Update on Westboro Protest

Image by Robb Allen

Updating the situation:

There will be a counter-protest.

About 30 people circled together inside Owens Dining Hall Saturday afternoon to discuss a unified response. The meeting, led by Student Government Association president Brandon Carroll, tossed around several ideas in handling the church.

“We want everybody on the same page,” Carroll said.

[...]

The group voted, agreeing that a counter-protest will be formed.

It looks like the main victim of their protest will be Morgan Harrington.

Church officials said they were not protesting the 2007 shootings, saying they were “coming for the event that happened last month,” referencing slain student Morgan Harrington. A 20-year-old education major, Harrington was found in late January 2010 after going missing in October 2009 while attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, Va.

I still find it strikingly coincidental that this will be exactly one week before April 16.

Tech's LGBTA community has taken the opposite approach - ignore them and don't give them the reaction they're looking for.

The LGBTA community has also shown outrage about the church’s protest. Aimee Kanode, a senior humanities, science, and environment major at Tech and president of Tech’s LGBTA said she would not attend the protest, as she has work on the day of the protest.

“These people are awful, appalling, despicable,” Kanode said. “My method is to just ignore them. Me wasting energy on those people is not worth my time.” Kanode said that while the group would not officially organize for the protest, several members and officers would be in attendance. Kanode said she advised her members to “be smart about it.”

The bastards are probably hoping to distract from other events, too.

Another concern for community members is the potential for the protest to take away from other events for the day. Among the events scheduled for April 9 include a memorial for David Seth Mitchell, a US Marine killed in Afghanistan and Tech’s Relay for Life event, which is a fundraiser for cancer research.

They're trying to get their money's worth out of this trip, it seems. Scum.

My Rage-O-Meter is Pegged

Image by Robb Allen

The Westboro Bastards (I refuse to call them Baptist, or a church) are (supposedly*) coming to Blacksburg on April 9 to protest.

Phelps' followers notified town officials in a letter Monday that the group planned demonstrations at three locations around town, including the Blacksburg Jewish Community Center and Blacksburg High School.

Another location, near the Virginia Tech campus, was also identified.

Demonstrating near the high school seems pointless - it's been closed since the gym roof collapsed in February.

After the April 16, 2007, shootings at Tech, Phelps threatened to protest at the funerals of the 32 students and faculty slain that day. Then-Attorney General Bob McDonnell, now the governor, issued a warning that anyone willfully disrupting funerals in Virginia could face charges. Those protests never materialized.

As I remember it, a radio station bought them off with an interview - giving them airtime in exchange for them canceling the protests. While I despise the idea of giving scum like that airtime, it was probably the best thing to do for the sake of the families. (I also think that if they had tried to protest those funerals, someone would have been killed. The pain and grief in town then was a hair's breadth from flashing over to rage as it was - there's a good possibility these bastards would have started a riot just by being there.)

It looks like one protest is planned to be across the street from a gift shop operated by a gay couple. I wonder if that's deliberate (they may not know)?

This warms my heart, though:

A Facebook page advertising a counterprotest organized by Tech students and others had drawn more than 4,500 members by Thursday afternoon. More than 1,500 of those members indicated they would attend a counter-rally.

To those planning to attend: Be careful. They have a history of provoking people and then suing anyone who acts out against them, and they carry video recorders.

(* They have a history of announcing protests and then not showing up. Looking at their schedule, I think they do plan on being here - their schedule (I won't link to them. If you want to see it, you'll need to Google it.) puts them in Charleston, WV in the morning, Lawrence, KS from 1130 to 1200, then three separate protests in Blacksburg starting at 1300. I doubt they would go from WV to KS for just a 30 minute protest and fake the 2 1/2 hours planned here. Also, it doesn't leave them enough time to get from WV to KS - it's a 12+ hour drive, and I doubt that group could get through airport security and fly there within the roughly 4 hours the schedule allows. Charleston to Blacksburg, on the other hand, is only about a 2 1/2 hour drive. It's much more likely the Charleston and Blacksburg protests are real, and the KS one is a red herring.)

UPDATE; Still no suspects in recent double-murder.

Update 9-11-09: Task force set up to investigate Montgomery County double homicide.

A multi-agency task force has been formed to investigate the double homicide of two Virginia Tech students.
[...]
The task force is made up of officers from the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office; the Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Virginia Tech police departments; the Virginia State Police; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the United States Marshall's Office; and the United States Forest Service.

What a list! It seems like everybody who can be involved is involved. I can see the US Marshals, and the Forest Service - it happened in a National Forest, so it's federal land and under the Marshals' jurisdiction, and the Forest Service is expected - and the FBI, while unexpected, is not surprising, but the ATF? How did they get involved?


Virginia Tech offers $10,000 reward in killings.

Virginia Tech is offering a $10,000 reward for information that helps solve the killings of Tech students Heidi Childs and David Meltzer last week in the Jefferson National Forest.
[...]
Police are following leads and tips, but believe the killings may have been random because investigators have been unable to find a motive.

No leads, no idea if the killer is still around, or if or when he'll decide to kill again.

Be careful, and remember the first step in self-defense is being aware of your surroundings.

Hokies - Be cautious, be aware, be careful!

Update: Police continue investigation into Virginia Tech students' deaths. Still no suspects. Everybody be careful out there.

A double homocide of two Virginia Tech students Thursday morning.

The bodies were discovered about 8 a.m. by a man walking his dog. Metzler’s body was inside a car; Childs’ was outside, [Sheriff Tommy] Whitt said.
He did not say how many times or where on their bodies they appeared to have been shot. No weapons were found, he said.
[...]
Caldwell Fields is a popular weekend hangout spot for Tech students, authorities said. “We are going to step up our patrols in that area even though we think it was a random act of brutal violence,” Whitt said.

There are apparently no suspects at this time. Whoever did this is still wandering around free, and there's no telling if he's still in the area or not, or if he'll do it again.

Maintaining condition yellow is highly recommended until this killer is found. So is carrying, if you can.

Memorial Day

Remember

Memorial Court atop War Memorial Chapel at Virginia Tech.


Cenotaph honoring Virginia Tech Alumni who have received the Congressional Medal of Honor.


Each pillar is engraved with the names and class year of VT alumni who have died while in service. This is the most recent section.

Remember

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.

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.