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In Mall news; Two seperate articles...
Topic Started: Dec 6 2007, 03:50 PM (45 Views)
24thcenstfan
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This article is about the guy who opened fire on people at a Omaha, Nebraska department store yesterday.

He killed eight people. :(


Gunman may have smuggled weapon in shirt


Quote:
 
OMAHA, Neb. - The teenage gunman who went on a shooting rampage in a department store may have smuggled an assault rifle into the mall underneath clothing, police said Thursday.

Police Chief Thomas Warren said the young man "appeared to be concealing something balled up in a hooded sweat shirt" he was carrying, according to a surveillance video.

The teen entered the store Wednesday using an elevator, and moments later, gunfire pierced through the notes of Christmas music at the Westroads Mall's Von Maur department store. People huddled in dressing rooms and barricaded themselves in offices as 19-year-old Robert A. Hawkins sprayed the floor with bullets.

Six store employees and two customers were killed. When the shooting was over, Hawkins shot himself.

The mall was closed Thursday as authorities continued to investigate what may have motivated the teen to go on the shooting spree. The shooting spree was Nebraska's deadliest since January 1958, when Charles Starkweather killed 10 people in Nebraska and another in Wyoming.

"We will not accept this evil action to occur in our community," Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey said at a news conference.

Police believe Hawkins stole the assault rifle, an AK-47, from his stepfather's home, Warren said. Hawkins either was kicked out or left home some time ago, and moved in with Debora Maruca-Kovac and her husband, whose sons were friends with him, Maruca-Kovac said.

Attempts to reach Hawkins' biological parents on Thursday by The Associated Press were unsuccessful. A man who answered at a phone number listed for Hawkins' father, Ronald Hawkins, said it was a wrong number. Nobody answered the door at the home of Maribel Rodriguez of Bellevue on Thursday. Court records list her as Hawkins' mother.

Hawkins was described by many as having a troubled past. He recently split with his girlfriend and been fired from McDonald's. He also had a criminal record and had left or been kicked out of his parents' house.

He dropped out of Papillion-La Vista High School as a senior in March 2006, principal James Glover said Thursday. While he wasn't a loner, he had a very small group of friends and was not involved in extracurricular activities, Glover said.

"It was never a situation where he was out of the loop because people were picking on him," Glover said.

About an hour before the shooting, Hawkins called her and told her he had written a suicide note, Maruca-Kovac said. In the note, which was turned over to authorities, Hawkins wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore. More ominously, he wrote, "Now I'll be famous."

"I was fearful that he was going to try to commit suicide but I had no idea that he would involve so many other families," she told CBS' "The Early Show," Thursday.

Records in Sarpy and Washington counties showed Hawkins had a felony drug conviction and several misdemeanor cases filed against him, including an arrest 11 days before the shooting for having alcohol as a minor. He was due in court in two weeks.

When the shots began, the store descended into chaos.

Mickey Vickroy, who worked in the store's third-floor service department, said she heard shots and went with coworkers and customers into a back closet, emerging about a half-hour later when police shouted to come out with their hands up. As police led them to another part of the mall for safety, they saw the victims.

"We saw the bodies and we saw the blood," she said.

Witness Shawn Vidlak said the shots sounded like a nail gun. At first he thought it was noise from construction work at the mall.

"People started screaming about gunshots," Vidlak said. "I grabbed my wife and kids. We got out of there as fast as we could."

Omaha attorney Jeff Schaffart, 34, was shopping with his wife and, after fleeing, realized he had been hit by two bullets, one in the upper arm and another grazing his left pinkie finger.

While hiding in a restroom, Schaffart said, he used his necktie as a tourniquet for his arm wound and put napkins on his finger to stop the bleeding. He was later treated and released at a hospital.

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

Nebraska Medical Center spokeswoman Andrea McMaster said the hospital had three victims from the mall shooting, including Fred Wilson, 61, who was in critical condition early Thursday with a bullet wound to his chest.

Micky Oldham, 65, was in stable condition at Creighton University Medical Center. Oldham, who was shot once in the abdomen and once in the back, underwent surgery Wednesday to repair injuries, Dr. Leon Sykes said.

The sprawling, three-level mall has more than 135 stores and restaurants. It gets 14.5 million visitors every year, according to its Web site.

It was the second mass shooting at a mall this year. In February, nine people were shot, five of them fatally, at Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City. The gunman, 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic, was shot and killed by police.
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24thcenstfan
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Haven't been to this mall in years. Thankfully there weren't more injuries.

N.C. mall parking deck collapses; 1 dead

Quote:
 
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - A portion of parking deck at a busy shopping mall collapsed Thursday, and a motorist who may have triggered the accident by crashing into the structure died, police said.

The woman's car crashed into the edge of the top level of the parking deck at SouthPark Mall, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police spokeswoman Julie Hill said.

A small portion of the three-tier deck then collapsed, and the driver's car fell through the opening, Hill said.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene, said Mecklenburg EMS Agency spokesman Eric Morrison.

Two cars under the collapsed concrete were destroyed, Charlotte Fire Department Capt. Rob Brisley said, but authorities said there were no other injuries.

"I think it's miraculous, quite honest," Hill said.

Officials are investigating the cause of the collapse.

Lorraine Ayala, 63, of Monroe, said she left the mall to find the parking deck collapsed just above her ground-level parking space.

"It makes you question the structure of these buildings," Ayala said.

Meanwhile, a parking garage under construction in Jacksonville, Fla., partially collapsed Thursday, injuring about two dozen people, officials said.

One person was missing, but police did not know if the worker was trapped or had escaped. Search crews with dogs were looking through the rubble.

Misty Skipper, a spokeswoman for Mayor John Peyton, said early searches had turned up nothing, but they would continue until searchers were certain that nobody was trapped.

Twelve men and one woman were transported to Shands Jacksonville, hospital spokeswoman Kelly Brockmeir said. Two were in serious condition, 10 were in good condition and one was in fair condition. Some of those in good condition have left the hospital.

Susan Barrow, a spokeswoman for Baptist Medical Center, said they had three patients, but two have been released and the other is in good condition. St. Vincent's Medical Center spokesman Erik Kaldor said it also received three injured workers; one was admitted in fair condition, another was treated and released and a third was still being evaluated.

Other workers were treated at the scene.

The collapse occurred as workers were pouring concrete on the sixth floor of the garage for a condominium complex that is located across the street from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

"I heard a crack, and then it just crumbled," Rick Caldwell, a construction worker, told The Florida Times-Union.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration is investigating the collapse.
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Intrepid
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24thcenstfan
Dec 6 2007, 04:52 PM
Haven't been to this mall in years. Thankfully there weren't more injuries.

N.C. mall parking deck collapses; 1 dead

Quote:
 
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - A portion of parking deck at a busy shopping mall collapsed Thursday, and a motorist who may have triggered the accident by crashing into the structure died, police said.

The woman's car crashed into the edge of the top level of the parking deck at SouthPark Mall, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police spokeswoman Julie Hill said.

A small portion of the three-tier deck then collapsed, and the driver's car fell through the opening, Hill said.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene, said Mecklenburg EMS Agency spokesman Eric Morrison.

Two cars under the collapsed concrete were destroyed, Charlotte Fire Department Capt. Rob Brisley said, but authorities said there were no other injuries.

"I think it's miraculous, quite honest," Hill said.

Officials are investigating the cause of the collapse.

Lorraine Ayala, 63, of Monroe, said she left the mall to find the parking deck collapsed just above her ground-level parking space.

"It makes you question the structure of these buildings," Ayala said.

Meanwhile, a parking garage under construction in Jacksonville, Fla., partially collapsed Thursday, injuring about two dozen people, officials said.

One person was missing, but police did not know if the worker was trapped or had escaped. Search crews with dogs were looking through the rubble.

Misty Skipper, a spokeswoman for Mayor John Peyton, said early searches had turned up nothing, but they would continue until searchers were certain that nobody was trapped.

Twelve men and one woman were transported to Shands Jacksonville, hospital spokeswoman Kelly Brockmeir said. Two were in serious condition, 10 were in good condition and one was in fair condition. Some of those in good condition have left the hospital.

Susan Barrow, a spokeswoman for Baptist Medical Center, said they had three patients, but two have been released and the other is in good condition. St. Vincent's Medical Center spokesman Erik Kaldor said it also received three injured workers; one was admitted in fair condition, another was treated and released and a third was still being evaluated.

Other workers were treated at the scene.

The collapse occurred as workers were pouring concrete on the sixth floor of the garage for a condominium complex that is located across the street from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

"I heard a crack, and then it just crumbled," Rick Caldwell, a construction worker, told The Florida Times-Union.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration is investigating the collapse.

Is this an older mall 24?
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Intrepid
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24thcenstfan
Dec 6 2007, 04:50 PM
This article is about the guy who opened fire on people at a Omaha, Nebraska department store yesterday.

He killed eight people. :(


Gunman may have smuggled weapon in shirt


Quote:
 
OMAHA, Neb. - The teenage gunman who went on a shooting rampage in a department store may have smuggled an assault rifle into the mall underneath clothing, police said Thursday.

Police Chief Thomas Warren said the young man "appeared to be concealing something balled up in a hooded sweat shirt" he was carrying, according to a surveillance video.

The teen entered the store Wednesday using an elevator, and moments later, gunfire pierced through the notes of Christmas music at the Westroads Mall's Von Maur department store. People huddled in dressing rooms and barricaded themselves in offices as 19-year-old Robert A. Hawkins sprayed the floor with bullets.

Six store employees and two customers were killed. When the shooting was over, Hawkins shot himself.

The mall was closed Thursday as authorities continued to investigate what may have motivated the teen to go on the shooting spree. The shooting spree was Nebraska's deadliest since January 1958, when Charles Starkweather killed 10 people in Nebraska and another in Wyoming.

"We will not accept this evil action to occur in our community," Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey said at a news conference.

Police believe Hawkins stole the assault rifle, an AK-47, from his stepfather's home, Warren said. Hawkins either was kicked out or left home some time ago, and moved in with Debora Maruca-Kovac and her husband, whose sons were friends with him, Maruca-Kovac said.

Attempts to reach Hawkins' biological parents on Thursday by The Associated Press were unsuccessful. A man who answered at a phone number listed for Hawkins' father, Ronald Hawkins, said it was a wrong number. Nobody answered the door at the home of Maribel Rodriguez of Bellevue on Thursday. Court records list her as Hawkins' mother.

Hawkins was described by many as having a troubled past. He recently split with his girlfriend and been fired from McDonald's. He also had a criminal record and had left or been kicked out of his parents' house.

He dropped out of Papillion-La Vista High School as a senior in March 2006, principal James Glover said Thursday. While he wasn't a loner, he had a very small group of friends and was not involved in extracurricular activities, Glover said.

"It was never a situation where he was out of the loop because people were picking on him," Glover said.

About an hour before the shooting, Hawkins called her and told her he had written a suicide note, Maruca-Kovac said. In the note, which was turned over to authorities, Hawkins wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore. More ominously, he wrote, "Now I'll be famous."

"I was fearful that he was going to try to commit suicide but I had no idea that he would involve so many other families," she told CBS' "The Early Show," Thursday.

Records in Sarpy and Washington counties showed Hawkins had a felony drug conviction and several misdemeanor cases filed against him, including an arrest 11 days before the shooting for having alcohol as a minor. He was due in court in two weeks.

When the shots began, the store descended into chaos.

Mickey Vickroy, who worked in the store's third-floor service department, said she heard shots and went with coworkers and customers into a back closet, emerging about a half-hour later when police shouted to come out with their hands up. As police led them to another part of the mall for safety, they saw the victims.

"We saw the bodies and we saw the blood," she said.

Witness Shawn Vidlak said the shots sounded like a nail gun. At first he thought it was noise from construction work at the mall.

"People started screaming about gunshots," Vidlak said. "I grabbed my wife and kids. We got out of there as fast as we could."

Omaha attorney Jeff Schaffart, 34, was shopping with his wife and, after fleeing, realized he had been hit by two bullets, one in the upper arm and another grazing his left pinkie finger.

While hiding in a restroom, Schaffart said, he used his necktie as a tourniquet for his arm wound and put napkins on his finger to stop the bleeding. He was later treated and released at a hospital.

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

Nebraska Medical Center spokeswoman Andrea McMaster said the hospital had three victims from the mall shooting, including Fred Wilson, 61, who was in critical condition early Thursday with a bullet wound to his chest.

Micky Oldham, 65, was in stable condition at Creighton University Medical Center. Oldham, who was shot once in the abdomen and once in the back, underwent surgery Wednesday to repair injuries, Dr. Leon Sykes said.

The sprawling, three-level mall has more than 135 stores and restaurants. It gets 14.5 million visitors every year, according to its Web site.

It was the second mass shooting at a mall this year. In February, nine people were shot, five of them fatally, at Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City. The gunman, 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic, was shot and killed by police.

So very, very sad. A 19 year old drop out, who lost his job, got dumped by his girlfriend and kicked out of his house. This young man snapped.

I have no children. If I ever did have any, I think one of life's lessons that I'd like to teach is coping. No one is ever exempt from difficult life circumstance and sometimes some people get the raw end of the deal continually. How do you teach a young person to deal with that if you have no one to support you emotionally.

In the meantime, he ruined the lives of 8 other people. It's a viscious cycle.
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ImpulseEngine
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Commodore
Both are tragic. :(

I was reading an article about the Omaha Mall incident yesterday in which a psychologist was saying this was not a case of bad parenting. I find that hard to believe. I mean, at some point the kid was probably very difficult to get through to, but how did he get there? Parents reach a point of kicking their own child out of the house? How did they fail to establish a better relationship with their child early on? At some level, I think there must have been some bad parenting involved.

I see parents all the time who aren't necessarily bad to their kids, but they aren't very good either. Those parents are more interested in their personal pursuits and the kids are left to largely grow up on their own. They're not abused or anything like that, but they're not given much attention, encouragement, or moral guidance either. I could see this kid being one of those and then he got himself into trouble and had some bad "luck" as well.
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24thcenstfan
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Intrepid
Dec 6 2007, 09:26 PM
24thcenstfan
Dec 6 2007, 04:52 PM
Haven't been to this mall in years.  Thankfully there weren't more injuries.

N.C. mall parking deck collapses; 1 dead

Is this an older mall 24?

It first opened in the early 70s. It was pretty small then, but over the years has grown to be the largest mall in the Carolinas.

I can’t imagine that parking deck being that old. I have a feeling someone is going to be in some serious trouble with regards to the quality of the construction.
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24thcenstfan
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To a point, I definitely agree you IE that there was probably some complicity involved with regard to parenting. Whether it be lack of discipline or not teaching him how to cope with various circumstances (a topic Intrepid touched on).

On the other end, this guy was old enough to know right from wrong. He in the end is responsible for his own actions.

This might sound cruel, but when someone goes on a rampage like this and kills himself afterwards, I think he is doing society a favor by removing himself from the equation in the aftermath. Families can grieve and not have to worry about this killer getting off on some technicality in his trial. Not that that would necessarily happen. But the worry would be immense on the part of the families I would think.
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ImpulseEngine
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Commodore
24,

Regarding responsibility, that's a good point and I agree. I was merely objecting to the psychologist's statement that this wasn't a case of bad parenting because that makes it sound like there was no bad parenting or that bad parenting had nothing at all to do with it.

However, as far as responsibility goes, I agree it all belongs to this guy. Regardless of what was in his past that led him to be troubled, this was the method the he and no one else chose in order to deal with those troubles.

I agree with the last paragraph too, but I will never understand why people who intend to kill themselves find it necessary to take other people they don't even know with them. It's also awfully sad that these people reach such states of desperation.
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24thcenstfan
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^^

Thanks for the elaboration.

In regards to your last paragraph. If you (in the general sense) are going to kill yourself, then do the world a favor and not take others with you (I say too).

I don't see those who have reached that desperate (or crazy) state of thinking, listening to reason unless forced to do so. That is, they are caught beforehand and given treatment.

Unfortunately, identifying these people before they cause harm to themselves and society is something that would be extremely difficult to do. Often taking the parents and those around them recognizing that the person is in need of mental health guidance.
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