Ten Dead in Alabama Shootings
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| Tue, 03-10-2009 - 11:02pm |
This happened today, just about 30 miles from where we live.
GENEVA, Ala. - A gunman went on a shooting spree in two neighboring south Alabama towns Tuesday, killing nine people before he shot himself at a metals plant, authorities said.
State police and Geneva Mayor Geneva Mayor Wynnton Melton said that 10 people were dead, including the gunman.
More people were believed to have been wounded. A spokeswoman at Flowers Hospital in Dothan said two children were airlifted to Children's Hospital of Alabama in Birmingham.
The shooter, who remained unnamed but was described as a white man in his 30s, first killed his mother in Samson, Ala., Melton told MSNBC TV, then shot to death eight other people before committing suicide in a metals plant in nearby Geneva.
State and local police are investigating at least four crime scenes believed to involve one gunman, according to the Alabama state police.
Five die at one home
State police reported that the shootings began late Tuesday afternoon in Samson in Geneva County, where the gunman killed four adults and one child at one home, one adult at a second home, and another adult at a third residence.
The gunman fled and traveled on Alabama Highway 52, where he shot at a state trooper's vehicle, striking it seven times and slightly wounding the trooper, who was hit by broken glass.
The gunman then shot and killed another person at Samson Pipe and Supply on Alabama 52, and an individual at a service station, also on Alabama 52.
The man, state police said, then pulled into the parking lot of Reliable Metal Products two miles north of Geneva on Alabama Highway 27, where he fired an estimated 30-round burst at pursuing officers. One of the bullets hit Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey, who was saved by his bullet proof vest, the safety department said.
The gunman entered the business. Within minutes, shots were heard from within Reliable Metal, and law enforcement officers found the man dead from what are believed to be self-inflicted gunshots.
Shooting at people on porches
The gunman had worked at Reliable Metal, said state Rep. Warren Beck, a Republican whose district includes Geneva. Authorities said he used multiple weapons.
State fire marshals are also investigating a burned house in Coffee County where one body was found. It is believed to be related to the other shootings.
State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, R-Slocomb, said some of those killed in Samson were sitting outside.
"He was just driving down the street shooting at people sitting on their porches," she said. "A family was just sitting on the porch and they were shot."
Soleta Darden witnessed the shootout, the Dothan Eagle reported.
"I heard five shots to my right, and then I looked up and saw a maroon Eclipse speed off from the scene, then I saw deputies and troopers in pursuit after him,†Darden said. "I was just scared, crazy scared. I thought, 'What the crap is going on.'"
Geneva is near the Florida border in southeast Alabama. It has a population about 4,400, and neighboring Samson about 2,000.
WTVY TV reported that the gunman did not injure anyone at Reliable Metal Products, according to witnesses. The station got a call from a worker at the business as they crouched in a corner during the ordeal.
The FBI bureau in Mobile sent an agent to assist the Geneva County sheriff's office and local police, a spokeswoman for the FBI told CNN. A message left by The Associated Press with the FBI was not immediately returned.
Reliable Products makes grills and vents for heating and AC systems, mainly for hotels. A call to a person who answered the phone at the plant said no one could talk about the shooting.
The towns of Geneva and Samson are about 11 miles apart, and roughly 30 miles south of Fort Rucker.


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Shooting defenseless people, particularly children, is indeed cowardly behavior. But it seems to me that there are those whose sense of justification allows them free rein to take out their hurts and grievances without ANY moral considerations. Seemingly, they're so egocentric that they feel warranted in going out in a blaze of gory, taking as many others with them as they can.
Others, like the man in Maryville, Illinois are mentally disturbed (though that idea leads to the conundrum of how anybody who WASN'T mentally disturbed, regardless of cause for illness, could go on a rampage).
In either case, the real problem is how to keep weapons of mass destruction (in this case a rifle, and/or another semi-automatic weapon) out of the hands of those who would use them in such a wantonly destructive fashion. Until we can read the future and/or minds, we won't know 100% of the time who will take "justice" (as they see it) into their own hands and kill or wound innocents in the process.
Increasingly, the overall good of society is being threatened by the run amok insistence of gun owners, sellers, and manufacturers that THEY have "protections" under the Bill of Rights to keep and bear arms with little or no regulation. Which, of course, is utter nonsense since the Second Amendment itself uses the adjective "well-regulated".
Edited 3/11/2009 9:56 am ET by jabberwocka
Jabberwocka
Oh boy, here we go again. ;)
I agree
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Here we go again, indeed! *****singing to self******"round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel......." Of course, with this discussion it's difficult to know who's chasing who or in what role!
Since the Second uses the introductory phrase of well-regulated militia, it follows that its authors meant for the people who keep and bear to be in that militia and for that militia to be well-regulated. There are no more state militias (to the best of my knowledge--perhaps you have information to the contrary) other than the National Guards of states. And Guard units are most definitely regulated. Armories are locked up, weapons have to be signed for before they're drawn, and service men and women aren't allowed to trot around in their civvies while carrying those weapons.
As regards laws and regulations, they're still very flawed, whether in concept or in implementation. And weapons still fall into the wrong hands--how on earth did the guy in Maryville get ANY sort of firearm given his NEWSPAPER PUBLISHED story of mental illness?!
There is a continuum on the pro-RKBA side of opinion about regulating. It ranges from NO regulation to some regulation. If you know of any particular group which endorses heavy regulation, by all means, share it with me, because near as I can tell, most gunowners are of the Charleton Heston persuasion--"cold dead hands" etc.
Jabberwocka
I agree. Commit suicide but don't take others with you.
>"The bloodshed began when McLendon burned down his mother's house in Kinston, Coffee County Coroner Robert Preachers said. Authorities found Lisa McLendon's body inside, but they have not determined how she died or whether she was a 10th victim of her son's spree.
McLendon then drove a dozen miles southeast to Samson, in Geneva County, where he claimed nine victims, including four members of his family. The rampage ended another 12 miles farther east in Geneva at the metals plant where McLendon worked until 2003. After a shootout with police, McLendon, killed himself."<
>"Police pursued McLendon to Geneva's Reliable Metal Products, where he got out of his car and fired at police with his automatic weapon, wounding Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey. He then walked inside and killed himself.
"He had plenty of ammo in his car and other weapons and he appeared to be going to do some damage there," Adams said.
Alabama Public Safety spokesman Kevin Cook said that McLendon resigned from his job at the plant in 2003 and it was unclear what kind of work, if any, he had been doing since. A person who answered the phone at the plant said no one could talk about the shooting."<
From...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100153.html?hpid=topnews
Not so fast my friendly monkey.
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