Blood Red Movie Massacres

by Loren Coleman ©2012

July 22nd is the anniversary of the 1934 death of John Dillinger, who was killed in front of a movie theater, Chicago's Biograph, after watching the film Manhattan Melodrama. Dillinger was betrayed by the "Woman in Red," a madam (Ana Cumpănaş, also known as Anna Sage) wearing an orange dress, which looked red under the theater's lights.

In Michael Mann's 2009 Public Enemies, Christian Bale (shown) plays FBI man Mervin Purvis, Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger, Branka Katic plays Anna Sage, and Marion Cotillard plays Billie Frechette (shown at top as Dillinger's other woman in red). Bale and Cotillard have significant leading roles in The Dark Knight Rises.

In the film Dillinger saw the night he died, Manhattan Melodrama, Clark Gable (shown) plays the gangster-gambler Blackie Gallagher. The movie's finale has Gallagher being put to death in the electric chair for murder. The back story of Gallagher and his brother by adoption is one of two orphans, and parallels Batman and many other DC and Marvel superheroes. Indeed, they are twice orphaned in one of the strangest twists in movie fiction. The boys are adopted as orphans by Poppa Rosen for a short while. But then Rosen (meaning = roses, red), a Russian Jew, is trampled to death by a policeman's horse after he heckles former Red Army Generalissimo Leon Trotsky at a red Communist rally and a melee breaks out. In the end, Gallagher is the darkness, and his "brother" Jim, who becomes the DA and governor, is the light.

This is also the day of the release of the film Captain America: The First Avenger (a year ago, on July 22, 2011), with the first Nazi machine-gunning scene taking place in Norway, which also mirrors the same day's Breivik's massacre in Norway (July 22, 2011).

Hugo Weaving plays two roles, Johann Schmidt, Adolf Hitler's head of advanced weaponry and the transformed Red Skull commander of the terrorist organization Hydra, in the 2011 film Captain America. Weaving also plays the villain Agent Smith in the three Matrix films and V in V for Vendetta (all films that have resulted in copycat violence).

What we do know is that copycats were certainly a real outcome of the 2008 screening of The Dark Knight. The most infamous was Kim de Gelder, the Dendermonde Joker (shown), who killed two babies and a teacher in a Belgium daycare on January 23, 2009. He dressed like his own personal version of the Joker from The Dark Knight.

We still don't know how the alleged Aurora killer, suspect John Holmes appeared on July 20, 2012, at Theater No. 9. All is pure speculation, and yet the web has gone wild with imagined imagery (see above).

One of the news tidbits that has been revealed about James Eagan Holmes (shown in a photo from his youth) is that besides the reported red hair and goatee, underneath his black body armor, he was wearing red to the midnight showing of The Black Knight Rises. The name Eagan means "fiery."

The Greek Goddess Aurora is sometimes referred to as the "Goddess of the Morning Red." Colorado is Spanish for "red."

Anne Hathaway plays Selina Kyle aka Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. Seline (Luna/Moon) is the sister of the Roman goddess Aurora (dawn).

One of the first victims of the Aurora, Colorado shootings identified was Jessica Ghawi, an aspiring sportscaster, who happened to almost have been shot during the recent Toronto's Eaton Mall shooting. She also used the name "Jessica Redfield," a name she created because of her red hair, as she said people remembered that name more easily, since "Ghawi" is difficult to pronounce.

Seven employees of the Red Robin restaurant in Aurora were injured in The Dark Knight Rises shooting (thanks 82-28).

President Barack Obama came to Aurora, Colorado, early on July 22, 2012, to visit with shooting victims and family members. The quotation used by the media reflects an underlying theme in the event.

"It reminds you that even in the darkest of days, life continues and people are strong," the president said, after detailing the recovery of two victims. "Out of this darkness, a brighter day is going to come." [Emphasis added.]

The metaphor to dawn is strong in that simple quote.

For more, see my essay posted later on July 22nd, Red Dawn.

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The list

Movies and massacres are nothing new. Here is a compilation (enhanced by me) of theater-related violence, initially published by ABC News and other sources, which I preserve here before it vanishes. It is followed by video clips of Christian Bale talking about The Dark Knight and appearing in American Psycho.

1928 (Burlington, North Carolina): One of the earliest fatal shootings at a theater happened in Burlington, North Carolina and the active shooter is a Holmes. On Tuesday, January 17, 1928, George Washington Holmes, Jr., 30, shot to death Odis Leslie “Ode” Robertson, 34, in the lobby of Burlington's Lyric Theater, before the 7:00 pm showing of The Naked Truth (1924).

1934 (Chicago): Gangster John Dillinger dies in front of the Biograph Theater on July 22nd (see above for more details).

1955 (Chicago): Ex-con shoots rookie cop in a movie theater four miles from the Loop.

1985 (Chicago): Movie-line quarrel ends with one man dead of a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

1988 (Southfield, Michigan): In October, two men are shot during an argument near the box office of the Americana.

1989 (New York City): Ricardo Jimenez, 21, kills Sean Worrell, 20, for buying the last bag of popcorn at Tim Burton's 1989 Batman premiere on July 3rd, at the Whitestone Multiplex Cinema. Michael Keaton plays Batman and Jack Nicholson plays The Joker.

1989 (Southfield, Michigan): A man opens fire in the main auditorium of the November 17th opening night of Eddie Murphy's Harlem Nights at the Americana. (Metal detectors were installed and it was reopened in 1990 as the Southfield City 12, and closed forever in 2001.)

1990 (Valley Stream, New York): A 15-year-old was killed and three other bystanders wounded when a shootout (between a group in the front row and one in the back) erupts on Tuesday, December 25th, Christmas Day, during the premiere running of The Godfather Part III at the Sunrise Cinema Multiplex. (2012 media reports this then becomes the first cinema in the country with metal detectors.)

1991 (Chicago): A 23-year-old man is shot at a July premiere showing of Boyz n the Hood.

1991 (Los Angeles and nationwide): Boyz n the Hood sparks shootings that leave 33 injured, in LA, Minneapolis, Universal City, and other locations.

1991 (Seattle): A 15-year-old is stabbed during the premiere weekend at the Lewis & Clark Theater of Boyz n the Hood.

1993 (Brooklyn, New York): 19-year-old man is shot to death during a late screening of Judgment Night.

1998 (Bakersfield, California): Eight people are injured after shooting during I Got the Hookup.

1999 (Seattle): One man shoots another in the stomach during Analyze This.

2002 (Philadelphia): Janitor shot twice in the head in movie theater bathroom.

2006 (Baltimore): A 24-year old man Mujtaba Rabbani Jabbar, a resident of the exclusive Anton North neighborhood, sits behind Paul Schrum, 62, from Pikesville, at the Loews Valley Center 9, shoots Schrum in the head, hollers for everyone to stay down, and then fires three more shots during the showing of X-Men: Last Stand at the Owings Mills multiplex.

2006 (Pittsburgh): A screening of Get Rich or Die Tryin ends when one man fatally shoots another in the lobby after a trip to the restroom.

2008 (Philadelphia): James Joseph Cialella, 29, is charged with shooting the father of a family who he complained was talking during a Christmas Day showing of the Brad Pitt film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Cialella allegedly throws popcorn at the man’s son and then shoots the man in the arm at the Riverview Regal Theater.

2008 (Raleigh, North Carolina): An unidentified masked man tries to rob the Marquee Cinemas Theater, and then fatally shoots the manager Mark Douglas Buhaug, 48.

2010 (Daly City, California): A man shoots three people outside a Bay Area movie theater, including a pregnant woman.

2011 (Tuscaloosa, Alabama): Teen shoots another teen in movie theater parking lot.

2012 (Aurora, Colorado): Alleged suspect James Holmes opens fire at the July 20th midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 people and injuring 59 others, in Theater 9 and through collateral damage, at the Century 16 Theaters.

Credit: ABC News, Hollywood Reporter, and via other research and sources.

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Christopher Loring Knowles had this to say in his "Dark Knight of Our Soul, or The New Ambulance Chasers":

I do know that is just more bad news attached to a Christopher Nolan film. This is a guy who puts forward psychopaths as his protagonists (Following, Memento, The Prestige) and cast a guy previously best known as Bateman, the American Psycho as Batman....I do know this is a guy who revels in fascist, brutalizing imagery and themes in his work.
I do know that he deliberately created a brand new archetype with his Joker, the real protagonist of The Dark Knight. A figure of pure, wanton destruction- the killer that every Jugalo would love to be when they grow up. This was pure psychological manipulation of the worst kind, and has had terrible real world results.

 Bale on Batman

   

Bale as Bateman

 

The Watts/Watkins Name Game

The Watts/Watkins name game appears again and again. Today, I'll examine a specific recent event tied to this name, and detail what Jim Brandon and I have written about this moniker.

On early Friday, April 6, 2012, during a seven-hour period, at least one white suspect fired on five victims, all African-Americans, as they walked in the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Three fatalities resulted and they were identified as 49-year-old Dannaer Fields, 54-year-old Bobby Clark and 31-year-old William Allen. The two surviving victims have not been identified.

Fields was found mortally wounded in a neighborhood yard about 1 a.m. Friday, Clark's body was found in a street about an hour later, and Allen's body was discovered in the yard of a funeral home about 8:30 a.m., the Associated Press reported.

Sites of the Friday's shootings in Tulsa.

Minutes after Fields was found, police found two men with gunshot wounds in another yard two blocks away. They were taken to hospitals in critical condition but were expected to survive, police said. One of those male victims described the shooter as being white.

The white suspect had been described as driving up in an old white pickup to pedestrians and asking for directions. Then as the victim walks away, this person opens fire.

Dr. Warren Blakney, who heads the local chapter of the NAACP, believes the shooter did group his prey together.

"We feel like he's targeting African Americans in this part of town. And I think some parts of law enforcement feel the same way," Blakney said Saturday.

Tulsa detectives speculated the shootings were the work of a "lone wolf" gunman and the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service were drafted into the investigation on a task force entitled "Operation Random Shooter."

Alvin Watts, from his Facebook profile page.

But then, on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, at 1:47 am local time, two Caucasian men were arrested in connection with these Tulsa shootings, KOKI reported. The suspects have been identified by the Tulsa Police Department as 19-year-old Jake England and 32-year-old Alvin Watts. They were were arrested at a house just north of Tulsa.


Fox23 searched Facebook records, and discovered that last Thursday around 3pm, England posted, "Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a f****** n***** it's hard not to go off between that and s---- I'm gone in the head.
RIP
. Dad and s____ I
. Love and miss u
I think about both of u every second of the day"

A check of FOX23 archives shows a Carl England was shot and killed in April of 2010 at Comanche Park apartments. A person of interest was Pernell Jefferson, later arrested in connection with England's death.

Jake England, left, and Alvin Watts. Photos Tulsa Police Department

A statement from the Tulsa Police Department said, "Within 24 hours of its formation, the task force 'Operation Random Shooter' has completed its mission. Our sympathy goes out to the families of the victims and we hope that our efforts can bring some resolution and closure to these heinous acts.We would like to thank everyone that assisted and more information will be forthcoming in a Sunday afternoon press conference."


According to The Tulsa World Crime Tracker, before these shootings, Tulsa had had 11 homicides since the beginning of the year.

Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr. said the shootings were unlike anything the city had seen, “certainly in modern history.”

Not surprisingly, Andrew Griffin's Oklahoma-based Red Dirt Report has been all over this news, and the other recent spree event in the Tulsa area.

It will be recalled that one month ago, on March 7, 2012, Tulsa was in the news with shootings at the courthouse. In that case, the suspect was arrested at the scene (above).

Historically, Tulsa is an intriguing city. In the early 20th century, Tulsa was home to the "Black Wall Street," one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States at the time. Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Riot, one of the nation's costliest acts of racial violence and civil disorder. Sixteen hours of rioting on May 31 and June 1, 1921, resulted in over 800 people admitted to local hospitals with injuries, an estimated 10,000 left homeless, 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences destroyed by fire, and $1.8 million in property damage. An official report claimed that 23 black and 16 white citizens were reported killed, but other estimates suggest as many as 300, mostly blacks, died. Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful.

Tulsa is part of the Fortean "number game" too. In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the "Father of Route 66," began his campaign to create a road linking Chicago to California by establishing the U.S. Highway 66 Association in Tulsa, earning the city the nickname the "Birthplace of Route 66". Once completed, U.S. Route 66 took an important role in Tulsa's development as the city served as a popular rest stop for travelers, who were greeted by Route 66 icons such as the Meadow Gold Sign and the Blue Whale of Catoosa (pictured below).

Route 66 is one of those Fortean sites that I have noted are special, in time and space, which I discuss in various books, such as Mysterious America. Tulsa needs to be watched.

In this weekend's case, our awareness is especially keyed to the name "Watts." In earlier Fortean Times columns and then in my 1983 book, Mysterious America, after discussing the special weirdness surrounding the name "Watkins," I wrote: "Cryptologic or coincidence? Jim Brandon should be credited with calling attention to the name Watts/Watkins/Watson, and its entanglement with inexplicable things. Some other names involved in mysterious events pinpointed by Brandon are Bell, Mason, Parsons, Pike, Vernon, and Warren. The influence of such names as Mason, Pike, Warren, and Lafayette, for example, issues, in some cryptopolitical and occult way, from their ties to the Masonic tradition."

Those familiar with my writings know of my musings on "The Fayette Factor," which have been highlighted by Jeff Rense's site and Todd Campbell's site, Through the Looking Glass, as well as several others.

Back to Watts (the moniker of the Tulsa man arrested today), the tie-in here to the discoverer in England (the name of the other shooter suspect) of the "ley lines" being Alfred Watkins may be mildly significant as this case unfolds. These arrested men may have some kind of revenge-driven, racist insights that only they are aware of, just as Watkins saw on the landscape hidden clues to a deeper awareness. Racism and murder cannot be justified, please note, but the "name game" sometimes seems to go beyond coincidence when it is touched by tragedies and disasters.

Jim Brandon penned the following thoughts in his 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit: "If there are certain numbers entangled with certain phenomena, the same would have to be said of certain words. Likewise, these words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy. I have not yet found a name, or number, that seems to be favorable. Possibly this is because journalism and the other anecdotal reportage we must rely on in this barely respectable compiling of ours concentrate on the formidable, the uncanny, rather than on the mundane fortunate. Sometime, one should do a study on, say, winners of sweepstakes and Nobel Prizes.

"I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H.P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen's Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants, Crowley, Francis, Grafton, Grubb, Magee/McGee, Mason, McKinney, Montpelier, Parsons, Pike, Shelby, Vernon, Watson/Watt, Williams/Williamson. I have others on file, but these are the ones which I have accumulated the most instances."

Brandon goes on to tell the reader that his "candidate is the name Fayette and its variants Lafayette and Fayetteville," but the point is well-made for the harmonic, non-randomness of certain other names frequently turning up.

I was not surprised, therefore, to read about this Tulsa Terror today concluding with arrests, and to find there was a "Watts" in the mix.

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Temporal Note: On Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, Bubba Watson won the 2012 Masters Tournament at the Augusta Golf Course in a two hole playoff against South African Louis Oosthuizen. Gerry "Bubba" Watson (born November 5, 1978 in Bagdad, Florida) is an American professional golfer, and one of the few left-handed golfers on tour.  

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For more on the Bell/Beall name game, click here.

More Random Violence: Ohio and Texas

Details are just coming in, but there appear to be new reports of two random violent incidents today, March 14, 2012.  These seem to be similar to those last week, previously mentioned here.


Info, thusfar:


Four people have been stabbed in a downtown Columbus, Ohio, building, police say. Three are in critical condition. The suspect, who was later shot by a police officer, is in custody and in critical condition, police say.


A man stabbed four people at a downtown office building Wednesday afternoon, March 14, 2012, and was shot by a police officer he lunged at with his weapon, authorities and a witness said.

Three of the victims are in critical condition and a fourth received minor injuries, Columbus police spokesman Sgt. Rich Weiner said. The suspect, whose name hasn't been released, is also in critical condition.

The attack was reported before 1 p.m. at a building that houses offices of the attorney general and Miami-Jacobs Career College.

Two persons killed and at least two injured in shooting at Jefferson County, Texas, courthouse, judge says.

A shooting at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas (above), has left two people dead and three injured, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.

The news today is saying this is "the second courthouse shooting to happen in the past week." On Monday, March 7, a shooting outside the Tulsa County Courthouse in Oklahoma left one deputy and three others injured. A barefoot man went to the courthouse plaza and began shooting randomly.


While it was the second shooting at a courthouse in a week, it was the third violent attack at a court in as much time. On Friday, March 9, 2012, Steven Kravetz was reported to be acting strangely at the Grays Harbor District Court. Around lunchtime Friday, Deputy Polly Davin responded to a report of a suspicious person at the courthouse and confronted a man (Kravetz). During a struggle, she was stabbed with either a small knife or scissors. Judge David Edwards intervened, striking the assailant, who then stabbed him. Davin reached for her gun, but it was wrestled away by Kravetz, who shot twice, striking her in the shoulder before fleeing. Both the judge and the sheriff's deputy were treated and released from a hospital hours after the attack. Kravetz, 34, was caught the next day, hiding at his mother's house.

March Madness 2012

Sometimes the phrase "March Madness" lives up to its name.

There was a Full Moon at 04:41:42 AM EST on March 8, 2012. One of this year's more extremely high tides called Spring Tides occurs in March 2012 from Friday, March 9 through Monday, March 12, 2012. Significant "random" human events have taken place, thusfar, during this full moon-spring tide cycle.


A psychiatric person shoots up a psychiatric institute. A flight attendant disrupts a flight. A frequent court inquirer stabs a judge. An American solider kills civilians in Afghanistan.


If you step back from these incidents, you will observe the unusual irony underlining each of their roles in the sites of their actions. They all actually are extreme behavioral outbursts of people merely doing what they have routinely done, but this time, abnormally and violently.


(1) Oklahoma

Guns in the streets: Tulsa, March 7, 2012.

On Wednesday, March 7, 2012, a man shoot and wounded several people at the Tulsa, Oklahoma courthouse before he was brought down by law enforcement officers' bullets.


Authorities on March 8th were investigating whether the suspected gunman wounded in a shootout near a Tulsa courthouse was trying to commit "suicide by cop" when he drew fire from sheriff's deputies, and they confirmed his brother was shot and killed in 2005 by police officers seeking to question him about a murder.

Investigators said they still didn't know exactly why Andrew Joseph Dennehy fired a handgun into the air Wednesday afternoon in a crowded plaza outside Tulsa County District Court. Dennehy, a sheriff's deputy and a bystander were wounded in the shootout.

"Clearly `suicide by cop' may enter into it," Tulsa police spokesman Jason Willingham said. "Anytime someone goes to a location where you know law enforcement is going to be present and takes out a weapon and fires shots, you have to know you're going to garner attention."

Dennehy's brother Brian Dennehy was shot and killed in August 2005 after investigators say he fired at an officer in the parking lot of a Tulsa apartment complex, Willingham said. Police said then that he was suspected in the beating death of his grandfather, Bernard Dennehy, in Oklahoma City.

Andrew Dennehy, 23, remained in critical condition Thursday, March 8th, at a Tulsa hospital, Willingham said. Police have said he is technically in custody but hasn't been formally charged with a crime.

Authorities identified the wounded deputy as David Fortenberry and the bystander who was shot as Ricardo Manuel, 28. Willingham said both had non-life threatening injuries, but their medical conditions weren't immediately known on Thursday. According to sheriff's office, Fortenberry was shot in both hands and arms.

In the case of Dennehy's brother, Brian, Tulsa police had received a request from Oklahoma City investigators for help in finding a homicide suspect who may have been in Tulsa. An officer found the vehicle of the suspect, identified as Brian Dennehy, and was approaching it when a man who was lying down in the back seat pointed a revolver and shot at the officer.

The officer returned fire, hitting Brian Dennehy twice in the upper torso and once in the head. He died at the scene.

As for Andrew Dennehy, who would have been a teenager when his brother was killed, investigators "may never know why he did what he did," Willingham said.

With brisk winds and unseasonably warm temperatures, it didn't seem too odd that Andrew Dennehy, shoeless and clad in a short-sleeve shirt and short pants, had sauntered onto the plaza between the courthouse and the Tulsa Central Library.

A wedding had ended on the plaza, and about seven family members were still gathered when shots rang out, said Angela Reudelhuber, 36, who ministered the wedding.

"The wedding just finished, and the bride and groom headed upstairs to turn in their marriage license," Reudelhuber said.

Reudelhuber dropped to the ground when she heard the gunshots about 20 feet away and then rushed inside.

Andrew Dennehy lay wounded and bleeding from his upper body onto the patchwork of concrete tiles.

"I'm thinking this is not the downtown I remember working in," said John Fancher, a communications specialist at the regional library who photographed the incident and shared his photographs with The Associated Press and other media outlets. "I start snapping off some shots, and he sits down, just casually sits down, gun in his hand and three sheriffs (deputies) come out of the courthouse and I can't hear what they're saying."


Thanks to Andrew Griffin for the tip.

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(2) Pennsylvania

Domestic War Zone: March 8, 2012, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

John Shick, 30, opened fire shortly after entering the lobby of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic on Thursday afternoon, March 8, 2012. The assailant walked through the psychiatric hospital's front door with a pair of semi-automatic 9mm handguns around 1:40 p.m. The gunman walked into the Pittsburgh psychiatric hospital and started shooting. Shick was shot and killed by police Thursday, but not before he killed hospital employee. Shick was killed by police officers who told the media they had trained for a Virginia Tech-style shooting.

One of the two 9mm handguns recovered was traced to New Mexico and the other was traced to Texas, the law enforcement source said. It was not known whether the weapons were legally purchased or how Shick allegedly came to have them. Investigators also recovered an extra box of ammunition. The guns generally hold about 15 rounds. It remained unclear how many rounds were fired before the suspect was killed by police.

Four people remained hospitalized on Friday, including a 46-year-old man listed in fair condition, a 64-year-old woman in serious condition, a 35-year-old man in good condition and a 49-year-old man in serious condition. A 54-year-old woman was released from the hospital Friday.

"This is a tragic day, a sad day, a senseless day," Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said after the shooting Thursday at the medical center.

Shick apparently had a history of legally changing his name. Records in Oregon, where he once lived, show he changed his name to either William Hudnpere Schols Kan or William Huhnpere Scholskan – it appears two different ways in court documents – in 2009. In early 2010, a person with that name and the same address as Shick was charged with assaulting a public safety officer. Then, in May 2010, Scholskan petitioned to change his name back to John Frederick Shick.

Calls to homes listed in the names of Shick's parents in Green Cove Springs, Florida, and San Jose, California, went unanswered Saturday.

Duquesne University spokeswoman Bridget Fare said Saturday that Shick was expelled from the school last November after harassment complaints. Shick enrolled in August as a graduate biology student, but soon numerous female students filed a formal complaint. The harassment never contained any threats or indication of violence.

"It was making them uncomfortable," Fare said of his persistent requests for dates or social contact.

Shick was relieved of his duties as a teaching assistant on October 21 and there was a hearing on the harassment charge on November 3. The school told Shick that he was prohibited from campus and from making contact with any of the women.


(3) Flight 2332, over the Midwest USA

Flashbacks of 9/11: Chaos Abroad Flight 2332.

An American Airlines flight attendant disrupted American Airlines Flight 2332, Friday morning, March 9, 2012, as it was about to take off from Dallas-Fort Worth en route to Chicago, saying over the aircraft intercom system that the plane was going to crash, alluding to 9/11 terrorist attacks and ranting about the airline's bankruptcy reorganization, passengers said.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed there was an "altercation" involving American Airlines Flight 2332, which eventually landed at Chicago O'Hare at 11:46 a.m., more than an hour late.

According to reports by passengers, the trouble began Friday morning as the plane taxied to the runway for takeoff. A flight attendant who had been giving preflight safety instructions began speaking incoherently over the intercom system, confusing and startling passengers.

American Airlines Flight 2232 had left the gate in Dallas and was taxiing when the flight attendant started a 15-minute rant over the plane's PA system.

"She said, 'I'm not responsible for this plane crashing,"' Bethany Christakos, passenger, said. "And that's when everybody started freaking out."

"She spoke in and out of Spanish. Talked about the flight crashing, that we were going to go back to the gate," Carolyn Kazmi, passenger, said.

"We were pretty frightened. We knew something was wrong. It was almost like she was talking and didn't realize the PA was on," Stephen Termunde, passenger, said.

"She had said, 'I'm the number one in charge,' something about 23 years being there, started talking about bankruptcy. But it really got everyone's attention when she said, 'There's a problem. We have to go back to the gate,'" Christakos said.

Other flight attendants interrupted and said there were no mechanical issues and that the plane was preparing for takeoff.

The upset flight attendant then said over the public-address system that it would not be her fault if the plane crashed. She began speaking in incomplete sentences, using the words "bankruptcy" and "American Airlines," passengers said. She also referred to the 9/11 terrorist attacks at one point, passengers said.

Some passengers then began using mobile phones to call 911.

Other flight attendants on the plane attempted to calm the woman, but she continued to be agitated. Three or four passengers then left their seats and went to the front of the plane to help restrain her as the plane returned to the gate, a move requested by the pilot, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed.

An airport official in Dallas said he does not expect any charges to be filed against the flight attendant.


(4) Washington State

Domestic War Zone: March 10, 2012, Washington State.

In 2008, Steven Kravetz was convicted in Lewis County, Washington State, of third degree assault and making false or misleading statements to a public servant. He served 102 days on the charges. In that incident, Kravetz was arrested after he refused to cooperate with police after being kicked out of a Centralia public library.

On Friday, March 9, 2012, Kravetz was reported to be acting strangely at the Grays Harbor District Court. Around lunchtime Friday, Deputy Polly Davin responded to a report of a suspicious person at the courthouse and confronted a man (Kravetz). During a struggle, she was stabbed with either a small knife or scissors. Judge David Edwards intervened, striking the assailant, who then stabbed him. Davin reached for her gun, but it was wrestled away by Kravetz, who shot twice, striking her in the shoulder before fleeing.

Both the judge and the sheriff's deputy were treated and released from a hospital hours after the attack. 

Kravetz fled the courthouse with the officer's .45-caliber handgun after the attack and showed up about an hour or so later at the office of his former attorney and asked to the use the phone, who didn't known anything was wrong. He got a ride from his mother, to her home, where police on Saturday, March 10, 2012, arrested the 34-year-old suspect.


(5) Afghanistan

Foreign War Zone: March 11, 2012, Afghanistan.

A United States service member (an Army staff sergeant) walked out of a military base in a rural district of southern Afghanistan on early Sunday, March 11, 2012 (local times) and opened fire on three nearby houses, killing at least 16 civilians, including several children, local villagers and provincial officials said.

Villagers in Belandi in the Panjway district of Kandahar, where the shooting took place, said the service member had attacked three houses, killing at least 16 in total. Five other villagers were wounded, they said.

The governor of Kandahar Province, Tooryalai Wesa, condemned the shooting, although he could not immediately confirm the number of people killed. A coalition spokesman in Kabul, Capt. Justin Brockhoff, said that it was not clear what had led to the incident. He said the civilians wounded in the shooting were taken to a coalition hospital where they were being treated.

One of the houses attacked in the village belonged to a tribal elder, according to a person from the village. “We don’t know why he killed people,” said the villager, Aminullah, who like many Afghans goes by a single name. Aminullah said the soldier was alone. “There was no fighting or attacks.”

The soldier has not yet been identified.

In The Wake Of Fort Hood

There has been some foolish news articles in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting deaths discussing Islam, ignoring the underlying similar nature of that shooting to "rampage killings" and not understanding that in its wake copycats would naturally occur.

Indeed, people should open their eyes and look, yes, merely look, at the faces of the victims and the shooters to find some overlaps that are striking in those killed and the killers. Lost in all of the talk of the Fort Hood alleged shooter's Muslim background is the fact that he targeted mental health professionals in the group he fired upon. Did the Fort Hood shooter aim at some who most reflected parts of himself that he hated ~ even down to shooting at bald or short-haired men and mental health personnel?


The Fort Hood victims.


The Fort Hood shooter.


The Orlando killer.


The New York Hostage Taker.

Note the similar facial features, and overall appearance of these men. The suicidal "rampage" individual tends to identify with one another in a cycle on many levels, including visually.

We need only let the facts be recorded and the unfolding history of such events speak to the reality of behavior contagion occurring.

On Friday, November 6, the day after the Guy Fawkes Day shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, authorities in Orlando, Florida, said a debt-ridden man Jason Rodriguez, 40, who believed his former employer was interfering with his unemployment benefits was blamed for a workplace shooting. Rodriguez was fired by the engineering firm of Reynolds, Smith and Hills two years ago. Otis Beckford, 26, was the lone fatality in the shooting, and five were wounded.

Then on Tuesday, a standoff began around 7:45 a.m. Eastern Time and was over by about 10 a.m. at an upstate New York middle school. A former student Christopher Craft Sr., 42, got into the Stissing Mountain Middle School just after classes began Tuesday morning carrying a hidden disassembled shotgun. He allegedly put the weapon together in bathroom before holding Principal Bob Hess hostage for more than an hour.

Craft had two sons who had attended the school, but school officials said neither was currently enrolled. Craft has a son in the military and is allegedly upset with the government. Police say Craft and his hostage were contained to one room in the school, located about 90 miles north of New York City.

Later on Tuesday, November 10, police report that two have died in a suburban Portland, Oregon office park shooting. The two people were killed and two others wounded in a shooting at a Tualatin office park. The shooting at a drug-testing facility was reported at 11:48 a.m. Pacific Time Tuesday. Police said the suspect is not at large but there are no additional details.

KATU-TV reported a witness describing one woman wearing something that looked like a lab coat with blood coming from what appeared to be multiple gunshot wounds.

Do you happen to think that the Portland, Oregon shooter will be revealed to be a middle-aged male with close-cropped or no hair?

Update: This one appears to be a domestic murder-suicide brought to work. The shooting took place at Legacy Metro Lab in Tualatin, Oregon. It has been confirmed that two people are deceased, one of which included the adult male shooter who died from what appears to be a self inflicted gun shot wound. The other deceased was an adult female employee of the business. Robert James Beiser, 39, shot and killed his estranged wife Teresa Marie Beiser, 36, and then himself. The wounded are a 20-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man.

Further Update: Vail, Colorado ~ A man was killed and three others were injured in a shooting Saturday night, November 7, 2009, at the Sandbar in West Vail, Police Chief Dwight Henninger said. Witnesses said a man was being removed from the Sandbar by staff when he began firing a gun. Richard “Rossi” Moreau, 63, a Vail resident, was taken into custody as the suspect in the shooting, Henninger said. The man who died was from Carbondale, and the ages of the three other victims, all male, were 25, 29 and 63, police said.


Suspect Richard Moreau appears to fit the physical profile of the shooters during this rampage cycle. What is the twilight language being transmitted in the mere broadcasting of the Ft. Hood killer's image?

Fort Hood Shootings

Breaking: Alleged Fort Hood lone gunman -- U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- is alive and in custody, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone.

And so while the news also was that there were two suspects in custody, another still on the run, and another dead, by Thursday evening, the military said "one shooter, still alive" and the earlier report of a dead law enforcement officer is wrong too. It's a female and she is still alive too.


Updated earlier.

Remember, remember the 5th of November: Today is Guy Fawkes Day!

The dead suspect has been identified as a mental health professional, Army psychiatrist Major Malik Nadal Hasan, who had voiced objections to being deployed to the Mideast. It is not known if Hasan was Muslim.

Hasan was born in Virginia and got a bachelor's degree in biochemistry at Virginia Tech, where he was a member of the ROTC, in 1997. He received his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine in 2001.

He completed a residency in psychiatry at Walter Reed in 2007 and a fellowship in disaster and preventive psychiatry, also at Walter Reed, this year. He also did his internship there.

Ten years after Hasan's graduation, Virginia Tech was the scene of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a senior English major, killed 32 people and wounded dozens of others in two attacks before killing himself.

Fort Hood, located just 60 miles north from Austin, is the largest U.S. military installation in the world, and has suffered the greatest number of casualities of all American bases in the war on Iraq.

The base is a 340 sq. mile facility located in Killeen, Texas (Bell County) and is home to the 1st Cavalry Division, which was one of the first groups of soldiers deployed to Iraq.

On October 16, 1991, George Hennard murdered 23 people and then died by suicide in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen (known as Luby's Massacre).

Earlier///

Latest figures are that 12 are dead (including one shooter), 31 wounded, one of the dead includes a civil law enforcement officer; one shooter was said to be a "major" with an "Arab-sounding name." Two other suspects are in custody.

Earlier///Earlier///

Breaking news out of Ft. Hood, Texas, is that upwards of 9 soldiers have been killed and about 30 others were injured by one, two, or three uniformed individuals shooting at post personnel.

One uniformed suspect (an "officer") was in custody, another "cornered" suspect may have also been arrested, and rumors of a third shooter are being heard.

Other locations on or near Ft. Hood are also reporting gunfire.

President Obama addressed these events at 5 pm Eastern.

===
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy)
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
And what should we do with him? Burn him!

Death at Bridgeville {Killer Updates}

Update:

The killer, identified by authorities, and noted by himself on his website diary as "George A. Sodini, a.k.a crazygeorge" has left a vast Internet trail of his musings of hate (e.g. black men have their choice of the best white girls). The 48-year-old's rampage plans are also documented in his web DOD ("Date of Death") entries. Sodini said he would die on August 4, 2009. See the bottom of this posting for further details on Sodini's angle of the story.


The published photos from his vacations do show an intriguing pull to some of the names of interest, as for example, this one above from his website.

+++
Posted August 4, 2009:

Shootings have occurred tonight at a highly symbolic geographic "intersection" where people use to say to each other, "Meet me at the bridge."

That's how a little community outside Pittsburgh called Bridgeville got it's name, when folks use to meet each other for trading at the very first bridge built at the crossing of Chartiers Creek at the south end of what is now Washington Avenue.

Before today, Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, had been most famous in current popular culture for being the home of Jenna Morasca, a winner of Survivor: The Amazon. Well, actually, Morasca tells people she's from Bridgeville because she really is a resident of South Fayette Township, but everyone uses the Bridgeville mailing address.

Yes, South Fayette Township is the adjoining town, and running right through the 1.1 square mile borough that is Bridgeville is the Washington Pike. The name game runs deep here.



A deathly "rampage-style" shooting occurred in Bridgeville on Tuesday, August 4, 2009. Initial reports said five women are dead and the shooter too, who has died by suicide.

[Update: Overnight reports indicate three gym victims died and the gunman, who left an unreleased note, took his own life.

The names of some of the LA Fitness Shooting victims have been released. Elizabeth Gannon, Heidi Overmier, and Jody Billingsley have died.

Elizabeth Gannon was 49 of Pittsburgh (Scott Twp).
Heidi Overmier was 46 of Carnegie.
Jody Billingsley was 38 of Mt. Lebanon.]

It all happened at a LA Fitness gym, in the Great Southern Shopping Center in Collier/Bridgeville. Specifically, it is known as the Bridgeville Club in Pittsburgh, by the LA Fitness staff.

Witnesses said a gunman wearing a black hat walked into an aerobics room filled with women shortly after 8:00 p.m. Eastern, turned out the lights and opened fire, according to breaking news services and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Several witnesses told a WTAE Channel 4 Action News crew first at the scene that a man unrecognized by the gym's staff, entered the facility, turned off the lights and shot people in a Latin dance class in the aerobics center at the time of the shooting. Every witness to whom WTAE Channel 4's Jon Greiner spoke said they didn't realize what they were hearing was gunfire.

"The lights were off and I could see flashes in the dark," said Jared Frederick, a witness.

A woman in the class at the time of the shooting, identified as Nicole, told WTAE Channel 4 Action News that the class had started about 10 minutes before the gunfire. She said about 30 people -- all women -- were in the class when "a middle-aged white male walked into the class. He had a big gym bag."

"He looked out of place in a class full of women," according to the witness, who said the man put his bag down, turned the lights off and opened fire. "It was horrible. He was 20 feet from me. He got off a lot of shots."

The woman said she ran out of the gym as quickly as she could and got into a stranger's car to escape the gunfire.

Others said 100 people were in the gym area.

Police responses came from Bridgeville, Scott Township, Collier Township, Upper St. Clair and Mount Lebanon, among others.

An Allegheny County policeman said he believes one of the dead was the gunman. Witnesses said they saw two to four wounded women lying outside the back door and two others lying in a parking lot at the side of the LA Fitness center along Washington Pike, noted the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Witnesses reported hearing dozens of gunshots before the shooting stopped.

"All of a sudden there was a really loud noise," said Julia Zorzi, 27, of Crafton, who was on a treadmill on the main floor when the gunfire began. "I heard 40 to 50 shots, and I hit the deck. I saw people running out. I ran outside and there were two girls lying outside.

"The shots came very fast," she said. "It sounded like he was using a serious piece of machinery."

Police and paramedics from throughout the South Hills and Pittsburgh responded to the shootings shortly after 8 p.m. A St. Clair Hospital spokesperson put the death toll at six, including the gunman. Others reported later another victim had died.

"He kept firing and firing," said Dennis Curry, 28, of Scott, who said he was working out on an elliptical machine upstairs when he heard the gunfire. "There was chaos. I ran out the back door, saw a girl lying there with a gunshot wound. I put a shirt on her to try and stop (the bleeding). There was blood everywhere."

+++


Killer Updates


LALATE has broken the news that the killer's, George Sodini’s online diary website preparing for LA Fitness Shooting was GeorgeSodini.com.

Lee Ann Valdiserri is referenced by George Sodini in his website GeorgeSodini.com. A Lee Ann Valdiserri is listed as dead in online obituaries printed years back, as early as potentially 2006.

On it, he writes the following claims about Lee Ann Valdiserri:

“Miscellaneous:

1. Probably 99% of the people who know me well don’t even think I was this crazy. Told by at least 100 girls/women over the years I was a “nice guy”. Not kidding.

2. Lee Ann Valdiserri had my baby in early 1991. Haven’t seen her since she was about four months into it. I knew her sister, Chris, from high school.

3. Net worth slightly more than $250K, (after all debt) as of end of 2008.

4. Death Lives!”


ABC's "Good Morning America" has confirmed that George Sodini, 48, of Scott Township, Pa., was the man who police say Wednesday walked quietly into an aerobics class at LA Fitness in Bridgeville, Pa., where he was a member, turned off the lights and started shooting. Police said they found 52 casings at the scene.

Three women, 46-year-old Heidi Obermier, 49-year-old Elizabeth Gannon and 39-year-old Jody Billingsley, were killed in the attack, according to the Allegheny coroner's office.

Among those reportedly shot were Sodini's ex-girlfriend, who survived, and the class instructor, who had just told her class she was pregnant, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Jen Malley told "Good Morning America's" Chris Cuomo that she was in the Latin dance class at LA Fitness Tuesday when the shooting started. It's a class she takes every week with friends.

According to LALATE, Monday Sodini finally writes the following:

“The biggest problem of all is not having relationships or friends, but not being able to achieve and acquire what I desire in those or many other areas.

“Everything stays the same regardless of the effert (sic) I put in. If I had control over my life then I would be happier. But for about the past 30 years, I have not.”

As broke earlier today on LALATE, George Sodini in the LA Fitness shooting shot his ex girlfriend, the aerobics instructor, who had just told her class she was pregnant, but she survived. George Sodini, 48, of Scott Township, Pa. was found dead along with four women. UPMC Mercy Hospital says five of the women injured are in critical condition, two are in fair condition. The conditions of the remaining injured women are still unknown.


Above, another bridge, from Wheeling WV Bike Trail. Pictures taken on Saturday, April 15, 2000. Information provided and page created by George A. Sodini, a.k.a crazygeorge

As comment maker Ryan noted, Sodini says: "This is like the Twilight Zone."

Sherlock Holmes Killer Found Dead

George Zinkhan killed "Dr. Watson." Now Circe and Madison have found Zinkhan's body, ending the mystery of where the killer is. His body is at GBI Headquarters in Decatur, Georgia, and the rest of the story will be told next week.

On Saturday, April 25, 2009, George Zinkhan, a 57-year-old marketing professor at the University of Georgia, shoot to death Marie Bruce, 47, Zinkhan's ex-wife, Tom Tanner, 40, and Ben Teague, 63, all members of Town & Gown Players at the Athens Community Theater, Athens, Georgia. The killings took place outside the theater building. The local theater group was staging a performance of "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure," the weekend of the shooting.

Actress Marie Bruce was collecting money for the theater lunch that was occurring, and which had begun at 11 a.m.. It was meant to give past and present Town & Gown Players a chance to catch up and meet each others' families.

Ben Teague and Tom Tanner, both set designers, mingled with guests, inside the theater and on the patio. Tanner was to play the role of Dr. John H. Watson in that night's production of "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure."

A week after Zinkhan's Jeep was found, two cadaver dogs — Madison, a 7-year-old Australian shepherd, and Circe, a 5-year-old German shepherd — picked up a scent around 9:50 a.m. Saturday, May 9th, and found Zinkhan mostly buried "beneath the earth" 10 minutes later, said Athens Clarke County Police Chief Joseph Lumpkin.

The search had been scaled back from the initial 200 officers from local, state and federal agencies the day the Jeep was found to teams of eight to ten searchers a day for the next week. And while search and tracking dogs had been used in the initial search, cadaver dogs from the volunteer civilian organization Alpha Team K9 Search and Rescue weren't brought in until Friday.

Along with Zinkhan's body were two guns that match those described by people who witnessed the shootings. Officials said there was no indication that anyone else helped Zinkhan bury himself and that the body had started to decompose.

But they remained tightlipped about any other details, saying they'd reveal a cause of death, how long he'd been dead and other information at a news conference next Tuesday. For now, the discovery is "another sad chapter to the story," said Bob Covington, Zinkhan's neighbor. The professor dropped off his children at Covington's home after the shootings.

"It's been two weeks of people being on pins and needles, every time you see a police car," Covington said. "I think this will ease a lot of tension. People can get back to their lives and move on from this horrible tragedy."

Landshut Shootings & Suicide

Updated Insight: While this is disturbing news, it appears to be an extension of a domestic violence situation into a courthouse. Two people are confirmed dead, one man and a woman he knew.

___ Earlier information shared___

At least two people were killed and several more injured by a gunman in a courthouse in the southern German town of Landshut, Bavaria, on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, a police spokesman said.

Leonard Mayer, spokesman for police, told N-TV television that authorities believed the gunman had killed himself.

"There are two confirmed dead, we do not yet know if the shooter was among them," Mayer said. He was unaware of any warning: "It came out of the blue."

Mayer said the assailant, believed to be aged 60, had apparently killed himself and wounded others in a hail of bullets unleashed during what was reportedly a hearing in an inheritance case.

It was not immediately clear whether the gunman was involved in the case being heard before the court or was simply a spectator.

"The sniper is no longer on the move," Mayer said. "The situation has calmed down."

Another police spokesman, Thomas Ploessl, told news channel N24 the courthouse in the city about 60 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of Munich had been evacuated and barricaded.

Matthias Loew from local radio station Radio Trausnitz said the shooting took place at around 10:15 local time (0815 GMT).

"The talk was of four seriously wounded," Loew said, although authorities have not confirmed the number.

The court employs 128 people including 34 judges, according to its website.

The incident comes after a 17-year-old gunned down 15 people in the German town of Winnenden, on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 (exactly four weeks ago tomorrow).

The teenage killer shot himself when police tried to apprehend him.

#########################
A little background on Landshut:

Landshut (Austro-Bavarian: Landshuad) is a city in Bavaria in the south-east of Germany, belonging to both Eastern and Southern Bavaria. Situated on the banks of the River Isar, Landshut acts is the capital of Lower Bavaria, one of the seven administrative regions of the Free State of Bavaria.

During World War II, a subcamp of Dachau concentration camp was located in the city to provide slave labour to local industry.

Owing to its characteristic coat of arms, the city is also often called "Three Helmets City" (German: Dreihelmenstadt).

Landshut lies in the centre of Lower Bavaria, and is part of the Alpine foothills. The River Isar runs through the city centre. Landshut is about 72 kilometres (45 mi) northeast of Munich.

The city is of national importance because of its predominantly Gothic architecture within the historic city center, especially Trausnitz Castle and the Church of Saint Martin featuring the world's tallest brick-tower. Among other Gothic architecture are the churches St. Jodok and Holy Spirit, but also the Town Hall and the Ländtor, the only still existing gate of the medieval fortification.

This information will be updated as more news develops.

Please...if everyone sent in $10....the impact would be incredible: