Category Archives: Homicide

"Gunman Reportedly Filmed Lethal Shooting Spree at French Jewish School"

This is now even more disturbing; off-hand, we don’t remember a similar fact-pattern. From   Jewish School Shooting in France – by Scott Sayare and Steven Erlanger at The New York Times (10:04 today):

¶ TOULOUSE, France — A day after an attack outside a Jewish school here killed a rabbi and three young children, the French authorities offered fresh details on Tuesday of an assault that has stunned the nation and terrorized the city, saying the lone gunman seemed to be filming his actions as he coolly shot his victims to death.

Claude Guéant, the interior minister, told a French radio station that surveillance footage from the school’s security cameras showed what appeared to be a video camera strapped to the gunman’s chest — adding a lurid detail to the most deadly attack against Jews in France in 30 years.

With the nation’s terrorism alert at its highest level — “scarlet” — the French authorities pursued a broad and high-profile search on Tuesday for the assailant, but Mr. Guéant said little was known about him.

The attack has been linked to two earlier shootings of French paratroopers, with the police saying that the same gun, a .45-caliber automatic pistol, was used in all three assaults. The authorities have also said that the methods were the same — a man on a powerful motorbike, also the same in each instance, who killed and then fled.

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The “scarlet” alert level, one step short of a formal state of emergency, gives security forces wide powers that include the authority to close some public places like railroad stations and deploy mixed patrols of police officers and soldiers, news reports said.

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As the BBC reports further details, the Norway attacks have taken on a particularly cold-blooded and calculated character. It appears that, after bombing the government center in Oslo, dressed as a police officer, the killer went to an island on which the Labour Party was holding a recreational event for teenagers. Posing as a police officer conducting an investigation, he asked a large number of children to gather in a crowd, and began to open fire. (Current counts seem to vary between 84 and 85 reported deaths among the teenagers on the island of  Utoeya.

From BBC: Norway youth camp attack kills 84

At least 85 people died when a gunman opened fire at an island youth camp in Norway, hours after a bombing in the capital Oslo killed seven, police say.

Police have charged a 32-year-old Norwegian man over both attacks.

The man dressed as a police officer was arrested on tiny Utoeya island after an hour-long shooting spree.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said many people were still looking for their children and had not so far been able to locate them.

He was speaking after meeting victims and relatives with Norway’s King Harald, Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon in the town of Sundvollen near the island.

 

These images, via the BBC, may help to illustrate the sequence of events. Motive will be harder to discern; the suspect in custody is believed to have right-of-center politics.

US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot at Arizona supermarket – Wikinews, the free news source

Via WikiNews

US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot at a public event in Tuscon, Arizona on Saturday. At least five were killed and several others were wounded in the shooting, including at least one from Giffords’ staff. The shooting occurred at a Safeway supermarket where Giffords, a Democratic Party member who represented Arizona’s 8th congressional district, had scheduled a public “Congress on Your Corner” event.Giffords was widely reported as having died after the attack, but her public relations personnel later said she was undergoing surgery. Giffords was shot in the head at close range, and according to the Pima County sheriff, Giffords, aged 40, died from the attack. National Public Radio, however, reported that there were conflicting reports about her death.Giffords was airlifted to a nearby hospital and underwent emergency surgery. A spokesperson for University Medical Center said, “She is

currently in surgery. She’s alive,” adding that nine other shooting victims had been taken to the hospital. After the surgery, the hospital announced Giffords was alive with a single gunshot wound to the head and that she was responsive.The hospital also said that a nine-year-old was among those killed in the shooting. David Gonzales, a US Marshal, said that federal judge John Roll also died from his wounds. President Barack Obama said the shooter killed a total of five people.Peter Michaels, of Arizona Public Media, said Giffords had been speaking to several people when someone began firing randomly from around 4 feet 1.2 metres away. The gunman attempted to flee but was tackled by an onlooker and taken into police custody. Described as in his late teens to early twenties, he was later identified as 22-year-old Jared Loughner, who used a handgun in the attack.

US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot at Arizona supermarket – Wikinews, the free news source.

The bipartisan nature of the attack – a prominent Democratic Representative and prominent Republican federal judge both attacked in the same incident – is puzzling.