| Welcome to Zatalounge Zatalounge is a chat forum provided for those who wish to present their personal views, opinions, or insights on all sorts of topics. Everyone has an opinion and they don't always agree. This website seeks to promote differences of opinion and discussions among users so that everyone gets to have their say. Become a registered member or be our guest. It's your choice! |
| Another Mass Shooting | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 1 2015, 02:15 PM (258 Views) | |
| Guest | Oct 1 2015, 02:15 PM Post #1 |
|
Unregistered
|
Preliminary information indicates 10 people were killed and more than 20 others injured in a shooting at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College on Thursday, said Oregon State Police spokesman Bill Fugate. Douglas County Commissioner Chris Boice told CNN that the shooter is in custody. |
|
|
| Tybee | Oct 1 2015, 03:17 PM Post #2 |
|
The crazies are running wild in the streets. |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 1 2015, 03:23 PM Post #3 |
|
Unregistered
|
And MPC will stop by to declare it a CIA conspiracy/false flag in 3...2... |
|
|
| Tybee | Oct 1 2015, 03:23 PM Post #4 |
|
http://news.yahoo.com/shooting-umpqua-community-college-oregon-182211198.html |
![]() |
|
| Erna | Oct 1 2015, 03:37 PM Post #5 |
|
CIA military intelligence operatives don't have much imaginatia - Columbine 1,2,3,4,5,6, etc. But what can you expect from people who have never worked for a living. |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 1 2015, 04:07 PM Post #6 |
|
Unregistered
|
Did the person or people who did this get shot, or commit self euthanasia? |
|
|
| Deleted User | Oct 1 2015, 05:11 PM Post #7 |
|
Deleted User
|
That took a whole hour and 22 minutes! You're slipping, girl. |
|
|
| Deleted User | Oct 1 2015, 05:14 PM Post #8 |
|
Deleted User
|
I suppose we can't fault the tinhat loonies like MPC too much. Like religion, conspiracies give us peace and solace in a random, violent world. It is comforting to believe a single entity like the evil government is always plotting than to accept that some people are just vicious animals who will snap and kill you at any time. |
|
|
| Tybee | Oct 1 2015, 05:16 PM Post #9 |
|
The shooter is dead. http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/police-the-shooter-is-deceased/vi-AAf15Y7 |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 1 2015, 06:12 PM Post #10 |
|
Unregistered
|
Mr. Schoolmarm, what do the folks in Europe think about us to see these as common place now? |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 1 2015, 06:31 PM Post #11 |
|
Unregistered
|
It's not that but I'm not surprised that they want gun laws to change here. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/obama-gun-laws-must-be-changed-gun-owners-must-speak-up/ar-AAf11mv?li=BBkWgwN&ocid=mailsignout Obama: Gun laws must be changed, gun owners must speak up WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Thursday angrily called for stricter U.S. gun laws after the latest mass murder in Oregon and took aim at the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby for blocking reform. Appearing in the White House briefing room with a grim expression and an angry tone, Obama said it was not enough to offer prayers after major shootings continued to occur regularly throughout the country. "As I said just a few months ago, and I said just a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough," Obama told reporters after the latest shooting at a community college in which 13 people were killed and some 20 people were wounded. "It's not enough," he said. Nodding to the arguments that such shootings are often committed by the mentally ill, Obama said it was clear that anyone who commits such crimes had a "sickness in their minds." "But we are not the only country on Earth who has people with mental illnesses who want to do harm to other people," he said. "We are the only advanced country on Earth who sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months." Obama spoke mainly without notes, angrily anticipating the arguments that gun advocates would brandish in the wake of the shooting. He said he knew his opponents would criticize him for politicizing a tragedy. "This is something we should politicize," he said, calling on Americans of all political stripes to hold their elected leaders accountable for acting on the issue. Obama called on gun owners who use weapons for hunting, sport and protection to question whether the gun lobby represented their views. He did not mention the National Rifle Association by name, but his comments were clearly directed at that organization, which has broad political influence in Washington. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden made a concerted push for broad gun control reforms after the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut school shooting of young children that shocked the country. They were unsuccessful. Obama said he would continue to bring up the need for reform every time such a shooting took place, but the White House has made clear that it was unlikely to attempt another broad push on gun control through the Republican-led U.S. Congress. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 1 2015, 06:32 PM Post #12 |
|
Unregistered
|
I wonder if it was on /b? Oregon shooting 'threat' may have circulated on social media A chain of messages posted to an anonymous chat board known for its explicit conversation threads and graphic images included an ominous warning on Wednesday evening not to go to school on Thursday "if you are in the northwest." The anonymous postings and numerous replies appeared on the site 4chan.org hours before a 20-year-old gunman opened fire at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, on Thursday, killing and wounding an as yet undetermined number of people. Reuters viewed the thread but could not verify its authenticity or whether it had any connection to Thursday's shooting. Emailed questions to federal law enforcement officials about the postings were not immediately answered. A comparable posting three years ago ahead of the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, was later discredited by police. "Some of you guys are alright," the thread began on Wednesday evening. "Don't go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest." The posting, since removed from the site, continued: "Happening thread will be posted tomorrow morning so long space robots." About four minutes later, the same poster continued: "Will post again in am, 10 min countdown. Won't say more to much to prepare." Other posters in the thread assumed that the original poster was going to shoot people at a school, and some of them egged him on, advising him on tactics and weapons, in a mildly sarcastic tone. CNN and other news outlets reported that authorities were investigating possible threats made on social media in advance of the attack. It is not uncommon for purported threats to circulate on social media forums in the aftermath of mass shootings. Authorities investigated a posting made on 4chan in advance of the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown that left 20 first graders and six educators dead. In that case, according to the Connecticut State Police final report on the attack, an unknown individual posted two days beforehand: "I'm going to kill myself on Friday and it will make the news. be watching at 9:00 am." Another anonymous individual asked "Where at?" to which the first individual responded: "I live in Connecticut, that's as much as I'll say." Police later determined the posting had no relation to the Newtown shooting, which was carried out by a 20-year-old gunman, Adam Lanza. 4chan, launched in 2003, was originally popular mostly among devotees of Japanese anime comic book art, but has since become associated with Internet subculture. It has 180,784 users. Registration is not required, nor it is possible, except for staff, according to its website. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 1 2015, 06:33 PM Post #13 |
|
Unregistered
|
http://gawker.com/5994549/the-virginia-mall-shooting-was-announced-in-advance-on-4chan![]() Minutes before an unidentified gunman opened fire at a Virginia mall on Friday afternoon, a user of the 4chan message boards seemingly announced his plans to undertake a mass shooting, providing exact details of the location and timing of the coming spree. "Hey /b/ it's time," he wrote at 1:52 p.m., addressing the anarchic and gleefully amoral /b/ subboard. (4chan has a high rate of turnover, and the thread has since been deleted, most likely automatically; we were provided with an archive and screenshots.) My name is neil Macinnis and I go to new river community college in Christiansburg Virgina. 10 minutes away from Virginia tech. I'm gonna give y'all the details because the news never gets it right. Stevens 320 shotgun. Buck shots and slugs Wanna listen? Www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/9365/?rl=rr. If tha doesn't work search New river valley public safety. I'm a bit nervous because I've never really handled a shotgun but a few times with the Christiansburg police. Anyways this is not a highscores game but actually a lesson (that's why I'm at school). Wanna see my eportfolio/what I look like? Www.nrccstudents.org/macinnisn/ Make sure there is a slash at end. Also pic related I'm here at school writing this. Wish me luck. An heroing [suicide — Ed.] is not necessary unless I get fucked out the ass. It's pretty busy New River Community College has a satellite location in the New River Valley Mall. Around three minutes after the posting, Christianburg police received a 911 call that someone was at the college site with a gun. The shooter managed to injure two women—both now in the hospital—before being taken into custody. Police have indicated that they believe the shooter, who has not been publicly identified, was acting alone. We have reached out to Christiansburg Police, and the contact information on Neil MacInnis' website, and will update when we hear back. Update: Authorities have identified the shooter as Neil MacInnis, 18. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 1 2015, 06:34 PM Post #14 |
|
Unregistered
|
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3256735/Don-t-school-tomorrow-northwest-Disturbing-warning-message-appears-4Chan-night-shooting-Oregon-college.html
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3256735/Don-t-school-tomorrow-northwest-Disturbing-warning-message-appears-4Chan-night-shooting-Oregon-college.html#ixzz3nMWc4B7P Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook |
|
|
| Erna | Oct 2 2015, 02:56 AM Post #15 |
|
The shooter is dead, as usual, to prevent any inconvenient testimony/investigatia at a trial. The government is not evil because you have no government. What you have is a police state controlled by the owners of the Fed who give the orders to their stooges (aka politicians/Congress/military)in order to facilitate their criminal program. |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 03:08 AM Post #16 |
|
Unregistered
|
What do you think happened with the Colorado theater shooter who was not killed and put on trial? |
|
|
| Tybee | Oct 2 2015, 07:29 AM Post #17 |
|
Gun control in the US sounds great in theory, but someone please explain to me how gun control could have kept this lunatic from getting his hands on a gun and killing all those people. IMO no amount of gun control will stop someone who really wants a gun from getting one. There are reportedly many millions of illegal guns in this country. If the US government implemented the most stringent gun control laws on earth does anyone think those illegal guns are all going to magically go away? No they won't. In fact we'd end up with the criminals and crazies having most of the guns. |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 09:29 AM Post #18 |
|
Unregistered
|
Sadly, you are absolutely correct. Couldn't have said it better. ^^^ |
|
|
| Erna | Oct 2 2015, 12:13 PM Post #19 |
|
The per capita murders by gun in the USA are among the lowest in the world, despite the media hysteria. |
![]() |
|
| Erna | Oct 2 2015, 12:14 PM Post #20 |
|
what were you told happened? |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 12:15 PM Post #21 |
|
Unregistered
|
He went crazy and shot people, and had planned it out. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 12:35 PM Post #22 |
|
Unregistered
|
That's very true that if they outlawed gun ownership in the United States that the criminals and crazy people would only get them. Plus such things do not actually get rid of guns, since if someone really wants a gun they will go and buy one on the black market. I doubt most people that own a gun or firearms would actually give them up. I grew up with guns. The gun my father owned was some decade old target rifle he bought at Sears in the mid or late 40s or very early 50s, and it was disassembled and I had never seen it fired. I also had friends who had BB guns and we would go with their parents and shoot at empty cans and bottles and I learned about gun safety from them and while in the BSA. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 12:46 PM Post #23 |
|
Unregistered
|
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-shooter-said-to-have-singled-out-christians-for-killing-in-%E2%80%98horrific-act-of-cowardice%E2%80%99/ar-AAf2dui?li=AAa0dzB Oregon shooter said to have singled out Christians for killing in ‘horrific act of cowardice’ ROSEBURG, Ore. — Investigators including cyber-experts and hate crime specialists peered Friday into the life of a 26-year-old gunman whose massacre across an Oregon campus may have been driven by religious rage and a fascination with the twisted notoriety of high-profile killers. What is known so far about the attacker — identified by a U.S. law enforcement official as Chris Harper Mercer — appear only as loose strands that suggested an interest in firearms and the infamy gained by mass shooters. Witnesses also said he seemed to seek specific revenge against Christians, and police examined Web posts that hinted of wider antipathy toward organized faith. But authorities still struggled to build a clearer picture at what drove the California-raised Mercer to stalk rural Umpqua Community College — armed with three pistols and a semiautomatic rifle — and methodically pick off students and professors Thursday on the fourth day of the fall semester. At the end, nine people were dead, plus Mercer, and the college joined the mournful roster of America’s mass shooting sites. [Shooter left behind online portrait of a lonely youth with a grudge] <p>Hannah Miles (centro) se reencuentra con su hermana, Hailey Miles (izq.), y su padre. Gary Miles (der.), después del tiroteo.</p> Previous SlideNext Slide 1/28 SLIDES © STEVE DIPAOLA/Newscom/Reuters At least 10 people were killed and seven others were wounded after a 26-year-old gunman, identified as Chris Harper Mercer, opened fire inside Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, U.S., on Oct. 1, 2015. He was shot dead following a gunfire with the police. Here is a look at the latest images from the college and related reaction. (Pictured) People take part in a candlelight vigil on Oct. 1. At least 10 others were admitted for treatment at the Mercy Medical Center, said the chief medical officer, Jason Gray, on Friday. Three patients were transferred to larger facilities for more intensive care, he added. “The days and weeks ahead will be the most challenging” as the small community copes with the aftermath, Gray said. The names of those killed and wounded were not yet released nor would Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin name the shooter publicly, more out of rage than discretion. “I will not name the shooter,” he said at a news conference Thursday night. “I will not give him credit for this horrific act of cowardice. Media will get the name confirmed in time … but you will never hear us use it.” A gofundme fundraising page was started for one man believed to be a victim of the shooting, Christopher Mintz, an Army veteran who was shot seven times. The page, which includes a photo of Mintz lying in a hospital bed, was established by a man who identified himself as Derek Bourgeois, a cousin of Mintz’s. Bourgeois said he grew up with Mintz in Randleman, N.C. Relatives told CNN that Mintz tried to block the door of a classroom and was shot three times. When the shooter made his way in, Mintz told them that Thursday was his son’s sixth birthday and was shot at least twice more. Mintz was wounded in the back, stomach, hands and legs, according to the report. The gofundme page says that “yesterday my cousin Chris Mintz was shot 7 times while trying to protect others from the gunman at Umpqua Community College.” It adds that “during the shooting both of his legs were broken and he is going to have to go through a ton of physical therapy.” The transition from the anonymity of “before” to the notoriety of “after” took just about 10 terrifying minutes, during which the shooter strode through a school building armed with three pistols and a semiautomatic rifle. Clad in a dark shirt and jeans, driven by a motive that is still unknown, he methodically sprayed bullets into classrooms full of students, who hid behind desks and desperately tried to block doors that didn’t lock. In one classroom, he appeared to single out Christian students for killing, according to witness Anastasia Boylan. “He said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,'” Boylan’s father, Stacy, told CNN, relaying his daughter’s account while she underwent surgery to treat a gunshot to her spine. “And then he shot and killed them.” Another account came from Autumn Vicari, who described to NBC News what her brother J.J. witnessed in the room where the shootings occurred. According to NBC: “Vicari said at one point the shooter told people to stand up before asking whether they were Christian or not. Vicari’s brother told her that anyone who responded ‘yes’ was shot in the head. If they said ‘other’ or didn’t answer, they were shot elsewhere in the body, usually the leg.” The violence stopped only after authorities exchanged gunfire with Mercer. At 10:47 a.m. local time Thursday, the end was announced over the police scanner: The suspect was down. The scraps of information about Mercer uncovered so far did not fit together easily and much remained unconfirmed, including reports that he had forecast some act of violence in Oregon in a dark corner of the Internet known as 4chan, a report being investigated by federal authorities, according to the New York Times. But a murky portrait was emerging of a quiet and withdrawn young man who struggled to connect with other people, instead seeking attention online, and who harbored anger against organized religion. Thursday’s rampage was the latest in a series of mass shootings that have produced national revulsion, even as they have left Republicans and Democrats divided over whether such violence should lead to stricter gun laws. The campus shootings came three months after nine people were gunned down at a historic African American church in Charleston, S.C. One group that tracks gun violence, the Mass Shooting Tracker, said it was the 294th death or injury from a shooting involving four or more people in the United States this year — a rate of more than one victim a day. School shootings have figured prominently in this series of tragedies, including the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings and the deaths of 20 children in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. From Washington, a visibly frustrated President Obama offered prayers for the victims and their families and quickly pivoted to repeat his call for stricter gun-safety laws, something he has done throughout his presidency to no avail. “Each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough,” he said. “It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. It does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America.” But in Douglas County, a rural region where hunting is popular and crime rates are low, support for gun rights is strong. “I carry to protect myself — the exact same reason this happened,” Casey Runyan, a disabled Marine Corps veteran who now lives in the area, told the Associated Press. He told the AP he brings a Glock-29 pistol wherever he goes. Hanlin, the Douglas County sheriff, sent a letter to Vice President Biden in 2013, after the shootings in Newtown renewed the debate about gun control. Hanlin said that proposed restrictions would be “irresponsible and an indisputable insult to the American people,” and he and his deputies would refuse to enforce them. For Thursday night, at least, attention was mainly on the victims. In a ritual that has repeated itself many times in other places over the past few years, people gathered at the Douglas County Fairgrounds where evacuees from the school had been taken to meet their families. With darkness falling, the site of reunions became a base for an anxious vigil. A chaplain led a group prayer. Families missing a member clung to one another. Friends stood by and struggled to stave off dread. “It’s agonizing to be here and just wait,” said Sarah Cobb, 17, a UCC student who had survived the shooting by ducking under her desk but was still waiting to hear about some of her classmates and friends. “The longer people sit in there, the more they know it is going to be bad,” she said, referring to a gathering of investigators and FBI agents in a small building at the fairgrounds. “But you’re just praying and hoping that it’s not.” People take part in candlelight vigil following a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon October 1, 2015. © REUTERS/Steve Dipaola People take part in candlelight vigil following a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon October 1, 2015. [Grief and uncertainty at the vigil: ‘Pretty much just total shock’] All day Thursday, local and federal law enforcement officials swarmed Umpqua’s small campus, a modest collection of about a dozen buildings largely unprotected by gates or walls. Umpqua, one of 17 community colleges in Oregon, has about 2,000 students and about 200 full- and part-time faculty members. Federal data suggests Umpqua is a quiet campus; the only crimes reported there in recent years have been an occasional burglary and, in 2013, an aggravated assault. After a 2006 incident in which one student was shot by another at Roseburg High School, local institutions — including UCC — hired security guards, according to the Eugene Register-Guard. Those security guards are unarmed, interim college President Rita Calvin told the newspaper. The campus is a gun-free zone. Investigators also fanned out across two states where Mercer lived, questioning family members and former neighbors, sifting through social media postings and obscure Internet forums in search of some clues about what happened, and why. Public records showed no previous brushes with law enforcement by Mercer. Social media accounts attributed to him, including a MySpace page and an online dating profile, offer hints of his interests — the Irish Republican Army, punk rock music, an antipathy toward religion — but little real insight. According to reports, authorities are investigating a conversation on the message board 4chan posted Wednesday evening. The site is notorious for staging online hoaxes, in addition to cat memes, hackings and Internet attacks. But the conversation, if authentic, appears to show a gunman’s plans for a shooting. “Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest,” the post reads. Mercer grew up in California, where he attended the Switzer Learning Center for students with disabilities. Rick Rada, a former classmate, recalled Mercer as quiet, cheerful and non-violent. “To me Chris was just an ordinary guy, really. He was one of the silent types like me,” Rada told The Washington Post. “… But we got along with our teachers. He opened up with the teachers, talked to them, had fun.” Former neighbors in Torrance, Calif., a beachside city just south of Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times that Mercer liked to practice target shooting and tended to act “anxious or nervous,” as Rosario Espinoza put it. He and his mother, Laurel Harper, mostly kept to themselves, except for occasional disputes over bugs or loud noises. Espinoza’s mother, Rosario Lucumi, recalled thinking it “strange” that Harper referred to her son as “baby.” [Umpqua, Ore.: Where unemployment is high and gun rights are precious] Mercer moved to Oregon with his mother a year or two ago, according to public records. It’s not clear if and how he may have been affiliated with Umpqua Community College, though a student told CNN that she took a theater class with Mercer, and a “Chris Harper-Mercer” is listed as a production assistant on the Facebook page of a UCC fall show. His father, Ian Mercer, still lives in Los Angeles. He stepped outside his home there briefly on Thursday night to say that he had spent the day speaking with law enforcement and could not answer questions about his son or the shooting. “Shocked is all I can say,” he told reporters. “It’s been a devastating day.” Gloria Buhring, a neighbor at the Winchester, Ore., apartment complex where Mercer appeared to have lived, said police officers swarmed the area Thursday, blocking much of the complex off with police tape. Buhring didn’t know Mercer. But on Wednesday, she returned home to find a previously empty dumpster “overflowing with stuff that looked like it had been moved from an apartment,” she told The Washington Post. “It looked like somebody had gotten rid of a lot of stuff and left.” Another Winchester neighbor, Bronte Hart, told Seattle TV station KIRO that Mercer would “sit by himself in the dark in the balcony with this little light.” Hart said a woman she believed to be Mercer’s mother lived with him and was “crying her eyes out” Thursday. Steven Fisher, who also lives nearby, described Mercer as “skittish.” “His demeanor, the way he moved, always looking around,” Fisher told CNN. “I got a bad vibe from him.” Those words — “silent,” “skittish,” “strange” — come up a lot in answers to questions about Mercer. But not “violent.” No one interviewed who knew him said they suspected that he might be the type of person to fire into a classroom full of college students. The attack started just after 10:30 a.m. local time, when students in Snyder Hall — a modest building in the southeast part of campus where science and English classes are held — heard a sudden popping noise. Some were bewildered by the noises. But Cobb, a 17-year-old who heard the sound from her Writing 121 class in Snyder, recognized them immediately. Gunshots. “I grew up hunting, so by then I knew what it was,” she told The Washington Post. Cobb screamed to her teacher that they all needed to get out, and the instructor opened the door onto chaos: students running, a teacher crying, a man screaming for someone to call 911. Cobb left her phone, her backpack and all of her belongings in the classroom and then ran out of the building, tripping her way down the stairs. “There was so much screaming you knew it was serious,” she said. “I was terrified. I was sprinting. You could hear the gunshots echoing in the hall.” Cobb had just moved to Roseburg from Eugene a few months earlier, and she didn’t know anyone in her class. “I think everyone in my room escaped,” she said. “But you know right away that wasn’t going to be the same next door.” One of Cobb’s classmates, 19-year-old Hannah Miles, told the Eugene Register-Guard that she followed her instructor and several other classmates to the school bookstore, where an employee called 911. The report came in at 10:38 a.m: “Active shooter at UCC,” the dispatcher said. While police, paramedics and first responders went into action, Mercer continued his rampage on campus. Anastasia Boylan, the witness being treated for a spinal injury, told her family that the gunman entered her classroom firing, according to CNN. “I’ve been waiting to do this for years,” he told the professor. Then he shot the man point blank. According to Boylan’s account, as retold by her family, everyone in the classroom dropped to the ground. Mercer reloaded his weapon, then asked students who were Christian to stand up. They did so. That’s when he told them “you’re going to see God,” and fired, choosing to shoot others in the legs. Boylan, 18, survived by pretending to be dead. She’d been hit in the back and lay on the floor bleeding, according to CNN. When Mercer said, “Hey you, blonde woman,” she did nothing. Eventually, Boylan was rescued and airlifted to a Eugene hospital, where she is being treated for her injuries, her grandmother told the LA Times. In a room nearby, Cassandra Welding heard the percussive sounds of gunshots with horror. A classmate opened the door to look at what was happening, Welding told the LA Times, and was shot. “We were screaming, ‘Close the door! Close the door!'” Welding said. Someone dragged the injured woman back into the room and locked the door. Taking turns, classmates performed CPR on the woman, who had been shot in the torso. Her broken glasses lay on the floor near her, Welding told the LA Times. Blood was splattered on the walls. The students crawled toward the back of the room, away from the door. “I was so terrified for my life and I was shaking,” Welding said. While another classmate called 911, the 20-year-old phoned her mother. She wasn’t the only one. “I just heard other people in tears, crying, calling their loved ones and telling them, ‘I love you.'” she told the Times. “It was such a heart-wrenching thing.” Minutes after the initial 911 call, police arrived on campus. Their quick, deadly confrontation with gunman was reported over the police scanner. “We exchanged shots with him; he’s in a classroom on the east side of Snyder Hall,” an officer hurriedly informed the dispatcher. Then, minutes later: “The suspect is down. We’ve got multiple gun shot wounds. We’re going to need multiple ambulances on scene,” an officer urged. “… As many ambulances as possible. We have upwards of 20 victims.” Later in the day, that figure was revised down: 10 dead, including the gunman, and seven more wounded. Hanlin, the Douglas County sheriff, said at a Thursday night press conference that the victims likely won’t be identified for another 24 to 48 hours. Officials want to ensure that all families have been notified before releasing the names of those killed. Officials at Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg said the hospital had received 10 patients from the shooting. PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend, a hospital about 70 miles north of the school, said it had three female patients, one in critical condition and the other two in serious condition. The UCC campus will remain closed Friday, as officials continue to catalog and investigate the aftermath. Around Oregon, flags are being flown at half-staff. “Today was the saddest day in the history of the college,” Cavin said at a news conference Thursday. That evening, with their friends in the hospital, their campus a crime scene and the dead still nine nameless unknowns, hundreds of people gathered at a park in downtown Roseburg. Cheeks wet, candles clutched in their hands, mourners listened as professors, public officials and the college president urged them to think of the victims, and not the man who killed them. When the speeches were over, a chant went up: “We are UCC.” “After” was underway. Eli Saslow and Joseph Hoyt reported from Oregon. Brian Murphy, Michael Miller, Yanan Wang, Mark Berman and Jerry Markon contributed reporting from Washington. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 01:55 PM Post #24 |
|
Unregistered
|
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/probe-in-college-slayings-peers-into-web-rants-and-possible-religious-rage/ar-AAf2dui?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout Probe in college slayings peers into Web rants and possible religious rage ROSEBURG, Ore. — The gunman who cut a deadly path through a college campus appeared armed for an extended siege, a report said Friday, as investigators probed deeper into suspicions the shooter may have been driven by religious rage and a fascination with the twisted notoriety of high-profile killers. What is known so far about the attacker — identified by a U.S. law enforcement official as Chris Harper Mercer — appears mostly as loose strands that suggested an interest in firearms and the infamy gained by mass shooters. Witnesses also said he seemed to seek specific revenge against Christians, and police examined Web posts that hinted of wider antipathy toward organized faith. A sign expresses local people's sentiments following a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon October 1, 2015. A gunman opened fire at a community college in southwest Oregon on Thursday, killing nine people and wounding seven others before police shot him to death, authorities said, in the latest mass killing to rock an American campus. REUTERS/Steve Dipaola - RTS2ONCDouglas County Deputy Sheriff Greg Kennerly, left, and Oregon State Trooper Tom Willis, stand guard outside the apartment building, Friday Oct. 2 2015, where alleged Umpqua Community College gunman Chris Harper Mercer lived, in Roseburg, Ore. Armed with multiple guns, Harper, 26, walked in a writing class at the community college, Thursday, and opened fire, killing several and wounding several others. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)Student Anastasia Boylan, 18, who was shot in the back but survived the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., where gunman Chris Harper-Mercer, 26, killed nine people and injured several others Thursday morning before he was shot dead by police. She survived by playing dead and is undergoing spinal surgery. REX Shutterstock<p>Hannah Miles (centro) se reencuentra con su hermana, Hailey Miles (izq.), y su padre. Gary Miles (der.), después del tiroteo.</p> Previous SlideNext Slide 1/31 SLIDES © Steve Dipaola/Reuters A sign expresses local people's sentiments following a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., on Oct. 1, 2015. A gunman opened fire at the community college Thursday, killing nine people and wounding several others before police shot him to death, authorities said. An agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said at a news conference Friday that investigators had recovered 13 weapons, including six at the school. Also recovered there was a flak jacket with steel plates and and five magazines of ammunition. But authorities still struggled to build a clearer picture at what drove the California-raised Mercer to stalk rural Umpqua Community College and methodically pick off students and professors Thursday on the fourth day of the fall semester. He arrived heavily armed and outfitted: carrying three pistols, an assault-style rife, five magazines of extra ammo and wearing body armor, the Associated Press reported, citing information from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The arsenal included a 9mm Glock and .556-caliber Del-Ton carbine rifle, the AP said. When it was over, nine people were dead, plus Mercer, and the college joined the mournful roster of America’s mass shooting sites — and the backdrop for the latest debate about gun control. [274 days; 294 gun deaths or injuries] Thursday night, as police picked through Mercer’s apartment near campus, hundreds of people joined a candlelight vigil. Some sang along to “Amazing Grace” — the same hymn President Obama offered in June when Charleston was the focus of the nation’s grief and questions over another rampage. This time, Obama said collective grief was “not enough” and made an emotional appeal for a national groundswell toward stricter gun laws. Witnesses to the Oregon bloodshed described Mercer as questioning people at gunpoint about their religious affiliations, and appearing to single out Christians for killing. “He said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,’ ” said Stacy Boylan, recounting the account of his wounded daughter, Anastasia, who underwent surgery to treat a gunshot to her spine. “And then he shot and killed them,” he said. At least 10 others were admitted for treatment at the Mercy Medical Center, said the chief medical officer, Jason Gray. He said three patients were transferred to larger facilities for more intensive care. “Disbelief, anger, sadness, resolution” was how Gray described the emotions among the staff scene as the wounded arrived. [How the horror unfolded] Autumn Vicari, whose brother known as J.J. witnessed the shootings, told NBC News about the gruesome selection process Mercer imposed. According to NBC: “Vicari said at one point the shooter told people to stand up before asking whether they were Christian or not. Vicari’s brother told her that anyone who responded ‘yes’ was shot in the head. If they said ‘other’ or didn’t answer, they were shot elsewhere in the body, usually the leg.” The violence stopped only after authorities exchanged gunfire with Mercer. At 10:47 a.m., the end was announced over the police scanner: The suspect was down. One victim, Chris Mintz, a former Army infantryman, was shot three times as he tried to block the door and keep the gunman out of a classroom, according to his aunt, Wanda Mintz. Her newphew was knocked to the floor, looked back up at the gunman and tried to reason with him. “He hit the ground and looked up at him and said ‘It’s my son’s birthday, don’t do this,’” Mintz recounted, after speaking to the mother of Mintz’s child, who has been by his side at the hospital. “And the guy shot him at least two more times.” Mintz survived but suffered two broken legs among his wounds and will need extensive physical therapy, according to a gofundme page set up to raise money for him. As with many other shootings, investigators turned to the dark corners of the Web for possible clues on what pushed the attacker to move from words and images to deadly violence. [Why the gun debate won’t change] A Myspace page shows a photo believed to be Mercer sporting a crew cut and holding a rifle. The page includes posts extolling the Irish Republican Army. Other apparent social media pages linked to Mercer point to an interest in horror films and a possible blog post on Aug. 31 about the gunman Vester Flanagan, who killed two television news employees in Virginia a week earlier while they conducted a live broadcast. Flanagan, a former employee of the station, fatally shot himself after a police chase. “On an interesting note, I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are,” the post read, according to the Oregonian newspaper. [Shooter leaves behind hints of ire toward organized religion] “A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone,” it continued. “His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.” Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin — more out of anger than discretion — said he would not utter the assailant’s name. “I will not give him credit for this horrific act of cowardice,” said Hanlin, an outspoken critic of state and federal gun control proposals. “Media will get the name confirmed in time . . . but you will never hear us use it.” On another front, authorities are investigating a conversation on the message board 4chan posted Wednesday evening. The site is notorious for staging online hoaxes, in addition to cat memes, hackings and Internet attacks. But the conversation, if authentic, appears to include a warning. “Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest,” the post reads. [Video: Obama after the shooting] “Not Religious, Not Religious, but Spiritual” he wrote on one dating Web site, also listing membership in a group called “Doesn’t Like Organized Religion.” School shootings have figured prominently in this series of tragedies, including the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings and the deaths of 20 children in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Umpqua, one of 17 community colleges in Oregon, has about 2,000 students and about 200 full- and part-time faculty members. Federal data suggests Umpqua is a quiet campus; the only crimes reported there in recent years have been an occasional burglary and, in 2013, an aggravated assault. After a 2006 incident in which one student was shot by another at Roseburg High School, local institutions — including UCC — hired security guards, according to the Eugene Register-Guard. Those security guards are unarmed, interim college President Rita Calvin told the newspaper. The campus is a gun-free zone. People take part in candlelight vigil following a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon October 1, 2015. © REUTERS/Steve Dipaola People take part in candlelight vigil following a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon October 1, 2015. [A community in “total shock”] Mercer was born in Britain and came to the United States as a young boy. In California, he attended the Switzer Learning Center, which describes itself as a setting for students with “moderate to severe learning disabilities, emotional issues, attention problems and behavioral disorders.” Rick Rada, a former classmate, recalled Mercer as quiet, cheerful and calm. “To me Chris was just an ordinary guy, really. He was one of the silent types like me,” Rada told The Washington Post. “But we got along with our teachers. He opened up with the teachers, talked to them, had fun.” Former neighbors in Torrance, Calif., a beach-side city just south of Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times that Mercer liked to practice target shooting and tended to act “anxious or nervous,” as Rosario Espinoza put it. He and his mother, Laurel Harper, mostly kept to themselves, except for occasional disputes over bugs or loud noises. Espinoza’s mother, Rosario Lucumi, recalled thinking it “strange” that Harper referred to her son as “baby.” Mercer moved to Oregon with his mother a year or two ago, according to public records. It’s not clear if and how he may have been affiliated with Umpqua Community College, though a student told CNN that she took a theater class with Mercer, and a “Chris Harper-Mercer” is listed as a production assistant on the Facebook page of a UCC fall show. [The Fix: What is killing Americans?] His father, Ian Harper, still lives in Los Angeles. Harper stepped outside his home there briefly on Thursday night to say that he’d spent the day speaking with law enforcement and couldn’t answer questions about his son or the shooting. “Shocked is all I can say,” he told reporters. “It’s been a devastating day.” Gloria Buhring, a neighbor at the Winchester apartment complex where Mercer appeared to have lived, said police officers swarmed the area Thursday, blocking much of the complex off with police tape. Buhring didn’t know Mercer. But on Wednesday, she returned home to find a previously empty trash container “overflowing with stuff that looked like it had been moved from an apartment,” she told The Washington Post. “It looked like somebody had gotten rid of a lot of stuff and left.” Another Winchester neighbor, Bronte Hart, told Seattle TV station KIRO that Mercer would “sit by himself in the dark in the balcony with this little light.” Hart said a woman she believed to be Mercer’s mother lived with him and was “crying her eyes out” Thursday. Steven Fisher, who also lives nearby, described Mercer as “skittish.” “His demeanor, the way he moved, always looking around,” Fisher said. “I got a bad vibe from him.” The violence started just after 10:30 a.m., when students in Snyder Hall — a modest building in the southeast part of campus where science and English classes are held — heard a sudden popping noise. Some were bewildered by the noises. Sarah Cobb, a 17-year-old who heard the sound from her Writing 121 class in Snyder, recognized them immediately. “I grew up hunting, so by then I knew what it was,” she told The Washington Post. Cobb screamed to her teacher that they all needed to get out, and the instructor opened the door into chaos: students running, a teacher crying, a man screaming for someone to call 9-1-1. Cobb left her phone, her backpack and all of her belongings in the classroom, and then ran out of the building, tripping her way down the stairs. “There was so much screaming you knew it was serious,” she said. “I was terrified. I was sprinting. You could hear the gunshots echoing in the hall.” The UCC campus remained closed Friday. Around Oregon, flags are being flown at half-staff. Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown (D), said mass shootings “must end,” but urged for a pause to the political battles over gun control to give Roseburg time to heal. “It’s very clear these types of tragedies must end, not only here in Oregon, but across the country,” she told CNN. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 03:19 PM Post #25 |
|
Unregistered
|
Douglas County Deputy Sheriff Greg Kennerly, left, and Oregon State Trooper Tom Willis, stand guard outside the apartment building, Friday Oct. 2 2015, where alleged Umpqua Community College gunman Chris Harper Mercer lived, in Roseburg, Ore. Ore. shooting probe: Web rants, religious rage Police search students outside Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. after Thursday's deadly shooting. - Mike Sullivan/AP Police shootout with attacker caught on audio Chris Harper Mercer, the man identified as the gunman in the deadly rampage at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., on Thursday, was a withdrawn young man who neighbors said wore the same outfit every day — combat boots, green Army pants and a white T-shirt — and was close to his mother, who fiercely protected him. Neighbors in Winchester, Ore., and Torrance, Calif., where Mr. Mercer lived with his mother, Laurel Harper, remember a reclusive and seemingly fragile young man with a shaved head and dark glasses who seemed to recoil from social interaction. “He always seemed anxious,” said Rosario Lucumi, 51, who rode the same bus in Torrance as Mr. Mercer when she went to work. She said she believed he took it to school at El Camino College. “He always had earphones in, listening to music.” “He and his mother were really close,” said Ms. Lucumi, who estimated that Mr. Mercer and his mother, who shared a small, one-bedroom apartment in Torrance, lived there for less than a year. “They were always together.” Get Today’s Headlines by E-Mail Each Morning From The New York Times Community members attend a candlelight vigil at Stewart Park for those killed during a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015. © Michael Sullivan/The News-Review via AP Community members attend a candlelight vigil at Stewart Park for those killed during a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., Thursday, Oct. 1… Bryan Clay, 18, said he once asked Mr. Mercer why he wore “a military get-up” every day. “He kind of just didn’t want of talk about it” and changed the subject, Mr. Clay said. “He didn’t say anything about himself,” he added. Derrick McClendon, 42, another former neighbor, said that Mr. Mercer was so timid and ill at ease that on occasion he would ask him if anything was wrong. “I would say, ‘Hey man, you all right?’ ” Mr. McClendon said. “He would say hi, but that’s it. He was really shy.” Mr. Mercer appeared to have sought community on the Internet. A picture of him appeared on a MySpace page with a post expressing a deep interest in the Irish Republican Army. It included a video of footage from the conflict in Northern Ireland set to “The Men Behind the Wire,” an Irish republican song, and several pictures of gunmen in black balaclavas. Another picture showed the front page of An Phoblacht, the party newspaper of Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the I.R.A. In the offline world, Mr. Mercer’s mother sought to protect him from all manner of neighborhood annoyance, former neighbors in Torrance said, from loud children and barking dogs to household pests. Once, neighbors said, she went door to door with a petition to get the landlord to exterminate cockroaches in her apartment, saying they bothered her son. “She said, ‘My son is dealing with some mental issues, and the roaches are really irritating him,’ ” Julia Winstead, 55, said. “She said they were going to go stay in a motel. Until that time, I didn’t know she had a son.” Rosario Espinoza, 33, was once a neighbor of Mr. Mercer’s and moved into the apartment that the mother and son shared when the two moved from Torrance a couple of years ago. She said that the two “kept to themselves,” but that from time to time Mr. Mercer’s mother would complain that Ms. Espinoza’s young children were playing too loudly and bothering her son. “They’re normal children that play, but she would get really upset,” Ms. Espinoza said. “It was during the daytime. But I guess the noise would really upset him, the son.” Other neighbors said she would confront them about their barking dogs when they returned from work. “She would wait till they got home and knock on their door,” Kim Hermenegildo, 48, said. Ms. Espinoza said that she heard Mr. Mercer’s mother got a job in Oregon, prompting the family’s move north. Mr. Mercer and his mother shared an apartment in Winchester, a dun-colored building that sat roped off behind police tape on Thursday evening, guarded by sheriff’s deputies who shooed away reporters. Bronte Hart, a neighbor who said she lived in an apartment below Mr. Mercer’s, described a more assertive young man than his former neighbors in California. Far from avoiding social interaction, she said, he frequently shouted at her for smoking on her balcony. “He yelled at us, me and my husband,” said Ms. Hart, who lives in the building with her husband and father. “He was not a friendly type of guy. He did not want anything to do with anyone.” Ms. Hart and her father, Eli Loomas, said the authorities came to the apartment complex and began asking questions about Mr. Mercer on Thursday morning. A woman who may have been his mother also showed up, they said, and she appeared distraught. Another neighbor, a man in his 50s who declined to give his name, said that Mr. Mercer lived on the second floor of the three-story building with his mother. He said he believed they were both students. “Chris was a good kid, you know,” he said, adding that he had only spoken to Mr. Mercer briefly over the last few years. “He’s always been polite to me.” When asked if he had ever seen Mr. Mercer with firearms, the man demurred. “I’d rather not say,” he said. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/gunman-is-recalled-as-a-recluse-close-to-his-mother/ar-AAf1bxR?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout |
|
|
| Erna | Oct 2 2015, 03:49 PM Post #26 |
|
We love the way, from 911 to Columbine to this, that the media instantly has the entire story about the 'shooter', maybe because their script was already written! |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 05:21 PM Post #27 |
|
Unregistered
|
In what ways is this true? |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 2 2015, 05:27 PM Post #28 |
|
Unregistered
|
Do you believe that the shooting at Sandy hook was fake or a drill like some do?
|
|
|
| Guest | Oct 3 2015, 02:11 AM Post #29 |
|
Unregistered
|
I read articles that said the Oregon shooter is muslim. |
|
|
| Erna | Oct 3 2015, 04:12 AM Post #30 |
|
We have no idea since we were not there. Since the media/government are nearly 100% liars it is useless to believe anything they tell you to believe. |
![]() |
|
| Tybee | Oct 3 2015, 07:09 AM Post #31 |
|
This article claims he was an aspie. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3257921/Oregon-college-gunman-kicked-Army-2008-emerges-police-seven-weapons-home-six-guns-school-including-assault-rifle-THREE-pistols-used-massacre.html |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 3 2015, 10:06 AM Post #32 |
|
Unregistered
|
^^^ I grew up with someone who is an aspie. He never hurt anyone else but to say he's more than a bit odd or weird is putting it lightly. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 3 2015, 10:11 AM Post #33 |
|
Unregistered
|
Harper-Mercer's social media profiles suggested he was fascinated by the Irish Republican Army and frustrated by traditional organized religion. He also tracked other mass shootings. In one post, he appeared to urge readers to watch the online footage of Vester Flanagan shooting two former colleagues live on TV in August in Virginia, noting "the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight." He may have even posted a warning. A message on 4chan — a forum where racist and misogynistic comments are frequent — warned of an impending attack, but it's unclear if it came from Harper-Mercer. "Some of you guys are alright. Don't go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest," an anonymous poster wrote a day before the shootings. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 3 2015, 10:12 AM Post #34 |
|
Unregistered
|
Very true. |
|
|
| Erna | Oct 3 2015, 10:17 AM Post #35 |
|
The master Criminals want to dis-arm Americans because they are well aware that weapons are the last defense against tyranny. |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 3 2015, 10:28 AM Post #36 |
|
Unregistered
|
I have heard that this is why certain politicians want to ban guns here. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 3 2015, 10:29 AM Post #37 |
|
Unregistered
|
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mom-of-oregon-shooter-bragged-about-her-arsenal-of-weapons-online-report/ar-AAf3vsq?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout Mom of Oregon shooter bragged about her arsenal of weapons online: report The mother of the rage-filled loner who shot and killed nine people at an Oregon community college blasted opponents of open-carry laws and bragged about her personal arsenal of weapons online, according to reports. Laurel Harper, a nurse who shared an apartment near the Umpqua Community College campus with her troubled 26-year-old son Chris Harper Mercer, boasted on Facebook that she owned a stockpile of handguns and assault rifles, according to vocativ.com. “And when the mood strikes, and as long as we’re tossing around brand names, I sling an AR, Tek-9 or AK over my shoulder, or holster a Glock 21 (not 22), or one of my other handguns, like the Sig Sauer P226, and walk out the door,” Harper bragged. “I find the shotguns are a little too cumbersome to open carry.” The Facebook post was in response to comments about open-carry laws. Harper and Mercer moved to Winchester, Oregon, from Torrance, California, around 2013, neighbours and officials said. Former neighbours that knew the pair in California said that Mercer kept to himself, but if he did talk, it would be as if he was having a temper tantrum. But many described Harper as the opposite, outgoing, chatty and looking to make a new start in Oregon. Harper hid her love for weaponry beneath her sunny exterior, and even argued that open-carry laws would not work everywhere. "You can’t be that naive, can you? It’s ridiculously easy to understand the apprehension associated with open carry. I moved from So. Calif. to Oregon, from Southern Crime-a-mania to open carry. An open carry law won’t work everywhere,” Harper wrote. Officials said her son was heavily armed when he arrived on the campus Thursday morning, carrying a half-dozen weapons with him. Seven other weapons were recovered from the home the mother and son shared, officials said. The killer asked his victims if they were Christian before shooting them at point blank range, witnesses said. Mercer died in a shootout with police shortly after the gunfire began at 10:38 a.m. Thursday. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 3 2015, 07:14 PM Post #38 |
|
Unregistered
|
Survivor: Gunman spared student to take package to police 1 / 20 Associated Press Associated Press By GOSIA WOZNIACKA and TAMI ABDOLLAH 1 hr ago SHARE Why Japanese kids can walk to school alone Chris Mintz Fundraiser for Ore. shooting hero raises more than $650K Sheriff's deputies man a roadblock on the road leading to Umpqua Community College Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. © John Locher/AP Photo Sheriff's deputies man a roadblock on the road leading to Umpqua Community College Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. ROSEBURG, Ore. — As a 26-year-old killer gunned down victims inside a college classroom, he spared one student and gave him a package to deliver to authorities, according to the grandmother of a student who witnessed the deadly rampage in Oregon. Gunman Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer later killed himself as officers arrived, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said Saturday. The grandmother, Janet Willis, said her granddaughter Anastasia Boylan was wounded in the Thursday attack and pretended to be dead as Harper-Mercer kept firing, killing eight students and a teacher. Willis said she visited her 18-year-old granddaughter in a hospital in Eugene, where the sobbing Boylan told her: "'Grandma, he killed my teacher! He killed my teacher! I saw it!'" Boylan also said the shooter told one student in the writing class to stand in a corner, handed him a package and told him to deliver it to authorities, Willis said. Authorities have not disclosed whether they have such a package, but a law enforcement official said a manifesto of several pages had been recovered. The official did not reveal the contents of the document but described it as an effort to leave a message for law enforcement. The official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to disclose information and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official said the document was left at the scene of the shooting but wouldn't specify how authorities obtained it. Boylan, a freshman at Umpqua Community College, also told her grandmother the gunman asked students about their faith. "If they said they were Christian, he shot them in the head," Willis said, citing the account given by her granddaughter. However, conflicting reports emerged about Harper-Mercer's words as he shot his victims. Stephanie Salas, the mother of Rand McGowan, another student who survived, said she was told by her son that the shooter asked victims whether they were religious but did not specifically target Christians. Her son said the shooter had people stand up before asking, "'Do you have a God? Are you Christian? Do you have a religion?'" Salas said it was like telling the victims "you're going to be meeting your maker." Salas said the gunman told victims "'this won't hurt very long'" before shooting them. Law enforcement officials have not given details about what happened in the classroom. However they released a timeline that shows police arrived at the scene six minutes after the first 911 call and exchanged gunfire with the shooter two minutes later. Harper-Mercer was enrolled in the class but officials have not disclosed a possible motive for the killings. In a statement released by authorities, his family said they were "shocked and deeply saddened" by the slayings. Harper-Mercer wore a flak jacket and brought at least six guns and five ammunition magazines when he went to the campus that morning. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin speaks during a news conference, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. Hanlin said that Christopher Harper-Mercer, the gunman that killed nine at Umpqua Community College, died from a self-inflicted wound. © Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin speaks during a news conference, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. Hanlin said that Christopher Harper-Mercer, the gunman that… The dead ranged in age from 18 to 67 and included several freshmen. They were sons and daughters, spouses and parents. Lucas Eibel, 18, was active in the Future Farmers of America and loved to play soccer. Kim Saltmarsh Dietz was a 59-year-old whose daughter was enrolled in the same school but was not injured the shooting. "We have been trying to figure out how to tell everyone how amazing Lucas was, but that would take 18 years," the family of Eibel said in a statement released through the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. The family of 18-year-old Quinn Glen Cooper said he had just started college and loved dancing and voice acting. "I don't know how we are going to move forward with our lives without Quinn," the Coopers said in a statement. Nine other people were wounded in the attack in Roseburg, a rural timber town about 180 miles south of Portland. Oregon's top federal prosecutor said the shooter used a handgun when he opened fire on classmates and had stashed a rifle in another room but did not fire it. Several years ago, Harper-Mercer moved to Winchester, Oregon, from Torrance, California, with his mother Laurel Harper, a nurse. At an apartment complex where Harper-Mercer and his mother lived in Southern California, neighbors remembered him as a quiet, odd young man who rode a red bike. Reina Webb, 19, said Harper-Mercer's mother was friendly and often chatted with neighbors, but her son kept to himself. Webb said she occasionally heard him having temper tantrums in his apartment. The Army said Harper-Mercer flunked out of basic training in 2008. Harper-Mercer's social media profiles suggested he was fascinated by the Irish Republican Army and frustrated by traditional organized religion. He also tracked other mass shootings. In one post, he appeared to urge readers to watch the online footage of Vester Flanagan shooting two former colleagues live on TV in August in Virginia, noting "the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight." ___ http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/survivor-gunman-spared-student-to-take-package-to-police/ar-AAf42dx?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 4 2015, 01:13 PM Post #39 |
|
Unregistered
|
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dont-say-his-name-oregon-community-wants-to-make-shooter-anonymous/ar-AAf4NsM?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout 'Don't say his name': Oregon community wants to make shooter anonymous Keith Weikum, a set builder and special effects operator for theater productions at Umpqua Community College, already had a skeptical expression when he opened his front door. The reporter standing outside asked him whether he knew a particular student who had signed up to be a production assistant on a play with Weikum. Weikum scowled. He did know that student. Not well. But he had seen the student's face splashed all over the TV news. Weikum shook his head as he spoke slowly and directly. "I don't know that name. I don't use that name," said Weikum, who had a specific suggestion instead. "Say: 'the shooter.'" To the bewildered and angered residents of Roseburg, the shooter who gunned down nine people at the community college on Thursday is a man with no name. The gunman, a newcomer to Oregon, forged an almost totally anonymous life in a town, population 21,968, where it can be hard to keep secrets. "For us, he was another guy who worked on a set," said Weikum's wife, Wendy Weikum, a local actress and a college trustee, who - following a community campaign to avoid focusing on the shooter - challenged a reporter to write a story that didn't mention the gunman's name. So, here's that story: The man's neighbors at his tan apartment building rarely saw him, and some had to be shown his photo for identification. Downstairs neighbor Eli Loomas just remembered the shooter as a guy with baggy pants who walked goofy. Few students knew the gunman, and those who did said he was low-key. For a survivor who had been in the classroom next door to where the man opened fire, junior Kendra Godon, it wasn't just that she had never seen the shooter before: She couldn't even remember whether she had seen him before. Jane Ortiz, who met the gunman when he attended the Switzer Learning Center in Torrance, recalled him as an awkward boy who was slow to respond when someone said hello. The center teaches students with special needs, learning disabilities and emotional issues. "He really didn't have a personality that was memorable," she said. Not much is known about what the shooter had been doing in Oregon since he moved from the Los Angeles area with his mother in 2013, and that's fine with many Roseburg residents. They don't know him, and they don't want to know him. "Let's heal and move forward, and not focus on this guy," said Keith Weikum. In recent years, several communities and officials around the country have called for similar restraint on using mass shooters' names in public. The argument holds that focusing on the gunmen takes attention from the victims and could encourage other people to commit massacres in hopes of elevating their lives out of anonymity. After a gunman killed two Virginia journalists on live television in August, a person who used the email associated with the Oregon attacker wrote in an online post: "I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. "A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day." The Oregon gunman apparently got his wish after the worst school shooting in the state's history. The Roseburg News-Review published his name and a 1-inch photo of his face on Friday's front page, below a large photo of the community at a vigil and the headline "UNITED IN GRIEF." News outlets across the nation also featured the gunman. But the News-Review met a furious backlash on the newspaper's Facebook page. "Way to slap your community in the face!" wrote a Facebook user, Val Kammeyer. "Our own local newspaper can't even back us up and respect our wishes!" Another user, Josh McDonald, added, "Since the news review decided to post the pic and the name we should refrain from buying their paper." His comment got 33 "likes." The next day, the News-Review resumed its coverage, but the shooter's name appeared nowhere in the paper. The front page featured the photos of the nine victims and their names in large font, as well as brief stories about their lives. Roseburg's anonymity campaign - appearing in hashtags like #dontsayhisname - has been driven in part by Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin, who told reporters, "You will never hear me say his name." That drew a rebuke from the editorial board for the state's largest newspaper, the Portland-based Oregonian, which pointed out that public identification served an essential purpose in criminal investigations, including Hanlin's. "Hanlin has been encouraging anyone who might have tips relating to the shootings to call 1-800-CALL-FBICall: 1-800-CALL-FBI," the editorial board wrote. But as a practical matter, the paper wrote, how can they pass along tips about the gunman "if they never know that he was the shooter?" That stand on the shooter's name aside, the Oregonian's story editors have felt the public pressure. The paper said Saturday it would limit use of the gunman's name and only use it "where it was needed for context." As it happened, according to the News-Review's publisher, Jeff Ackerman, his paper's omission of the shooter's name was unintentional. It will use the name in the future, he said. "Not sure how we follow the story without a name," Ackerman wrote in an email. "Evil has a name and a face. Hitler, Pol Pot, Charles Manson, etc. What do we call him when researching his 13 weapons, mental health issues, etc? 'Shooter Number Two'?" Umpqua Community College student Dylan Knapp knew and had gone to middle school and high school with slain students Lucero Alcaraz and Lucas Eibel, and had played basketball against another victim, Treven Taylor Anspach. When the News-Review printed the shooter's picture on the front page, Knapp tweeted a photo of the newspaper with the gunman's name and picture torn out. "Don't [expletive] say his name," Knapp wrote, getting retweeted by several students. "I don't really want to know anything about him at all," Knapp said in a private message to The Times. "I know that all that stuff is gonna come out and that people will have their theories on why he did it, but I myself have no desire to know anything about him. I want to know more about the victims." But Knapp also acknowledged that there was a gap between the public campaign against naming the gunman and the private conversations rippling through town, in cafes and among students, away from the out-of-town reporters and the cameras. Still, Knapp said, he knew plenty of students who said they didn't know the shooter, and "they didn't want to know him, either." |
|
|
| Tybee | Oct 4 2015, 01:33 PM Post #40 |
|
I was wondering at first what they hoped to accomplish by asking people to not mention his name, and then it hit me that even though the sick bastard is dead and can't enjoy the notoriety he must have wanted maybe it will help to dissuade other weirdos from thinking they can obtain their own level of fame by copying what he did. |
![]() |
|
| Erna | Oct 4 2015, 02:44 PM Post #41 |
|
We hope there are no shootings while we are attending Mass! |
![]() |
|
| Guest | Oct 4 2015, 06:27 PM Post #42 |
|
Unregistered
|
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fbi-profilers-to-help-explain-shooters-actions/ar-AAf5A19?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout FBI profilers to help explain shooter's actions ROSEBURG, Ore. — As many residents headed to church on a cool, clear Sunday morning, three days after a shooting at the community college here left nine dead plus the gunman, FBI profilers are beginning their efforts to help explain the shooter's actions. The gunman, Chris Mercer, 26, opened fire inside a classroom at Umpqua Community College shortly after 10:30 a.m. Thursday, authorities said. The gunman killed eight of his classmates and their instructor and wounded nine others before he committed suicide while exchanging gunfire with police at the scene. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said the FBI's Behavior Analysis Team will assist investigators in analyzing writings, documents and digital media seized from several locations, including the shooter's apartment about a mile from the college. Authorities say the gunman had access to 14 guns, although he carried only four of them during the shooting. "Primarily what we want to do is gain an understanding," Hanlin said. Victims' families, he said, "deserve to know the answers." Following the Aurora movie theater shooting in Colorado three years ago, prosecutors rejected a plea-bargain offer by that shooter on the grounds that a trial would flesh out his motivations, while also providing insight into whether anyone saw warning signs and tried to stop him. Hanlin, speaking to reporters Friday afternoon, declined to discuss specific items collected by investigators or to respond to media reports that the gunman handed items or some kind of manifesto to a fellow student before opening fire. Bonnie Schaan, the mother of Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, 16, who was wounded, said her daughter told her the gunman gave someone an envelope and told him to go to a corner of the classroom, the Associated Press reported. Mercer said the person “’was going to be the lucky one,’” Schaan told reporters outside a hospital where her daughter’s kidney was removed after she was shot, the AP said. Relatives of other survivors also said Mercer gave something to a student in the class. ~Randy Scroggins, a pastor whose 18-year-old daughter Lacey escaped without physical injuries, said she told him that the gunman called to a student, saying: “’Don’t worry, you’re the one who is going to survive,’” the AP said. Mercer then told the student that inside the shooter’s backpack was “all the information that you’ll need, give it to the police,” Scroggins said, citing the account by his daughter. Scroggins also said his daughter heard the gunman tell one victim he would spare that person’s life if the student begged, then shot the begging victim anyway, according to the AP. The sheriff's office provided a statement issued by the gunman's family: "We are shocked and deeply saddened by the horrific events that unfolded on Thursday, October 1. Our thoughts, our hearts and our prayers go out to all of the families of those who died and were injured. " As has become his custom, Hanlin refuses to speak the shooter's name aloud, a decision that helped reignite a debate about the media's potential complicity in mass shootings by angry young men seeking glory. Many Roseburg residents were upset when the killer's name and photo were splashed across newspaper front pages, arguing that the focus on his actions reduced the emphasis on his victims. The sheriff's office has identified the dead as: Lucero Alcaraz, 19, of Roseburg, whose sister posted on Facebook that she won scholarships to cover her college costs; Quinn Glen Cooper, 18, of Roseburg, whose family said he loved dancing and voice acting; Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59, an outdoors lover who was taking classes at the same time as her daughter; Lucas Eibel, 18, of Roseburg, who was studying chemistry and loved volunteering with animals; Jason Johnson, 33, whose mother told NBC News that he successfully battled drug abuse and was in his first week of college; Lawrence Levine, 67, of Glide, an assistant professor of English at the college; Sarena Dawn Moore, 44, of Myrtle Creek; Treven Taylor Anspach, 20, of Sutherlin, who apparently shielded a fellow classmate even as he lay dying, saving her life; and Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18, of Myrtle Creek. |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 5 2015, 07:18 PM Post #43 |
|
Unregistered
|
So in other words, girlfriend wasn't gettin any.
|
|
|
| Guest | Oct 5 2015, 07:31 PM Post #44 |
|
Unregistered
|
Mother of Oregon Gunman Wrote of Keeping Firearms In a series of online postings over a decade, the mother of the gunman who opened fire on classmates at Umpqua Community College in Oregon said she kept numerous firearms in her home and opened up about her difficulties raising a troubled son who used to bang his head against the wall. All the while the mother, Laurel Margaret Harper, expressed hope that her son, Christopher Harper-Mercer, could lead a successful life in finance or as a filmmaker. Instead, Mr. Harper-Mercer, 26, took his own life after shooting nine others to death and wounding several others during a campus rampage last week. Answering a question about state gun laws several years ago, Ms. Harper, a registered nurse, took a jab at “lame states” that impose limits on keeping loaded firearms in the home, and noted that she had AR-15 and AK-47 semiautomatic rifles, along with a Glock handgun. She also indicated that her son, who lived with her, was well versed in guns, citing him as her source of information on gun laws, saying he “has much knowledge in this field.” “I keep two full mags in my Glock case. And the ARs & AKs all have loaded mags,” Ms. Harper wrote. “No one will be ‘dropping’ by my house uninvited without acknowledgement.” Sign Up For NYT Now's Morning Briefing Newsletter The posts were found on Yahoo Answers, a site where Ms. Harper spent hours over the last 10 years, mostly answering medical questions from strangers, occasionally citing her own difficulties raising a troubled child. Her Yahoo profile had a user name of TweetyBird, accompanied by a cartoon image of a nurse. In many of her postings, she included her email address, which public records link to Ms. Harper. Ms. Harper did not respond to messages seeking comment. Law enforcement officials have said they recovered 14 firearms and spare ammunition magazines that were purchased legally either by Mr. Harper-Mercer or an unnamed relative. Mr. Harper-Mercer had six guns with him when he entered a classroom building and started firing on a creative writing class in which he was enrolled; he took his own life after exchanging fire with the police. Ms. Harper and Christopher’s father, Ian Mercer of Tarzana, Calif., divorced in 2006 and were separated years earlier; Mr. Mercer told CNN last week that he thought the nation should change its gun laws, saying the massacre “would not have happened” if his son had not been able to buy so many handguns and rifles. “How was he able to compile that kind of arsenal?” Mr. Mercer said in an interview with CNN. He said he had no idea that his son owned more than a dozen firearms. Neighbors have said that Ms. Harper and her son would go to shooting ranges together, something Ms. Harper seemed to confirm in one of her online posts. She talked about the importance of firearms safety and said she learned a lot through target shooting, expressing little patience with unprepared gun owners: “When I’m at the range, I cringe every time the ‘wannabes’ show up.” In addition to talking about guns, Ms. Harper, 64, was a prolific commenter in online forums dealing with medical issues, frequently answering questions from strangers with a tone of empathy and concern. She acknowledged having expertise in dealing with autism, saying that both she and her son — whom she never identified by name — had Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. Consoling another parent seeking help with disruptive behavior by their autistic child, Ms. Harper shared that her own son “was, among other things, a head-banger” when he was younger who was initially misdiagnosed with attention deficit disorder. But over time, he had learned to cope and was doing better, she wrote: “I was in your shoes and now my son’s in college.” She expressed frustration with people who questioned how successful a person with autism could be, noting: “I have Asperger’s and I didn’t do so bad. Wasn’t easy (understatement) but it can be done.” She also said she had “dealt with it on a daily basis for years and years” because of her son, who she said was progressing well. “He’s no babbling idiot nor is his life worthless,” Ms. Harper wrote. “He’s very intelligent and is working on a career in filmmaking. My 18 years worth of experience with and knowledge about Asperger’s syndrome is paying off.” One piece of advice she had for a parent with an autistic infant was to start reading to the child as soon as possible and use expressive gestures. An online posting from six years ago included the unlikely revelation that she used to read to her son a book by Donald J. Trump, the real estate mogul now running for president, who recently suggested that childhood vaccines cause autism — a theory Ms. Harper dismisses in her postings. “Fact: Before my son was even born, I was reading out loud to him from Donald Trump’s ‘The Art of the Deal,’” she wrote. “And as for the ‘gesture effect,’ I was practically a mime. And now my son invests in the stock market along with me, turns a profit and is working on a degree in finance. His language and reading skills are phenomenal. I tell you this because it’s not too late for you to start helping your daughter.” It is not clear where — or if — Mr. Harper-Mercer had pursued such a degree. Some neighbors in California said they thought he had attended a local community college there. Both son and mother moved to Oregon about two years ago; Mr. Mercer said he had not seen either of them since then. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mother-of-oregon-gunman-wrote-of-keeping-firearms/ar-AAf84rl?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout |
|
|
| Guest | Oct 5 2015, 07:31 PM Post #45 |
|
Unregistered
|
Oregon sheriff wrote, 'Gun control is NOT the answer,' and residents agree ROSEBURG, Ore. — Carolyn Kellim's upper lip snarled to the left at the mention of gun control. "I think that's the worst thing in the world that can happen," said Kellim, 86, who runs KC's Exchange gun shop out of her home. The words "2nd Amendment" are pasted in a decal onto her front door and there's a Rifle Range Street nearby. In Roseburg, deer antlers line people's driveways and locals hardly notice the pop-pop-pop of gunfire from nearby shooting ranges. "This is hunting territory," Kellim said, smiling proudly. Her views about guns — and who should be able to buy them — didn't change, she said, when a gunman shot and killed nine people and wounded at least nine others at Umpqua Community College not far from her home. In Connecticut, state leaders called for stricter firearm laws after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. People in Tucson rallied behind then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who became a loud supporter of gun reform after surviving a 2011 shooting at a grocery store. And when a 22-year-old man stabbed and shot several students in California's Santa Barbara County last year, one of the victims' fathers, who grew up hunting, went on every national TV station that invited him and begged for stricter gun laws. The tone in Roseburg is different. An ex-girlfriend of a surviving victim scoffed at the idea of tightening gun laws, and Kendra Godon, an elementary education student who hid from the shooting in a nearby classroom, said she hoped her community's tragedy wouldn't get spun into the national debate about firearms. "That's not the issue," she said. John Hanlin, Douglas County's sheriff and the public face of the community since the shooting, is also an outspoken critic of increasing gun control. On his work biography, the broad-shouldered lawman who once attended Umpqua Community College lists three interests: fishing, riding his Harley and hunting. When Vice President Joe Biden asked for stricter gun laws after the Newtown killings, Hanlin decided to speak up. He wrote Biden a letter. "Gun control is NOT the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings," Hanlin wrote in a letter posted on the Sheriff's Office's Facebook page. He asked that Biden "NOT tamper with or attempt to amend the Second Amendment," and informed the vice president he didn't plan to enforce any laws he found unconstitutional. His deputies wouldn't either. Around the same time, Hanlin — who keeps his gray hair cropped close on the sides and flat on top — shared a conspiracy theory video about the Sandy Hook shooting on his Facebook page. "This makes me wonder who we can trust anymore ... ," the post read. "Watch, listen, and keep an open mind." The post has been deleted and much of Hanlin's account went private since the shooting, but the posting is saved in Internet archives. Asked about the video, the sheriff told CNN last week, "I know what you're referring to, but that's not a conspiracy theory that I have." This spring, Hanlin testified before Oregon lawmakers about legislation requiring background checks for private gun sales. He argued that the measure — which has since become law — would keep guns from criminals about as much as laws keep methamphetamine out of the hands of drug addicts. "What I fear most," Hanlin said, his face red, "is that we're going to create criminals ... out of some of our most ordinary, normal, law-abiding citizens." Dennis Harper, 50, who works at an auto parts store near Umpqua Community College, said Hanlin's views matched his own and those of most people in Douglas County. "He's trying to protect everybody's Second Amendment rights," Harper said. "We're in Oregon; that's what we do." At a prayer vigil Saturday, a local pastor said he was proud of Hanlin for leading a charge to avoid saying the shooter's name. Several people in the crowd clapped and a woman shouted, "That's my sheriff!" A sign outside a Roseburg barbershop read, "We stand with Sheriff Hanlin." Since the shooting, Hanlin has steered clear of public critiques of gun control. Asked about his image as a Second Amendment advocate at a news conference Friday, Hanlin lowered his head. His lips tightened and he said his mind was consumed with the investigation. "Now is not an appropriate time to have those conversations," he said. As Hanlin walked away, someone shouted one last question: "Sheriff, why does this keep happening in America?" Hanlin kept walking. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-sheriff-wrote-gun-control-is-not-the-answer-and-residents-agree/ar-AAf7xJA?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout |
|
|
| Tybee | Oct 5 2015, 07:32 PM Post #46 |
|
I believe that's a common theme among the insane. They usually think they're the sane one and everyone else is nuts. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · General Discussion · Next Topic » |








8:02 PM Jul 10