Total at this moment is nine dead—including the nineteen-year-old shooter—and five wounded, two of those critically. Just on the news, the kid was from Bellevue (bedroom community on south edge of Omaha, and home to StratCom) and left a suicide note that his mother took to police just before all hell broke out.
The only name released so far as I know is that of the shooter. Kid’s last name was Hawkins.
I suppose the names of the dead won’t start showing up until much later tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on when police identify the dead and notify next-of-kin.
Westroads Mall is several miles west of where I am, and it’s a very popular shopping spot, especially now. Von Maur is a very nice, upscale department store. Very nice clothing. I bought the outfit I wore to my daughter’s wedding there. I’m not aware that I know anyone who works at Von Maur’s, but I get the impression a lot of the people killed were customers standing in line at customer service. I’ve got my fingers crossed no one I know got caught in that.
Now it’s beginning to sound like a Virginia Tech-style cluster fuck. (Not the police response, but events running up to the shooting.)
A close friend of the shooter’s ex-girlfriend was interviewed on the radio this morning. The girlfriend dumped him because he was threatening to kill her and her family and he was into drugs. The ex-girlfriend’s father is a retired cop, and he took the information to the local constabulary along with text messages from the shooter to the ex-girlfriend offering to sell her drugs. Of course the police did absolutely nothing. (You’d think they’d believe one of their own, don’t you.) Just as the icing on the cake, one of the shooter’s friends is threatening to kill the ex-girlfriend if she doesn’t stop saying bad stuff about the shooter. Do you think the cops will take that seriously?
The names of the killed and injured were released an hour ago or so, and I am very fortunate—I don’t know any one of them.
I heard today the police officially said the shooter had mental issues.
No, he is normal, we are the ones messed up ( we should be aware that the gun issue will be comming up in March in the the Supreme Court) I dont like guns, but I hold that all should be able to arm them self if you are an American
LD is right. If you just kill yourself, the people that have made your life shit (i.e. everyone else) win.
Torture: The gift that keeps on giving. My first wife said that I was the spawn of Satan, and that she wishes that I would kill myself. Since then, there has been a few times that I thought to do just that. BUT, I always think, if I do that, she wins. Why not stick around and make her life a living hell? Heh!
I’ve related this before, but a Staff Sergeant I reported to at one time in the USAF went the murder/suicide route. He shot his wife and kids, then offed himself. It was kinda spooky, ‘cuz I’d been a bad tormentor of him for about six months before he did it. I’d started the saying around the hanger that he was “...a short fat fucker with an inferiority complex, but he had good reason, ‘cuz he was inferior.” We didn’t at all get along, and he was threatened by my performance and rate of promotions. I was an Airman first class and he was a Ssgt when I started reporting to him, and shortly before he did the murder/suicide I’d gotten my line number for Ssgt and he was still a Ssgt. If I’d stayed in the USAF and he hadn’t gone off the deep end, I would probably have made Tech Sergeant first and outranked him. If he’d decided to go the ‘kill the co-workers’ route, I would have topped his list.
Can’t wait for the anti-gunners to take advantage of this (if they haven’t already - I haven’t been keeping up with the news or blogs).
I understand that he used an AK-47 for the attack. Here comes the “assault weapons” ban again! Better stock up on those hi-cap magazines now - you can make a healthy profit on them once the ban gets renewed…
LD is right. If you just kill yourself, the people that have made your life shit (i.e. everyone else) win.
If you believe everyone else makes your life shit then you might as well just kill yourself as you certainly can’t kill everyone else on the planet (unless you’re Bushitler). Who’d be left to blame but Jesus?
Nebraska’s Health and Human Services has gone to the mattresses to defend themselves from accusations that they didn’t do enough to solve Hawkins’ mental problems.
After reading HHS’s litany of what they did for him, I would say they did what they could. Evidently, no psychiatrist ever pinned a hard and fast diagnosis on him; ie bi-polar. The problem, from what I can see, is that Hawkins aged out of the system. Once he turned 18, he was able to simply walk out of a HHS facility. You can’t be involuntarily committed.
This may sound harsh, but I’m now heartily sick and tired of the whole episode. The local TV and radio stations and the local rag have been obsessing on it from the minute the first 911 call went in. I know damn well and good it’s going to be the cover story on this week’s Newsweek. (I subscribed before they fell prey to full scale BDS.) Yes, I am deeply sorry for the victims and their families. But enough! Let those poor people mourn in privacy. Quit hounding them and quit wallowing in the details.
Nebraska’s Health and Human Services has gone to the mattresses to defend themselves from accusations that they didn’t do enough to solve Hawkins’ mental problems.
After reading HHS’s litany of what they did for him, I would say they did what they could. Evidently, no psychiatrist ever pinned a hard and fast diagnosis on him; ie bi-polar. The problem, from what I can see, is that Hawkins aged out of the system. Once he turned 18, he was able to simply walk out of a HHS facility. You can’t be involuntarily committed.
This may sound harsh, but I’m now heartily sick and tired of the whole episode. The local TV and radio stations and the local rag have been obsessing on it from the minute the first 911 call went in. I know damn well and good it’s going to be the cover story on this week’s Newsweek. (I subscribed before they fell prey to full scale BDS.) Yes, I am deeply sorry for the victims and their families. But enough! Let those poor people mourn in privacy. Quit hounding them and quit wallowing in the details.
Umm… did we have this problem in the 50s? Nope! So why? Umm… Gun laws were less strict then. Parents could beat the hell out of their kids. Schools had a SWAT team (note: this didn’t include men saying “hut hut hut").
I feel for the health center. They didn’t ask for this disection.
I agree with both of you kimpost and CM, but the point I’m bringing up is that the MEdia is implying that our soldiers didn’t have the choice to become soldiers even though they’re much more adult acting than this nineteen year old shooter was. That’s not to say that the shooter shouldn’t be seen as an adult, he should and if he’d survived he should have been punished as such.
I’m also distressed that the MEdia is giving this jerk what he asked for--fame and notoriety. They’ve published and shown his images entering the mall on television. I even heard one of his friends on the radio saying that he didn’t feel any differently toward his former friend, he just wanted to go out in a “blaze of glory.” So that’s what passes for glory with today’s American youths. Heaven help us…
I agree with both of you kimpost and CM, but the point I’m bringing up is that the MEdia is implying that our soldiers didn’t have the choice to become soldiers even though they’re much more adult acting than this nineteen year old shooter was. That’s not to say that the shooter shouldn’t be seen as an adult, he should and if he’d survived he should have been punished as such.
I’m also distressed that the MEdia is giving this jerk what he asked for--fame and notoriety. They’ve published and shown his images entering the mall on television. I even heard one of his friends on the radio saying that he didn’t feel any differently toward his former friend, he just wanted to go out in a “blaze of glory.” So that’s what passes for glory with today’s American youths. Heaven help us…
Yes both are adults, regardless of how they act. Possibly what people (partly) mean when they talk about ‘our children’ is the fact that the parents ultimately have no say in terms of losing a child when they are killed in uniform. They don’t really have a choice in the matter because, as you say, their children are adults and make their own choices. The parents are effectively powerless in that regard, and so they do ‘lose’ their child.
I agree, less attention should be given to these events. The reporting and obsessing (as mentioned by samsgran) doesn’t reduce the liklihood of it happening again, and probably increases it where the aim is to get attention. But that’s what we get with competitive 24 news services. Nobody wants to be out-analysed, even if it means that all the analysis is meaningless and harmful.
