A School Shooting, and a Heroic Teacher

There was a school shooting in Colorado today:

One male and one female were shot at about 3:30 p.m. outside Deer Creek Middle School in Littleton, Jefferson County Sheriff's office spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said. Both students were taken to a nearby hospital and were expected to survive.

Student Steven Seagraves said he was about 10 feet away when an adult approached students and asked them: "Do you guys go to this school?"

When the students said they did, he shot them, Seagraves said.

Seventh-grade math teacher David Benke, a 6-foot-5 inch former college basketball player who oversees the school's track team, tackled the suspect as he was trying to reload his weapon.

Nobody could have blamed Mr. Benke for running for cover. He was unarmed, against someone with a rifle. He saw an opening and took it - at great risk to his own life - to protect his students.

"He was trying to rack another round. He couldn't get another round in before I got to him so I grabbed him," Benke said, recalling that he didn't have time to fear for his life.

They don't say what kind of rifle it was, other than "high-powered" - of course, to the MSM, any rifle is "high-powered." The story says he was reloading, but it sounds more like it may have jammed. I suppose we'll find out later, though I don't expect the media to get it right without getting it wrong at least three different times.

[Update Feb. 24, 2010: NPR says this morning that it was a bolt-action rifle.]

At this time, the shooter appears to have no connection to the school, and no motive has been released.

Good job Mr. Benke, it sounds like you prevented a massacre. Any praise I can offer will fall infinitely short of what you deserve for your courage and quick thinking. Don't beat yourself up because you couldn't stop the first shots - when you have no reason to expect an attack, the attacker will always have the initiative, and the advantage of surprise. You overcame that, and took advantage of a single moment pure, blind luck to save many children.

This should NEVER happen

Hunter's bullet kills Ferrum student.

One Ferrum College student was killed and another injured about 4 p.m. Tuesday by a hunter who apparently mistook them for deer, authorities said.

Three students were collecting frogs for a biology class along a Franklin County-owned trail about a mile west of campus when one of them, a female, was fatally shot in the chest and another, a male, was shot in the hand, a college spokeswoman said.

[ . . . ]

Kimberly Boudinot said over the phone from her home in Irvington, near the Chesapeake Bay, that her stepson Regis Boudinot, 20, a junior at the college, was shot in the hand. She said a bullet had struck the female student, and then entered Regis' right arm before exiting through his hand.

Rule 4: Be sure of your target, what is near your target, and what is BEHIND your target.

It is every hunter's responsibility to make POSITIVE target identification before firing. It doesn't matter if someone is wearing a high-visibility color or not, YOU must make absolutely sure your target is what you think it is before you pull the trigger - no one else can do it for you. That bullet can never be taken back once it is fired, and a life ended by your failure can never be restored. It will weigh on you for the rest of your life.

Be careful, and be responsible out there folks. Hunters are not the only ones in the woods in hunting season.

Obama's Priorities

You should watch the video here. Then you should be angry. Very angry.

At a (presumably) emergency press conference convened to address the Fort Hood shootings, our illustrious President spends the first 2 minutes congratulating people about the conference he's at (based on the comments at the site, it's a Native American conference), and giving a "shout out" to someone in the audience.

That really is a full 2 minutes from the time stamp on the video. A full 2 minutes before he even mentions the tragedy at Fort Hood, at a press conference called specifically for that issue. His friends and cronies are more important to him.

How very presidential. And of course the MSM seems to be ignoring this hideous insensitivity. No mention of it anywhere, and they're apparently editing out that first 2 minutes when they replay the video.

Be angry - and remember this in 2012.

H/T to Ace of Spades HQ, by way of a comment at Patterico's Pontifications, by way of SayUncle.

Never Forget

9-11-01
Never Forget

What the heck is going on?

Another one. Again in Alabama.

A man shot and killed his estranged wife, their teenage daughter and two other relatives in rural north Alabama before returning to his home in a nearby town and killing himself the day before their divorce trial, authorities said Tuesday.

That's eight in the last month. And Alabama seems to be particularly hard hit.

It was one of eight mass shootings around the country in the last month that have left grief-stricken communities in shock. It's also the third mass killing in Alabama during that time.

Seriously, what the hell is going on that people are suddenly committing mass murder so often?

Update:
And another one.

Update on the Virginia Tech Murder

From the Roanoke Times:

When Virginia Tech authorities arrived Wednesday night at a cafe inside the Graduate Life Center, they found a decapitated female victim who had arrived on campus just two weeks ago and a young man they have now charged with killing her.

The decapitation makes this a death penalty case.

This case has rekindled the campus concealed carry debate in the comments sections of many of the sources I linked to in my previous post, including some PSH. I encourage any readers I might have to go and contribute.

I'm on my lunch break right now, so I can't really get into this now, but I'll have more after work.

UPDATE:
Rough afternoon at work, so I'm not really up to a good commentary right now. Additionally, a comment I heard at work leads me to believe I should hold off on further posts on this issue for a little while. (It has nothing to do with me, the blog itself, or my previous posts. That's all I can say at this point.)

BREAKING NEWS: Fatal Stabbing at Virginia Tech

Information at:

The Collegiate Times (the campus newspaper)

The Virginia Tech website. (Go to the "Latest News" section at the bottom. Direct link to the story here).

The Roanoke Times

WDBJ7

Planet Blacksburg

Newsvine.com

Right now this is breaking news, so these sites are updating frequently with new information. WDBJ7 and The Collegiate Times seem to be ahead of the rest.

A quick summary:
According to the news sources, the stabbing took place in the Graduate Student Center (formerly the Donaldson-Brown Hotel and Conference Center) outside the Au bon pain coffee shop, at approximately 7pm. This appears to have been a domestic situation, according to police, and they do have a suspect in custody. The GSC is in lockdown at this time.

Comments on these sites (all but the Tech sites and the Roanoke Times allow comments) show that some people are uneasy, because April 16 started as a "domestic situation" with a "suspect in custody," however, according to the news release on the VT site, police encountered the suspect at the scene, and it appears the attack was witnessed, both completely opposite what happened on the 16th. Both these factors indicate that the situation is truly contained.

I will likely have more tomorrow.

Never Forget

9-11-01

Never Forget

The Good Guys Don't Always Win

Another one from Xavier. Go here and read the whole story.

Did you read it? Good. Here are a few things I hope you noticed.

"As they walked from the business toward their Chevrolet Tahoe vehicle, Katherine, who was carrying the night deposit from Catfish King, observed a male suspect running toward her from the wood line at the back corner of the property," an arrest affidavit stated. "She heard the suspect yell something, but she did not understand what he said."

Womack, brandishing a handgun, then shot Jeffreys in the ankle before exchanging gunfire with Labrozzi, who had a handgun on him, the report stated.

If the story here is correct, he never gave them a chance to comply, or even make sure his demands were understood. He just started shooting.

Criminal records show Womack has one prior arrest. Hudson police booked him into Angelina County Jail in March 2007 and charged him with deadly conduct for allegedly fighting at Hudson High School where he was a student.

Like most criminals who kill, this was not his first time breaking the law, and not his first violent crime either.

Sunday night's deadly attempted robbery is the second incident in eight months at Catfish King in which an armed robber approached a manager closing the business. [...] In the December robbery, the woman [ed. - Not the same woman.] told police she was walking to her car when she heard a rustling noise in the woods before two males with blue bandanas approached her. One pulled a handgun and told her, "This is a robbery." The other sprayed the woman with pepper spray and took her purse before both ran back into the woods.

Again, the victim was attacked without being given a chance to comply. She was lucky they only wanted the money, and not her. That robbery could easily have turned into a kidnapping and rape once she was incapacitated by the pepper spray.

A month later, the same assistant manager was robbed at gunpoint while making a deposit at Huntington State Bank[.]

That makes three robberies since December, two of which were on the premises. This business has obviously been targeted. The cockroaches have been watching to learn where the money goes, and when, and have been taking advantage of it. It makes me think that Labrozzi was escorting Jeffreys (his girlfriend) because of the previous incidents. I would be. The police simply cannot be there every single night for every business, or even for one business every night for eight months. I think he knew that.

Things to learn from this:

1) The cockroaches won't always threaten and make demands, often they simply attack and take. Don't trust them not to attack.

2) Be aware of your surroundings. Condition yellow is good. If you're carrying large amounts of money, at night, with few or no other people around, you should be even more alert. Something closer to condition orange, but with no specific threat source. In my mind I call this condition amber. You are both vulnerable and desirable as a target, but there is no specific threat to focus on.

3) The police cannot protect you if they are not there with you when the attack occurs. If that were the case, the cockroaches would either go somewhere else, or wait until the police are not there to protect you. Do not rely on the police to protect you.

4) The sad truth is that, even if you are aware, alert, armed, and prepared for an attack, you still might not survive. All that only gives you a greater chance of survival, not a guarantee. Unfortunately, one innocent in this case did not survive. However, his sacrifice allowed his girlfriend, another innocent, to survive, and allowed the police to catch this particular cockroach.

This is nothing but a tragedy, but Keith Edward Labrozzi II, 24, of Lufkin, Texas, died a hero.

Why should I always carry?

Xavier has a good post by Don Myers on why we should always take advantage of our carry permits. You should also check out this (which gives details on the story behind the post) and this (on recognizing threats), both related to the topic.

Bottom line, evil happens everywhere.

Enough is enough.

[The following was posted by me as a comment at SayUncle in response to another comment. I've seen this same sentiment expressed in comments in various other blogs, and couldn't leave it alone anymore. The shooter shall remain nameless.]

-------

"Well you gotta admit they secured the perimeter at Va.Tech. Not one cops got across it before [nameless one] was finished. That’s a hundred percent effective. And they never lost a victim, they found them all."

Straightarrow: Please read the timeline from the report on Virginia Tech. It's available here. Specifically, look at page 7 of the PDF that link takes you to.

"9:45 a.m. The first police officers arrive at Norris Hall, [...] rush to one entrance, then another, and then a third but find all three chained shut. Attempts to shoot open the locks fail." (emphasis added)

and on page 8:

"9:50 a.m. Using a shotgun, police shoot open the ordinary key lock of a fourth entrance to Norris Hall that goes to a machine shop and that could not be chained. The police hear gunshots as they enter the building. They immediately follow the sounds to the second floor."

The news cameras didn't get there until 10-15 minutes into the incident. That's when all the footage of officers outside was filmed. Yes, they were securing the perimeter... BECAUSE OTHER OFFICERS WERE ALREADY INSIDE!

I don't know if you're familiar with Norris Hall, but 5 minutes is about the right amount of time to run around the building to try the main entrances, and then figure out where else you might be able to get inside. The ground floor windows are not an option. They have metal panes, and the windows themselves are very narrow. I doubt a full grown man in a ballistic vest and a gunbelt could squeeze through easily, if at all, and it would be stupid to try when you don't know if the gunman could come into that room while you're halfway through.

I'm sorry if I come off as ranting here, but I've seen this same sentiment in several blog comments over the last few weeks, and I can't let it go unanswered anymore. It pisses me off, because it ascribes cowardice where none exists, because it's WRONG, because it's based on MSM misinformation, and because the facts can be easily checked by anyone interested.

Why didn't they FIGHT??!!! (Part 2)

Since I posted on this yesterday, I've had a chance to distance myself from my anger a bit. I've also found some more complete stories about it here (thanks to David Codrea at The War on Guns) and here (by a Yahoo! search). There are a couple of points the original story didn't make clear. I'll be mixing quotes from the two stories linked to above.

At least one tried to stop the 27-year-old attacker, who swung and slammed the toddler into the asphalt and stomped on him behind his parked four-door Toyota pickup.

"One (person) tried to intervene, and the suspect pushed him off and continued assaulting the baby," Singh said.


By the time the ambulance had left the scene, Singh said, almost a dozen people had witnessed some part of the incident, with at least two trying to physically stop the suspect.

So, contrary to my prior belief, "at least" two people did try to physically intervene. This was not made clear in the earlier story I read, and I stand corrected on that point.

But...

Out of almost a dozen people, only two tried to do anything. And it doesn't look like they tried very hard. If being "pushed off" is enough to keep you from stopping something like this, then you're not really trying. If you're not beaten to the ground, unable to move, and you didn't stop him, you didn't try hard enough. I stand by my original assessment of these worthless cowards.

On a more positive note, the officer and his pilot are to be commended. The officer made the immediate decision to set down in a field by the road so he could get out and intervene, and the pilot did it. Let me emphasize, this is not something that is done lightly. This happened at 10:00 at night. Helicopter pilots are justifiably paranoid about things like power lines, because they are hard to see, hard to gauge distance to from the air, and they can kill a helicopter before anyone on board knows what's going on. At night they're practically invisible. As an EMS provider, I know for a fact that most pilots won't land in a field at night unless it's a regularly used LZ (landing zone) that they know has been used in daylight where such hazards can be easily seen. They also won't land in a field at night if it's not marked off, (usually done with fire or rescue vehicles), so they can see where the edges are. I have, in fact, seen some pilots refuse a known LZ because they weren't comfortable with it at night.
This pilot landed in an unmarked, unscouted, presumably unknown field, at night. If he had missed seeing a power line, or a tree, or anything, he could have killed himself and the officer with him. Seeing the situation, he took the risk.

That's the kind of courage every one of the bystanders should have shown. Instead, they let him "push" them off.

Cowards.

Why didn't they FIGHT??!!!

This is just sick. (Please note that due to the nature of this story, I will break my usual rule of no profanity. And there will be yelling. Lots of yelling. There is just no other way to accurately get my feelings about this, and my point, across.)

Officials said Monday that 27-year-old Sergio Casian Aguilar parked his car on the country road Saturday night and proceeded to stomp, kick and punch a 2-year-old officials believe to be his son.
and
Passers-by called 911 and attempted to intervene. Dan Robinson, the chief of a local volunteer fire department, says he got out of his car and tried to stop Aguilar, whom he described as having a "total hollowness in his eyes."

He was finally shot at the scene by an officer responding to calls from bystanders. The original version from this morning is gone, and Yahoo! news doesn't seem to have a way to find it, but it mentioned that the first witnesses were an elderly couple who called 911, and that 2 or 3 other cars stopped with people calling 911. Although both stories mentioned people trying to stop him, neither mentioned any physical altercation, or anyone getting hurt trying to stop him.

The first thing I thought when I saw this was: Why the hell are you bothering to call 911?! When yelling at him to stop didn't work, why the fuck did nobody try to FIGHT him. He's beating the shit out of a 2 YEAR OLD CHILD for God's sake!! I know this is Kalifornia, so shooting him was probably not an option for these people, but even the elderly couple, if they can drive, they can swing a tire iron at his head from behind! There were 3 or 4 cars there, meaning at least 3 or 4 people. Dogpile the son of a bitch! Don't just stand there with your thumbs up your asses waiting for the police and watching a 2 year old child get beaten to death!! STOP HIM!!!!!

What's worse is the fire chief. Dan Robinson, you are a worthless piece of SHIT! You didn't "try to stop him," you tried to talk to him. He was beating this kid bloody. The story this morning said the child was so badly beaten that they were going to have to use DNA to identify him! If you're an active fire chief, you are not a 90 pound weakling. If you are? You're in the business of saving lives. As a volunteer. GRAB A TIRE IRON!! Hit him with a fire extinguisher!! Do something, DON'T JUST FUCKING STAND THERE!!!!

Even if he beats you senseless, even if he breaks every bone in your body, even if he kills you, protecting an innocent child is worth it. When he's beating you, he's not beating the child. If you last long enough, the police that the other useless cowards called will get there. Even if he finishes with you, you've bought the child some time.

There are some things worth fighting for. There are some things worth being injured for. There are some things worth dying for.

Stopping something like this is one of them.

A Tragedy, and a Lesson

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A 4-year-old girl shot herself in the chest Monday after snatching her grandmother's handgun from the woman's purse while riding in a shopping cart at a Sam's Club store, authorities said.

Full story here.

Thankfully, the child survived. It could have been much worse. As much as I hate to speak ill of someone who has undergone such a horrible experience, this incident illustrates two important points that must be made for safety's sake.

The grandmother in this case was negligent, and her granddaughter was hurt because of it. I'm sorry if that comes off as insensitive, but it's the truth. She left a loaded gun in easy reach of a 4 year old child.

1) There are several flaws with off-body (i.e. in a purse, jacket, etc.) carry. One of which is that if the bag is out of your reach, then the gun is out of your control. If a thief snatches it from the shopping cart, he has your gun, and you're left defenseless. If you set it down and forget to take it with you when you leave, you're defenseless and your gun is probably lost forever. If your 4 year old looks through it while your back is turned, tragedy will follow.

2) Don't ever assume that just because a gun is hidden, a child won't find it. This is true at home as well as in your purse. Secure means locked up, or in your possession and under your immediate control. Ladies, if you leave your purse with a 4 year old, they will eventually decide to look through it. The purse is where mommy keeps all the neat stuff, and the money she uses to buy toys. If you carry your gun there, they will play with it, and they will get hurt.