Wednesday - December 05, 2007

Who needs Osama?

Every year we hear a warning from the FBI that they have some kind of intel that terrorists will wreak havoc in a shopping mall during the holiday period. And it seems that just about every year they do, except they aren’t foreign terrorists. Nope, when it comes to mall shootings, we do just fine by ourselves. I had this thought while watching the news tonight on the latest rampage out in Omaha, and 10 seconds on the net showed that I was right.

FOX Facts: Past Holiday Mall Shootings

The following facts provide background on recent holiday mall shootings.

Christmas Eve 2006: Jesse Cesar, 21, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in a fatal Christmas Eve gang shooting at a St. Petersburg, Fla., mall that sent shoppers running for cover. Cesar was accused of firing the shots that killed Berno Charlemond, 23, and of shooting at authorities, according to the arrest report. No one else was injured. (Source: St. Petersburg Times)

December 2006: Gunfire at Eastland Mall in Charlotte, N.C., sent Christmas shoppers ducking for cover and left one man shot in the neck. The shooting erupted in the busy mall about 8:15 p.m., after an argument between two groups of men. Investigators believe four shots were fired from two guns. One struck a 27-year-old man in the base of his neck, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said. The man had been involved in the argument. (Source: Charlotte Observer)

December 2004: Holiday shopping turned deadly when two men were shot - one fatally - inside of their car in the Quail Springs Mall parking lot, police said. Police received several 911 calls about 11:40 a.m. reporting that shots had been fired in the parking lot and that both victims had fallen out of their white Oldsmobile and onto the lot. Police said they did not believe Christmas shoppers were targeted. (Source: The Daily Oklahoman)

December 2004: A Boston boy in his early teens was shot in the stomach just outside the Cambridgeside Galleria’s east entrance as hundreds of holiday shoppers packed the mall, police said. The shooting, which frightened shoppers, neighbors, and mall employees, was the third inside or just outside the mall in less than a decade. (Source: The Boston Globe)

December 2003: A shooting inside the Caribbean’s largest shopping mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico, wounded one man and created panic during the height of the Christmas season. Thousands of shoppers were in Plaza Las Americas mall when a man fired at Manuel Villanueva Carrasquillo in front of the Sears store, police said. They were unsure of the motive. Villanueva was in stable condition at a hospital with two gunshot wounds to the neck and chest, police said. (Source: Orlando Sentinel)

December 2001: A fatal shooting outside Owings Mills mall prompted questions yesterday about mall security and whether the incident would scare off shoppers during the last week of the crucial Christmas shopping season. But some shoppers said the violence, which appeared unrelated to any mall activity, would not force them to change their habits. (Source: The Baltimore Sun)

Christmas Eve 1999: A former Roxbury man was convicted of fatally shooting a 20-year-old Roslindale man at the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall on Christmas Eve was sentenced to 15 to 18 years in state prison for the slaying, authorities reported. The shooting occurred in the parking garage in front of stunned shoppers who were streaming out of the mall with packages and bags. (Source: The Boston Globe)

We do a better job at this than Osama could ever hope for. Sorry to be such a cynic, but it’s true.

By tomorrow, or the day after, expect today’s shooter to be linked to the hand grenade that was found at this same mall last week. And wasn’t there something about a hand grenade at a mall last year? Or was that a plan to grenade a mall but they got caught? Were we allowed to call that one attempted terrorism, or was it just a benign plot to use WMDs in a criminal manner?

Oh, and this latest kid used an “assault rifle”, a $100 piece of junk SKS.

ABC News has confirmed with two sources that the gun used at Westroads Mall was an SKS-style assault rifle with two magazines taped together found at the scene. ABC reported that taping magazines together is a technique that allows the shooter to reload more quickly.

...

Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren confirmed the rifle style, but would not confirm the magazine detail.

The woman Hawkins was staying with said she thinks he stole the weapon from his stepfather.

Outside of Hawkins’ mother’s home, Omaha police and a crew from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were serving a search warrant in La Vista just before 10 p.m. It is believed the gun Hawkins’ used was stolen from the home.

Yeah, cuz any milsurp semiauto is an evil black rifle, even if it totally isn’t one, actually. It doesn’t matter any more: Stand by for the Brady/AWB crowd to jump on this in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

UPDATE
Just saw the press conference on FoxNews. Well most of it, as they ran Romney’s Rant on Religion first. So I missed hearing it, but the Fox screen ticker says the kid used an AK-47. That sorta moots the little side discussion on SKSs in the comments. I’m sure the press conference will be on loop, and the mall security cam videos will be on TV sometime today, so see for yourself.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/05/2007 at 10:48 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Terrorists •  
• Comments (10) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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