speculation.

Of the hundreds of gun regulations on the books in states and localities around the country, the district’s ordinance is generally regarded as the strictest. Chicago comes the closest to it, banning the possession of handguns acquired since 1983 and requiring re-registration of older guns every two years. New York City permits handgun ownership with a permit issued by the Police Department.

The District of Columbia ordinance not only bans ownership of handguns, but also requires other guns that may be legally kept in the home, rifles and shotguns, to be disassembled or kept under a trigger lock. The capital’s newly empowered City Council enacted the ordinance in 1976 as one of its first measures after receiving home-rule authority from Congress.

The court’s order on Tuesday indicated that it would review the handgun ban in light of the provision that permits, with restrictions, the other guns. The opposing sides in the lawsuit presented very different views of how the various provisions interact.

To the plaintiffs, the restrictions on the conditions under which rifles and shotguns may be kept means that homeowners are denied the right to possess “functional” weapons for self-defense. To the District of Columbia, the fact that these other guns are permitted shows that the ordinance is nuanced and sensitive to gun owners’ needs. It takes about one minute to disengage a trigger lock.

In any event, a Supreme Court decision that finds the district’s ordinance unconstitutional would not necessarily invalidate other, more modest restrictions, like those that permit handgun ownership for those who pass a background check and obtain a license. Since the only claim in the case is that law-abiding people have the right to keep a gun at home, the court will not have occasion to address restrictions on carrying guns.

In fact, lawyers on both sides of the case agreed Tuesday that a victory for the plaintiff in this case would amount to the opening chapter in an examination of the constitutionality of gun control rather than anything close to the final word.

“This is just the beginning,” said Alan Gura, the lead counsel for the plaintiff.

Mr. Gura said in an interview that “gun laws that make sense,” like those requiring background checks, would survive the legal attack, which he said was limited to “laws that do no good other than disarm law-abiding citizens.”

Whether the handgun ban has reduced crime in a city surrounded by less restrictive jurisdictions is a matter of heated dispute. Crime in the District of Columbia has mirrored trends in the rest of the country, dropping quite sharply during the 1990s but now experiencing some increase.

In striking down the district’s ordinance, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that an individual-right interpretation of the Second Amendment would still permit “reasonable regulations,” but that a flat ban was not reasonable.

Dennis A. Henigan, a lawyer at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates strict gun control, said that if the justices agree with the appeals court, an important question for future cases will be “what legal standard the court will eventually adopt for evaluating other gun regulations.”

    Justices Will Decide if Handgun Kept at Home Is Individual Right, NYT, 21.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/us/21scotus.html?h

Justices to Hear Gun Control Case

November 20, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — The Supreme Court agreed today to consider an issue that has divided politicians, constitutional scholars and ordinary citizens for decades: whether the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual right to “keep and bear arms.”

The justices agreed to hear an appeal from the District of Columbia, whose gun-control law — one of the strictest in the nation — was struck down by the lower federal courts earlier this year. The case will probably be argued in the spring.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down sections of the Washington gun law that make it exceedingly difficult to legally own a handgun, that prohibit carrying guns without a license even from one room to another, and that require lawfully owned firearms to be kept unloaded.

The Second Amendment, surely one of the most disputed passages in the United States Constitution, states this, in its entirety: “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Supreme Court has never directly addressed the basic meaning of that passage. When it last considered a Second Amendment case, in 1939, it addressed a somewhat peripheral question, holding that a sawed-off shotgun was not one of the “arms” that the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Today’s announcement that the justices would take the District of Columbia case was no surprise, given that the D.C. Circuit’s interpretation of the Second Amendment conflicts with the interpretation of nine other federal appeals courts, and differences between the circuits often steer issues to the high court.

But the argument, and the outcome, will be among the most eagerly awaited in years, with the stakes potentially very high for lawmakers and gun enthusiasts alike.

The mayor of Washington, Adrian M. Fenty, whose city was sometimes called the “murder capital” of the country at the height of the crack epidemic and the accompanying bloodshed, vowed earlier this year to seek reinstatement of the city’s gun law. “We have made the determination that this law can and should be defended, and we are willing to take our case to the highest court in the land,” he said.

    Justices to Hear Gun Control Case, NYT, 20.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/washington/20cnd-scotus.html?hp

Families Stay Close After Murder - Suicide

November 18, 2007
Filed at 9:28 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WAPAKONETA, Ohio (AP) -- They grew up 20 minutes apart in northwest Ohio, Michelle from a town of 1,750, her dad a postal worker, her mom a shirt embroiderer.

Andy lived just outside this city of 9,400 known for hometown hero Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon. His dad sells farm supplies -- vaccines, pet food, pond chemicals. His mom is a secretary at a nursing home.

Andy and Michelle, so close that he drove 436 miles round trip in a weekend to visit her in college.

Yet for reasons no one can explain, Andy shot Michelle to death outside his apartment June 3, 2006. He fired 16 shots at his girlfriend of three years, then walked back inside his apartment, knelt on the living room floor, placed his Glock 9 mm semiautomatic in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

''Two good kids,'' said Dan Brown, Andy's father. ''We don't know what happened.''

Another murder-suicide, another wrenching headline. Yet this time two families were brought together, not torn apart.

Two families mourned two victims. Both were 21 years old.

''We didn't just lose a daughter,'' said Michelle's mom, Becky Mielecki. ''We also lost a son.''

------

In high school Michelle and Andy were just friends. Their gang of nine girls and three guys hung out almost every weekend, painting their faces for football games, grabbing Mexican food at El Azteca, a restaurant just off Interstate 75 where Andy always ordered No. 32 -- enchiladas tapatias -- for the number on his basketball jersey.

Michelle ran cross country, and both were members of the Octagon Club, a service group that cleaned up the stadium after football games, visited nursing homes.

Silly and funny and caring, always telling jokes to make you laugh, said Cary Fell, a friend who still chatted with Michelle almost every day in college.

A loyal friend, always willing to help, lend a few bucks, be there for you, said Cody Hefner, Andy's best friend.

Family came first. Andy spent hours with his grandfather. Michelle took her younger sister, Jenny, along whenever she headed out with friends.

On Sept. 11, 2001, his 17th birthday, Andy turned down a dinner out to watch news of the World Trade Center attack. From that day on he wanted to be in law enforcement.

He rode with Wapakoneta police officers. He bought a Mag-Lite flashlight, the kind police carried, and a scanner and walkie-talkies. Right after turning 21, he bought the Glock, a common gun in police departments.

Michelle's sister Jenny didn't like guns and told Andy so. Guns don't kill people, he and Michelle replied.

They started dating the summer after graduating from high school.

Michelle spent a semester at college in southern Ohio but didn't like being so far away and transferred to the University of Toledo, where Andy was studying criminal justice and accounting.

She studied sports marketing and dreamed of handling public relations for the Cleveland Indians. A lifelong fan, she'd gone to a game on her birthday every year since she was a little girl.

At his apartment Andy had a poster of a model holding a Glock in a ''Charlie's Angels'' pose over his bed. He kept his black-colored gun in a drawer by his bed. His MySpace username was ''glockamb.''

''Being alone,'' he wrote on his MySpace page, as his greatest fear.

''Saving someone's life,'' he wrote under ''How do you want to die?''

Michelle revealed her biggest fear on her own page. ''Dying or someone I love or close to me dying.''

------

Andy was devastated when his grandfather died in a fire in March 2006. Michelle saw how emotional he'd become, how tearful. Different from before.

She was dealing with her own emotions. ''Am I too young to be in a committed relationship?'' she asked in an instant message of Hallie Sheck, a friend from Grady's Ladies, a group of female fans of handsome Cleveland Indians center fielder Grady Sizemore.

A few days later she'd write, ''It's good and I'm happy.''

Andy sensed a change too. One day he'd tell Cody he was worried they might be breaking up. The next he'd say they had talked and everything was fine.

On Memorial Day, Andy and Michelle were together at her parents' house, sitting in the living room, cuddling and holding hands.

The next week, Andy called his sister Lindsey, upset that Michelle had broken a date to spend time with a friend.

On Friday, June 2, Michelle told a co-worker at a Bed, Bath and Beyond store that she was going to break up with Andy that night, police say.

That evening Michelle and Lindsey -- her roommate -- left a party and headed for the Distillery, a popular Toledo bar. Michelle called Andy at work to tell him to meet them there.

''I'll see you tomorrow night,'' Andy told co-workers as he left.

Meeting at about 11 p.m., they had a few beers. Andy and Michelle were close, holding hands. Then they were gone. Their abrupt departure seemed unusual.

About 2 a.m. June 3, neighbors on the third floor of Andy's apartment building heard loud arguing. ''Help me,'' one couple heard. ''No, Andrew,'' someone else heard.

As the neighbors ran into the hall they saw Michelle pull her wrist free from Andy's grip at the door of his apartment. Andy stepped into the hall, raised his Glock and began shooting. At least two bullets struck Michelle in the torso. The rest hit a stairway wall.

Finished, Andy went back into his apartment, not bothering to shut the door. He called Lindsey on her cell phone but disconnected the call before she answered.

He killed himself with his final bullet.

Coroner's tests showed Andy's blood-alcohol content was 0.10 percent, legally drunk in Ohio. Michelle's level was 0.16.

Family members say they don't believe alcohol played a role. Police say it can't be ruled out.

------

Andy's father, Dan, calls the hour-and-a-half drive to Toledo that morning the longest of his life. Later that day, he and Andy's mom, Dorothy -- everyone calls her Dort -- took another long drive to a house just 20 minutes away in Cridersville.

Dort told Dan she had no idea how the Mieleckis felt toward them but knew they had to go.

''Don't hate Andy and don't hate us,'' she said to Michelle's parents.

The Mieleckis decided the day of the shooting that anger wasn't the answer.

''It's not that I'm real religious but I do believe in God and I believe in forgiveness and you're not supposed to hate,'' Becky says.

The Browns went to Michelle's viewing and funeral; the Mieleckis to Andy's.

Over the next year the couples stopped by each other's homes to visit. They went to the Dairy Stand for ice cream. Dort, 54, and Becky, 47, talked on the phone. Still do. Not long ago the couples went out to dinner together at the Inn Between.

''Friends Say Boyfriend Was Jealous Type,'' said one headline after the shooting. But family and friends say that what happened was out of character.

The shooting ''was probably the only thing wrong the kid ever did in his life,'' Tom Mielecki says.

As the one-year anniversary approached, Dort suggested a cookout to honor the couple's memory. Friends came from around the country. They talked and laughed for hours.

The Mieleckis showed up first and left last, as darkness fell.

''Two good kids,'' says Tom Mielecki, 51. ''I wish we knew why, but we don't.''

Jenny and Lindsey see each other often. What's the sense in being angry, says Jenny, 20. Lindsey needs her as much as she needs Lindsey.

Andy's other sister, Stacey Jutte, was pregnant as the anniversary approached. She and her husband, Rick, hit upon the name for the baby as they visited Andy's grave.

''You tell me first,'' Stacey said to her husband. She wept at his reply. ''It was the exact same name.''

Andrea Michelle.

------

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is based on interviews with Wapakoneta High School principal Aaron Rex; Michelle's parents, Tom and Becky; her sisters, Jenny and Trish; Andy's parents, Dorothy and Dan; his sisters, Lindsey and Stacey; Michelle's friends Cary Fell, Jodi Lynn Gray and Hallie Sheck; Andy and Michelle's friends Cody Hefner and Drew Dorner; Toledo police Detective Liz Kantura; and several witnesses of the shooting.

------

On the Net:

Grady's Ladies: http://www.gradysladies.com/

Michelle Mielecki's MySpace page: http://tinyurl.com/33y5cy

Andrew Brown's MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/glockamb#22840760

    Families Stay Close After Murder - Suicide, NYT, 18.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Two-Good-Kids.html

Boy, 16, Charged With Shooting Officers

November 14, 2007
Filed at 11:28 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A teenager was charged Wednesday with shooting two undercover narcotics officers as they were trying to serve an arrest warrant, the fourth and fifth officers shot in this city in the last few months.

Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said police trying to serve the warrant in the Philadelphia's Frankford section Tuesday rang the door bell of a house twice and then used a battering ram on the door. The shooter fired at them through a window, he said.

One officer was shot in the leg and the other was wounded in the hip. The officers, whose names were not released, were treated and released from hospitals.

''Both of them are very, very lucky,'' Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said as he arrived at one of the hospitals with Mayor John F. Street.

The suspected shooter was believed to still be inside the house about 90 minutes after the shooting, the commissioner said. A short time after that, police took up to seven people from the house into custody.

A 16-year-old was charged with attempted murder, possession with intent to deliver drugs, and aggravated assault, police said. Police have not released the teen's name.

Street decried what he called a ''deterioration of respect for law and order and for our police department'' and urged lawmakers to help the city get illegal guns off the streets.

''It's outrageous,'' mayor-elect Michael Nutter said. ''We have to get the word out that we will not tolerate people shooting Philadelphia police officers.''

The shootings happened less than two weeks after Officer Chuck Cassidy, 54, was shot when he walked in on a robbery at a doughnut shop on Oct. 31. He died the next day. A suspect was arrested days later in Miami and is now in custody in Philadelphia.

    Boy, 16, Charged With Shooting Officers, NYT, 14.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Officers-Shot.html

Case Touches a 2nd Amendment Nerve

November 13, 2007
The New York Times
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 — Both sides in a closely watched legal battle over the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control law are urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. If the justices agree — a step they may announce as early as Tuesday — the Roberts court is likely to find itself back on the front lines of the culture wars with an intensity unmatched even by the cases on abortion and race that defined the court’s last term.

The question is whether the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual right to “keep and bear arms.” If the answer is yes, as the federal appeals court held in March, the justices must then decide what such an interpretation means for a statute that bars all possession of handguns and that requires any other guns in the home to be disassembled or secured by trigger locks.

The Supreme Court has never answered the Second Amendment question directly, and it has been nearly 70 years since the court even approached it obliquely. A decision in 1939, United States v. Miller, held that a sawed-off shotgun was not one of the “arms” to which the Second Amendment referred in its single, densely written, and oddly punctuated sentence: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Asked during his confirmation hearing what he thought that sentence meant, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. responded that the Miller decision had “side-stepped the issue” and had left “very open” the question of whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right as opposed to a collective right.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on which the chief justice formerly sat, ruled in March by a vote of 2 to 1 that “the right in question is individual,” not tied to membership in a state militia. On that basis, the court declared that the 31-year-old statute, one of the country’s strictest, was unconstitutional.

Gun-control advocates have long maintained that the amendment’s ambiguous opening reference to a “well regulated Militia” limited its scope to gun ownership in connection with service in a state militia. In the appeals court’s view, the clause simply highlighted one of the amendment’s “civic purposes.” Since the militias of the time included nearly all able-bodied white men, the court said, the amendment served the purpose of assuring that the citizenry would have guns at hand if called up, while also guaranteeing the right to keep arms even if the call never came.

The District of Columbia filed its Supreme Court appeal in September. The statute’s challengers, who brought their lawsuit in 2003 for the precise purpose of getting a Second Amendment case before the Supreme Court, promptly agreed that the case merited the justices’ attention.

The lawsuit was the creation of a wealthy libertarian, Robert A. Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, a prominent libertarian research organization. With the blessing of Cato, Mr. Levy financed the lawsuit and recruited six plaintiffs, all of whom wanted to keep handguns in their homes for self-defense. His goal was to present the constitutional issue to the Supreme Court in its most attractive form: not as a criminal appeal, as earlier Second Amendment cases, including the 1939 Supreme Court case, had been, but as an effort by law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. None asserted a desire to carry their weapons outside of their homes.

The strategy was almost too good: the appeals court threw out five of the six plaintiffs for lack of standing, on the ground that their objection to the law was merely abstract. Only one plaintiff remained: Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard at the building that houses the federal judicial system’s administrative offices, where he carries a handgun on duty. He had applied for and was denied a license to keep the gun at home. That encounter with the law was sufficiently concrete to give him standing, in the court’s view, and to allow the case, now called District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290, to proceed.

The District of Columbia is not just another city, and its gun law has long been a major irritant to supporters of gun ownership around the country. The law was one of the first to be passed by the newly empowered District of Columbia in 1973, after it received home rule authority from Congress, where the gun lobby remains strong.

The District’s petition calls the case “quite literally a matter of life and death,” given the demonstrable dangers of handguns and the policy justifications for regulating them. The brief, filed by Linda Singer, the District’s attorney general, tells the justices that the appeals court made three errors.

First, it says, the Second Amendment’s text and history, properly understood, show that the amendment grants a right that “may be exercised only in connection with service in a state-regulated militia.”

Second, the brief observes that the amendment was drafted as a limitation on the authority of the federal government, not of the states, and that even if the District of Columbia is considered the equivalent of a state, “legislation limited to the District can pose no threat to the interests the Second Amendment was enacted to protect.”

Finally, the District of Columbia argues that even if gun ownership is an individual right, the handgun ban is amply justified as a “reasonable regulation” by considerations of public safety and health, as well as by the fact that the law permits ownership of other weapons.

The appeals court left the door open to “reasonable regulations,” like prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons, or weapons in particular locations, or the ownership of guns by felons. But a flat ban on a type of weapon cannot be considered reasonable, the court said.

Even though both sides are urging the court to hear the case, it is not a given that the justices will accept the invitation. On the polarized court, that might depend on whether justices who feel strongly on either side can be confident of prevailing. It might also depend on the justices’ collective appetite for injecting themselves into a controversy the court has avoided for so long.

The only justice to have expressed such an appetite is Clarence Thomas. In 1997, he wrote a concurring opinion in a decision invalidating a federal requirement for local sheriffs to perform background checks on gun buyers. The case concerned states’ rights, not the Second Amendment, but Justice Thomas took the opportunity to issue what was, in context, a surprising invitation. “This court has not had recent occasion to consider the nature of the substantive right safeguarded by the Second Amendment,” he said, and added: “Perhaps, at some future date, the court will have the opportunity.”

    Case Touches a 2nd Amendment Nerve, NYT, 13.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/washington/13scotus.html

NY Teen With Hairbrush Shot by Police

November 13, 2007
Filed at 12:18 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- A teenager died in a hail of 20 bullets fired by police officers who thought he was holding a gun, authorities said Tuesday. The object turned out to be a hairbrush.

A 911 operator heard the teen yelling that he had a gun, police said.

But the case nonetheless evoked painful memories of previous police shootings: the November 2006, 50-bullet barrage that killed the unarmed Sean Bell on his wedding day, and the 1999 killing of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was hit by 19 of the 41 shots fired by police in the Bronx.

''The circumstances of how it occurred at this point is under investigation and you can rest assured that we will take this very seriously,'' said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Officers received the 911 call from the teen's mother around 7 p.m. Monday, police spokesman Paul Browne said. The 911 operator could hear the teen yelling in the background, claiming he had a gun, Browne said.

When officers arrived at the Brooklyn apartment building, they could see the 18-year-old, Khiel Coppin, pacing inside the first-floor apartment. His mother was outside.

The teen's mother had attempted to have him hospitalized earlier in the day, Browne said. He said the teen had a history of mental illness.

The teen began screaming from a window at his mother and officers before climbing out of the window and heading toward the officers holding a black object in his hand, police said.

The officers ordered him to stop, Browne said. When the teen refused and kept approaching them, they opened fire, he said.

Police said it was not immediately known how many of the 20 bullets struck Coppin, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Investigators later discovered the object the teen was holding was a hairbrush, Browne said.

------

Associated Press Writer Sara Kugler contributed to this report.

    NY Teen With Hairbrush Shot by Police, NYT, 13.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Police-Teen-Shot.html

Court Takes No Action in Guns Case

November 13, 2007
Filed at 10:32 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court took no action Tuesday in the case involving the District of Columbia's ban on handguns.

The justices discussed the case at their private conference on Friday, but reached no resolution.

Four justices must vote to grant an appeal. The court does not always reach a decision the first time it discusses a case.

At issue is the capital's 31-year ban on handguns, among the strictest gun-control laws in the nation. In March, a federal appeals court struck down the ban as incompatible with the Second Amendment.

The next time the court could announce its decision about hearing the case is Nov. 26.

The case is District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290.

    Court Takes No Action in Guns Case, NYT, 13.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Scotus-Guns.html

Five Dead in Calif. Shooting

November 12, 2007
Filed at 4:25 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

TEMECULA, Calif. (AP) -- A shooting at a house on a quiet suburban cul-de-sac left five people dead in what authorities said could be a murder-suicide.

Police officers responding to a call of shots fired at about 5:20 p.m. Sunday found two men and two women shot dead at a house on a cul-de-sac, Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said.

A fifth victim, a woman, was taken to a local hospital where she later died, he said. Gutierrez said investigators believed one of the victims was also the shooter.

Two of the victims were found inside the house, and the other three on a patio outside, Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said neighbors told investigators that all five people lived at the house. None of the victims have been identified.

The shooting brought temporary chaos to the usually quiet street next to a golf course in a neighborhood full of retirees.

''I was in the kitchen cooking. I heard bam. I thought it was a golf ball,'' neighbor Maureen Fowler, 54, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise. ''Then I heard, bam bam bam. That sounded like gunshots to me. Then I heard all the sirens and saw the tape.''

Temecula is about 50 miles north of San Diego.

    Five Dead in Calif. Shooting, NYT, 12.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Five-Killed.html

Oregon teacher loses fight to take gun to class

Fri Nov 9, 2007
7:13pm EST
Reuters

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - An Oregon high school English teacher will not be allowed to carry her gun to school, a state circuit court ruled on Friday in a decision closely watched by both sides of the gun debate.

Shirley Katz, who has a legal permit to carry a concealed handgun, argued she needed the Glock semi-automatic pistol to protect herself from her ex-husband. She sued the school district when it told her carrying a gun was against a district policy prohibiting guns.

Circuit Judge G. Philip Arnold agreed with the district, saying "The District has a right to enforce this policy." he noted that employees "accept their jobs subject to, and knowing, the policy."

"We are pleased," said Dr. Phil Long, superintendent of the Medford School District. "This case was a distraction from our real mission, which is educating children."

The teacher had support from pro-gun rights groups. In light of multiple school shootings, some gun advocates have argued that teachers, and maybe even students, should be armed to prevent such tragedies in the future.

In April, a student shot dead 32 people at Virginia Tech University and earlier this week a gun-wielding student killed eight people at a high school in Finland.

"I was not particularly surprised," said Kevin Starrett, executive director of the Oregon Firearms Federation, whose group paid the teacher's legal bills and is discussing an appeal.
 

(Reporting by Theresa Carson, editing by Mary Milliken and Todd Eastham)

    Oregon teacher loses fight to take gun to class, R, 9.11.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0938888020071110

Suspect in Philly Officer Killing Caught

November 6, 2007
Filed at 11:41 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The suspect in the slaying of a police officer during a doughnut shop robbery was peacefully apprehended early Tuesday at a homeless shelter in Florida, police said.

The search for John Lewis, 21, had extended to Florida after investigators learned he had boarded a bus for there during the weekend, police said. Workers at the Miami Rescue Mission and a separate caller to 911 alerted local authorities he was at the mission's shelter, Miami Police Chief John Timoney said.

Lewis is suspected of shooting Officer Chuck Cassidy during an armed robbery last Wednesday at a Dunkin' Donuts. Cassidy, 54, died Thursday morning. Two other Philadelphia officers were shot last week in separate attacks; they survived.

Miami police Officer Gil Gonzalez said Lewis ''seemed kind of relieved'' when taken into custody and confirmed he was the man in the mug shot widely circulated over the weekend.

Officers waited for shelter workers to escort Lewis out of the shelter's chapel, Timoney said. He was carrying a Bible.

''The tactics and the restraint used by these officers were remarkable,'' Timoney said. ''Anything could have gone wrong. They used their brains.''

Lewis was being questioned by Miami police, and Philadelphia police detectives were on their way to Florida, said Timoney, a former Philadelphia police commissioner.

Witnesses said a gunman entered the doughnut shop and demanded money just before Cassidy, a regular customer, arrived to buy coffee. The gunman spun around and shot the uniformed officer in the head before he could react.

Portions of a videotape released by police showed a hooded robber grabbing the fallen officer's pistol as he fled. Officials said they had received numerous tips before naming Lewis as the suspect over the weekend.

Lewis was arrested in 2005 on drug charges and placed in a treatment program that he completed in February. The drug charges and a 2006 attempted theft charge were then withdrawn. In June, he was again arrested on drug charges; that case is pending.

A private viewing for Cassidy was scheduled Tuesday, with a public viewing and funeral service scheduled downtown on Wednesday.

------

Associated Press writer Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami contributed to this report.

    Suspect in Philly Officer Killing Caught, NYT, 6.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Officers-Shot.html

Military Burial Blocked Due to Killings

November 5, 2007
Filed at 2:01 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- The burial planned Monday for a former Marine in a national cemetery was postponed after cemetery officials learned he was apparently in a double murder-suicide.

Robert Herring, 44, dropped three of his stepchildren off at school on Oct. 30, then returned home and shot their mother, 34-year-old Leslie Arangilan, and her daughter, 17-year-old Jade Arangilan, and killed himself, police said.

Herring's burial was scheduled for noon Monday at Beaufort National Cemetery, but rules governing military burials say a person convicted of a capital crime -- or who has evaded conviction by death or escape -- is not eligible for burial at a veterans' cemetery, said director Bernie Bowse.

He said he postponed the burial on Sunday after learning of the circumstances of Herring's death.

''We've put the burial on hold, just so that our regional council can confirm the facts of the case,'' Bowse said. He said he expected a final decision Tuesday on whether Herring can be buried at Beaufort.

About 225 people attended a funeral service for Herring on Sunday, according to Walker Posey, funeral director at the Stephen D. Posey Funeral Home in North Augusta.

Herring's obituary did not say how long he served in the military.

    Military Burial Blocked Due to Killings, NYT, 5.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bodies-Found-Burial.html

Student Attempts Suicide

at La. School

November 5, 2007
Filed at 11:41 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

RIVER RIDGE, La. (AP) -- A 13-year-old student shot himself in a suicide attempt on the campus of a private school in a New Orleans suburb Monday morning, officials said.

The boy was taken to a hospital, where he was breathing and his blood pressure was stable, said J.T. Curtis, acting headmaster at John Curtis Christian School.

No other children were injured or endangered, said school spokesman Bob Eutsler. He described it as an attempted suicide.

Curtis said the shooting happened minutes before the start of classes. ''One of the young ladies heard a noise. She went back there, and saw him sitting there,'' Curtis said.

There are no metal detectors at the school, which has 450-500 students and has had no other problems involving guns, Curtis said.

Curtis said classes continued, but an assembly was planned later in the day and members of the clergy went to classes to speak with students.

    Student Attempts Suicide at La. School, NYT, 5.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-School-Shooting.html