The children of gun owners kill other children with their guns.
with their stolen guns...
the father here was a felon. possessed a stolen loaded weapon in the car........
dead child is black. reasonable guess the shooter and father are black. this is a case where the hammer comes down. if they erre white, I am sure it woukd be seen as a horrible accident and havent the parents suffered enough.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I saw the notice on the news and mentioned it to a coworker. His comment was well it happens all the time in Chicago schools, they just never report it. So instead of being concerned about the potential loss of life at a school, his reaction was to criticize gun policies and media coverage in an entirely different State.
I saw the notice on the news and mentioned it to a coworker. His comment was well it happens all the time in Chicago schools, they just never report it. So instead of being concerned about the potential loss of life at a school, his reaction was to criticize gun policies and media coverage in an entirely different State.
Yeah Chicago is always the magat response.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
The shooting today happened about 30 minutes from where I live. These things are always hard to see but even harder when it happens in your backyard. I really wish we could do something to stop these from happening.
A 6th grader was killed eating breakfast before school. Things need to change.
Sometimes you find yourself Having to put all your faith In no faith
Imagine being a pre-schooler or a first grader or the parents of same and having to wonder if you'll survive to graduate from high school, never mind college? What a country, 'Murica. From WaPo:
Terror in small-town Iowa as gunfire erupts at Perry High School
PERRY, Iowa — It was the first day back after winter break, and students at Perry High School were streaming into class just before sunrise.
Some were eager to see their friends after spending the holidays apart. Others could barely keep their eyes open after a couple of weeks of sleeping in. No one knew one of their classmates had posted a TikTok video that morning posing with a blue duffel bag, ominously captioned: “Now we wait.”
Then gunshots rang out at 7:35 a.m., and everyone started running. On this 30-degree morning, before some families in this town of roughly 8,000 had taken down their Christmas trees, America’s first school shooting of 2024 had begun.
Cameron Ketelson, a 15-year-old sophomore, was still in the parking lot when he heard the blasts. He didn’t think. He just grabbed his younger stepsister, Chloe, and guided her away.
Their parents ran a body shop across the street. They could take cover there.
“It was chaos,” he said Thursday, huddling with his family by the auto garage. From the window, they could see police cars, lights ablaze, closing off the surrounding streets. A sheriff’s SUV rolled by. So did an ambulance.
“Everyone was yelling,” his stepsister, 14-year-old Chloe Buck, said.
It was hard to believe that a teenage gunman — someone they said they knew — had opened fire in the high school connected to the middle school, killing a sixth-grader from a nearby middle school and wounding five others — four students and the school principal — before turning the firearm on himself.
Police identified the shooter as Dylan Butler, whom fellow students identified as the sender of the troubling TikTok post. Earlier, police had converged at Butler’s rural home. They said later that he carried two weapons and an improvised explosive device into the school.
Now students were texting each other, “Are you safe?”They’d trained for this in active shooter drills. They’d been hearing about school shootings since they were old enough to understand such things — not that they understood it now. Not really.
The emotions coming up: Blankness. Numbness. As though none of this was real.
“We’re in shock,” said Chloe’s mom, Jill Ketelson, drawing the girl close. They were waiting in the body shop for other family members to arrive. Their first instinct had been to come together.
Ketelson’s sister-in-law, a school employee, had been in the building when gunfire erupted. She was working in the main office when the vice principal ran in, urging her to hide in a safe room.
After they emerged, she told Ketelson, there was blood on the counselor’s office door. There were shells on the ground.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Ketelson said, “and it’s sickening and scary.”
Down the street, people who lived next to Perry High School — who could see from their porches the children flocking in each morning — stood in their driveways, hands stuffed into coat pockets, talking to their neighbors.
Jason Spence, a 46-year-old Marine veteran, had heard the shots when he was walking his chocolate Labrador, a service dog named Hershey. His wife worked at the nearby elementary school. She called him in a panic. They were reuniting at home when a friend called. The friend’s children had just fled the school and needed somewhere to go.
Spence opened his door for the boy and girl. He’d been shot in the leg during a 2009 tour of Iraq. The booms had stirred up a familiar dread. Those children, he thought, will need help. Some kind of counseling after this, perhaps. A lot of support.
“You wouldn’t think this would happen here,” he said, “in a little town.”
Next door, a brother and sister who’d fled the violence stood below their basketball hoop, responding to check-in texts from their friends. The adrenaline was still flowing. They couldn’t sit down, but they weren’t sure what to do, aside from attending a candlelight vigil later that evening.
Joseph, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, had just finished a 5:30 a.m. basketball practice when he heard screaming. A lunch lady saw him and started shouting, “Run! Run! Run!”
From active shooter drills, he knew the students should have been moving in a certain direction, but everyone was sprinting in different directions. Fear was taking over.
He recalled the scene as his mother fought tears. Their sense of security had been shattered, she said. A school employee, she spoke on the condition that her name be withheld and that only the first names of her children were published, citing “weirdos out there” and concern for their safety.
“I’ve been shaking for two hours,” Joseph said.
His sister, Mercedes, a 16-year-old junior, had been running late that morning and hadn’t left their house yet when the attack began.
“It’s just shocking,” she said.
Even spookier: Just the other day, she’d wondered what to do if a gunman ever stormed one of her wrestling meets. The state match, for example, was a huge affair. Were they safe crammed into a gymnasium like that?
A girl in Mercedes’s math class, she’d heard, had been among those shot early Thursday and was at the hospital in critical condition. Another boy she knew had been hit in the arm.
The boy who’d made the TikTok, the one police identified as the gunman, had been in a class with Mercedes called Connections, which was meant to help students build social skills.
He’d seemed friendly, she said. He sat near her and had a tendency to perform silly raps.
On any other day, she would have been happy to see him in the hallways. She and Joseph had been looking forward to going back to school and seeing all their friends.
“Now I don’t want to go back,” Mercedes said.
Soon the sky darkened, and people streamed toward the city’s recreation center, which had served eight hours earlier as a family reunification base and now was the scene of a vigil.
Kathryn Pentico, a 66-year-old retired insurance agent, tried to shelter herself from the evening chill under a brick gazebo, watching volunteers pass out candles.
She smiled at a woman approaching her with a cane — a stranger, but a neighbor.
“Has anybody heard about the principal?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Pentico replied. “I think he’s still alive.”
What a thing to say, she thought: “I think he’s still alive.” How could he not be? She’d just seen the principal around town, friendly as ever.
“I sound like a broken record, but it’s true,” she said. “He’s an amazing person.”
She played volleyball with his wife.
“Right over there,” Pentico said, “at the recreation center.”
Before it became the family reunification base. Before the people all around her clutched their candles and wept.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,937
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I seem to recall a poster who was a prepper, posted about his bug out location and how he was prepared to ride out the end times. He also had a jeep but it had two large Jerry cans of gas strapped on the back but I think he was from LA. What are the odds?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I don't recall it being illegal to make your own bullets. RPG's? How the hell did he get those?!? That's what i'd ;like to know!!!
I didn’t take it as implying it was illegal from that article. Just posting what they found. But I do think it was illegal at one time, or at least a bill was proposed. Didn’t they try, or maybe they even did I don’t remember, to require background checks for ammunition? Which put the question of the legality of making your own bullets in question.
I don't recall it being illegal to make your own bullets. RPG's? How the hell did he get those?!? That's what i'd ;like to know!!!
I didn’t take it as implying it was illegal from that article. Just posting what they found. But I do think it was illegal at one time, or at least a bill was proposed. Didn’t they try, or maybe they even did I don’t remember, to require background checks for ammunition? Which put the question of the legality of making your own bullets in question.
I need to look it up. Something happened after McVeigh w gunpowder I believe.
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,937
I don't recall it being illegal to make your own bullets. RPG's? How the hell did he get those?!? That's what i'd ;like to know!!!
I didn’t take it as implying it was illegal from that article. Just posting what they found. But I do think it was illegal at one time, or at least a bill was proposed. Didn’t they try, or maybe they even did I don’t remember, to require background checks for ammunition? Which put the question of the legality of making your own bullets in question.
I need to look it up. Something happened after McVeigh w gunpowder I believe.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I don't recall it being illegal to make your own bullets. RPG's? How the hell did he get those?!? That's what i'd ;like to know!!!
I didn’t take it as implying it was illegal from that article. Just posting what they found. But I do think it was illegal at one time, or at least a bill was proposed. Didn’t they try, or maybe they even did I don’t remember, to require background checks for ammunition? Which put the question of the legality of making your own bullets in question.
I need to look it up. Something happened after McVeigh w gunpowder I believe.
Jury finds Jennifer Crumbley, the Michigan school shooter’s mother, guilty of manslaughter
By ED WHITE and COREY WILLIAMS
Today
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan jury convicted a school shooter’s mother of involuntary manslaughter Tuesday in the killings of four students in 2021, making her the first parent in the U.S. to be held responsible for a child carrying out a mass school attack.
Prosecutors say Jennifer Crumbley had a duty under state law to prevent her son, who was 15 at the time, from harming others. She was accused of failing to secure a gun and ammunition at home and failing to get help to support Ethan Crumbley's mental health.
The four guilty verdicts — one for each student slain at Oxford High School — were returned after roughly 11 hours of deliberations.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, looked down and shook her head slightly as each juror was polled after the verdicts were read.
On her way out of the courtroom, prosecutor Karen McDonald hugged relatives of victims Justin Shilling and Madisyn Baldwin.
“Thank you,” a man whispered to her.
Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first parents in the U.S. to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their child. James Crumbley faces trial in March.
"The cries have been heard, and I feel this verdict is gonna echo throughout every household in the country,” Justin's father, Craig Shilling, said outside the courtroom.
“I feel it’s necessary, and I’m happy with the verdict. It’s still a sad situation to be in. It’s gotta stop. It’s an accountability, and this is what we’ve been asking for for a long time now," Shilling said.
A gag order by the judge prevented McDonald and defense attorney Shannon Smith from speaking to reporters.
On the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, school staff members were concerned about a violent drawing of a gun, bullet and wounded man, accompanied by desperate phrases, on Ethan Crumbley’s math assignment. His parents were called to the school for a meeting, but they didn't take the boy home.
A few hours later, Ethan Crumbley pulled a handgun from his backpack and shot 10 students and a teacher. No one had checked the backpack.
The gun was the Sig Sauer 9 mm his father had purchased with him just four days earlier. Jennifer Crumbley had taken her son to a shooting range that same weekend.
Outside the courthouse, the jury forewoman, who declined to give her name, said jurors were influenced by evidence that Jennifer Crumbley was the last adult to possess the gun. That “really hammered it home,” she told reporters.
Indeed, the jury saw images of Jennifer Crumbley leaving the shooting range with the gun in a box.
“You saw your son shoot the last practice round before the (school) shooting on Nov. 30. You saw how he stood. ... He knew how to use the gun," assistant prosecutor Marc Keast said while cross-examining the mother last week.
“Yes, he did," Jennifer Crumbley replied.
In her closing argument Friday, McDonald said she filed the unprecedented charges because of the “unique, egregious” facts leading up to the massacre. School officials insisted they would not have agreed to keep Ethan Crumbley on campus that day if the parents had shared information about the new gun, which the boy on social media called his “beauty."
The words with the disturbing drawing said: “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me. The world is dead. My life is useless.”
“He literally drew a picture of what he was going to do," McDonald said. “It says, ‘Help me.'”
Besides 17-year-old Justin Shilling and 17-year old Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, 14, and Tate Myre, 16, were also killed. Seven people were wounded.
Jennifer Crumbley told jurors that it was her husband's job to keep track of the gun. She also said she saw no signs of mental distress in her son.
“We would talk. We did a lot of things together," she testified. "I trusted him, and I felt I had an open door. He could come to me about anything.”
In a journal found by police, Ethan Crumbley wrote that his parents wouldn’t listen to his pleas for help.
“I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the ... school,” he wrote.
Prosecutors introduced evidence that Ethan Crumbley texted his mother in spring 2021 about “demons” throwing bowls and other hallucinations. But she told the jury that it was “just Ethan messing around.”
“I have asked myself if I would have done anything differently. I wouldn’t have. I wish he would have killed us instead,” she testified.
The jury of six men and six women included people who own guns or grew up with them in their home.
Jennifer Crumbley will get credit for roughly 2 1/2 years in the county jail when she returns to court for sentencing on April 9. The judge will set the minimum prison sentence, based on scoring guidelines and other factors.
It will be up to the Michigan parole board to determine how long she actually stays in prison. The maximum term for involuntary manslaughter is 15 years.
Prosecutors have not said if they will ask for consecutive sentences on the four convictions, which could mean a maximum of 60 years if Judge Cheryl Matthews agrees.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,937
Woman firing long gun in Joel Osteen's church killed by 2 off-duty officers; young boy with her hurt
By JUAN A. LOZANO
15 mins ago
HOUSTON (AP) — A woman in a trenchcoat opened fire with a long gun inside celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s megachurch in Texas before being gunned down by two off-duty officers who confronted her, sending worshippers rushing from the building between busy Sunday services, authorities said.
The woman entered the Houston church with a 5-year-old boy shortly before 2 p.m. and the child was shot and critically injured. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said it was not clear whether the child was struck by the off-duty officers who returned fire. He said a 57-year-old man also was shot and wounded.
The child was in critical condition at a children's hospital, while the man was stable at a different hospital with a hip wound.
Finner said that after the woman began shooting, both officers “engaged” her and the woman was killed. He said that unfortunately “a 5-year-old kid was hit" although he released no immediate details on how the confrontation unfolded.
He praised the officers for quickly confronting the woman, adding, “She had a long gun, and it could have been a lot worse."
The slain woman was not immediately identified, and her motive wasn't clear.
The shooting happened between services at the megachurch that is regularly attended by 45,000 people every week, making it the third largest megachurch in the U.S., according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Osteen’s televised sermons reach about 100 countries.
It was not clear where Osteen was at the time. But he joined police at a news conference afterward and said the church is “devastated.” He added that the shooting could have been much worse if it had happened during the larger 11 a.m. service. He added he would pray for the victims and for the woman who did the shooting and their families.
“We’re going to stay strong and we’re going to continue to, to move forward,” Osteen said after authorities spoke. “There are forces of evil, but the forces that are for us -- the forces of God -- are stronger than that. So we’re going to keep going strong and just, you know, doing what God’s called us to do: lift people up and give hope to the world.”
Witnesses told reporters that they heard multiple gunshots shortly before the church’s 2 p.m. Spanish language service was set to begin.
Christina Rodriguez, who was inside the church, told Houston television station KTRK that she “started screaming, ‘There’s a shooter, there’s a shooter,’” and then she and others ran to the backside of a library inside the building, then stood in a stairway before they were told it was safe to leave.
Longtime church member Alan Guity, whose family is from Honduras, said he was resting inside the church’s sanctuary before the 2 p.m. service as his mother was working as an usher when he heard gunshots.
“Boom, boom, boom, boom and I yelled, ‘Mom,’” he said.
The 35-year-old ran to his mother and they both laid flat on the floor and prayed as the gunfire continued. They remained there for about five minutes until someone told them it was safe to evacuate. Outside, Guity said, he and his mother tried to calm people down by worshiping and singing in Spanish, “Move in me, move in me. Touch my mind and my heart. Move within me Holy Spirit.”
Guity was among the many congregation members who waited Sunday evening to be allowed to return to their vehicles as police continued to search the building. The church is located in what used to be an arena where the NBA's Houston Rockets used to play years ago.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a separate statement saying “our hearts are with those impacted by today’s tragic shooting and the entire Lakewood Church community in Houston. Places of worship are sacred.”
At least 20 police and fire trucks were near one of the church’s entrances Sunday afternoon, including the fire department’s hazardous materials truck. Finner said it was reported that the woman had a bomb, but no explosives were found when her vehicle and backpack were searched.
Worshippers could be seen leaving the building as authorities evacuated the church before the news conference. Officials announced a reunification center had been set up at a nearby gym for people to find their loved ones.
The church has grown tremendously over the past 25 years since Joel Osteen took over after his father's death in 1999 with an upbeat style of Christian televangelism that has captured a following of millions. The elder Osteen founded the church in a converted feed store in 1959.
At times, Lakewood Church has served as a shelter during flooding in Houston. After the pandemic, it reopened for a time at one-quarter of its capacity with only 4,000 worshippers allowed.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Shooting at Super Bowl parade in Kansas City....murikkka!
Add that to the list of places where shootings have occurred! The only other place that it hasn’t happened yet is? You guessed it Presidential Inaugurations!
Comments
The children of gun owners kill other children with their guns.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
A 6th grader was killed eating breakfast before school. Things need to change.
Having to put all your faith
In no faith
Terror in small-town Iowa as gunfire erupts at Perry High School
PERRY, Iowa — It was the first day back after winter break, and students at Perry High School were streaming into class just before sunrise.
Some were eager to see their friends after spending the holidays apart. Others could barely keep their eyes open after a couple of weeks of sleeping in. No one knew one of their classmates had posted a TikTok video that morning posing with a blue duffel bag, ominously captioned: “Now we wait.”
Then gunshots rang out at 7:35 a.m., and everyone started running. On this 30-degree morning, before some families in this town of roughly 8,000 had taken down their Christmas trees, America’s first school shooting of 2024 had begun.
Cameron Ketelson, a 15-year-old sophomore, was still in the parking lot when he heard the blasts. He didn’t think. He just grabbed his younger stepsister, Chloe, and guided her away.
Their parents ran a body shop across the street. They could take cover there.
“It was chaos,” he said Thursday, huddling with his family by the auto garage. From the window, they could see police cars, lights ablaze, closing off the surrounding streets. A sheriff’s SUV rolled by. So did an ambulance.
“Everyone was yelling,” his stepsister, 14-year-old Chloe Buck, said.
It was hard to believe that a teenage gunman — someone they said they knew — had opened fire in the high school connected to the middle school, killing a sixth-grader from a nearby middle school and wounding five others — four students and the school principal — before turning the firearm on himself.
Police identified the shooter as Dylan Butler, whom fellow students identified as the sender of the troubling TikTok post. Earlier, police had converged at Butler’s rural home. They said later that he carried two weapons and an improvised explosive device into the school.
Now students were texting each other, “Are you safe?” They’d trained for this in active shooter drills. They’d been hearing about school shootings since they were old enough to understand such things — not that they understood it now. Not really.
The emotions coming up: Blankness. Numbness. As though none of this was real.
“We’re in shock,” said Chloe’s mom, Jill Ketelson, drawing the girl close. They were waiting in the body shop for other family members to arrive. Their first instinct had been to come together.
Ketelson’s sister-in-law, a school employee, had been in the building when gunfire erupted. She was working in the main office when the vice principal ran in, urging her to hide in a safe room.
After they emerged, she told Ketelson, there was blood on the counselor’s office door. There were shells on the ground.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Ketelson said, “and it’s sickening and scary.”
Down the street, people who lived next to Perry High School — who could see from their porches the children flocking in each morning — stood in their driveways, hands stuffed into coat pockets, talking to their neighbors.
Jason Spence, a 46-year-old Marine veteran, had heard the shots when he was walking his chocolate Labrador, a service dog named Hershey. His wife worked at the nearby elementary school. She called him in a panic. They were reuniting at home when a friend called. The friend’s children had just fled the school and needed somewhere to go.
Spence opened his door for the boy and girl. He’d been shot in the leg during a 2009 tour of Iraq. The booms had stirred up a familiar dread. Those children, he thought, will need help. Some kind of counseling after this, perhaps. A lot of support.
“You wouldn’t think this would happen here,” he said, “in a little town.”
Next door, a brother and sister who’d fled the violence stood below their basketball hoop, responding to check-in texts from their friends. The adrenaline was still flowing. They couldn’t sit down, but they weren’t sure what to do, aside from attending a candlelight vigil later that evening.
Joseph, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, had just finished a 5:30 a.m. basketball practice when he heard screaming. A lunch lady saw him and started shouting, “Run! Run! Run!”
From active shooter drills, he knew the students should have been moving in a certain direction, but everyone was sprinting in different directions. Fear was taking over.
He recalled the scene as his mother fought tears. Their sense of security had been shattered, she said. A school employee, she spoke on the condition that her name be withheld and that only the first names of her children were published, citing “weirdos out there” and concern for their safety.
“I’ve been shaking for two hours,” Joseph said.
His sister, Mercedes, a 16-year-old junior, had been running late that morning and hadn’t left their house yet when the attack began.
“It’s just shocking,” she said.
Even spookier: Just the other day, she’d wondered what to do if a gunman ever stormed one of her wrestling meets. The state match, for example, was a huge affair. Were they safe crammed into a gymnasium like that?
A girl in Mercedes’s math class, she’d heard, had been among those shot early Thursday and was at the hospital in critical condition. Another boy she knew had been hit in the arm.
The boy who’d made the TikTok, the one police identified as the gunman, had been in a class with Mercedes called Connections, which was meant to help students build social skills.
He’d seemed friendly, she said. He sat near her and had a tendency to perform silly raps.
On any other day, she would have been happy to see him in the hallways. She and Joseph had been looking forward to going back to school and seeing all their friends.
“Now I don’t want to go back,” Mercedes said.
Soon the sky darkened, and people streamed toward the city’s recreation center, which had served eight hours earlier as a family reunification base and now was the scene of a vigil.
Kathryn Pentico, a 66-year-old retired insurance agent, tried to shelter herself from the evening chill under a brick gazebo, watching volunteers pass out candles.
She smiled at a woman approaching her with a cane — a stranger, but a neighbor.
“Has anybody heard about the principal?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Pentico replied. “I think he’s still alive.”
What a thing to say, she thought: “I think he’s still alive.” How could he not be? She’d just seen the principal around town, friendly as ever.
“I sound like a broken record, but it’s true,” she said. “He’s an amazing person.”
She played volleyball with his wife.
“Right over there,” Pentico said, “at the recreation center.”
Before it became the family reunification base. Before the people all around her clutched their candles and wept.
Iowa students, community recount terror of Perry high school shooting - The Washington Post
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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But I do think it was illegal at one time, or at least a bill was proposed.
Didn’t they try, or maybe they even did I don’t remember, to require background checks for ammunition? Which put the question of the legality of making your own bullets in question.
diesel, fertilizer and a rental truck.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan jury convicted a school shooter’s mother of involuntary manslaughter Tuesday in the killings of four students in 2021, making her the first parent in the U.S. to be held responsible for a child carrying out a mass school attack.
Prosecutors say Jennifer Crumbley had a duty under state law to prevent her son, who was 15 at the time, from harming others. She was accused of failing to secure a gun and ammunition at home and failing to get help to support Ethan Crumbley's mental health.
The four guilty verdicts — one for each student slain at Oxford High School — were returned after roughly 11 hours of deliberations.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, looked down and shook her head slightly as each juror was polled after the verdicts were read.
On her way out of the courtroom, prosecutor Karen McDonald hugged relatives of victims Justin Shilling and Madisyn Baldwin.
“Thank you,” a man whispered to her.
Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first parents in the U.S. to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their child. James Crumbley faces trial in March.
"The cries have been heard, and I feel this verdict is gonna echo throughout every household in the country,” Justin's father, Craig Shilling, said outside the courtroom.
“I feel it’s necessary, and I’m happy with the verdict. It’s still a sad situation to be in. It’s gotta stop. It’s an accountability, and this is what we’ve been asking for for a long time now," Shilling said.
A gag order by the judge prevented McDonald and defense attorney Shannon Smith from speaking to reporters.
On the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, school staff members were concerned about a violent drawing of a gun, bullet and wounded man, accompanied by desperate phrases, on Ethan Crumbley’s math assignment. His parents were called to the school for a meeting, but they didn't take the boy home.
A few hours later, Ethan Crumbley pulled a handgun from his backpack and shot 10 students and a teacher. No one had checked the backpack.
The gun was the Sig Sauer 9 mm his father had purchased with him just four days earlier. Jennifer Crumbley had taken her son to a shooting range that same weekend.
Outside the courthouse, the jury forewoman, who declined to give her name, said jurors were influenced by evidence that Jennifer Crumbley was the last adult to possess the gun. That “really hammered it home,” she told reporters.
Indeed, the jury saw images of Jennifer Crumbley leaving the shooting range with the gun in a box.
“You saw your son shoot the last practice round before the (school) shooting on Nov. 30. You saw how he stood. ... He knew how to use the gun," assistant prosecutor Marc Keast said while cross-examining the mother last week.
“Yes, he did," Jennifer Crumbley replied.
In her closing argument Friday, McDonald said she filed the unprecedented charges because of the “unique, egregious” facts leading up to the massacre. School officials insisted they would not have agreed to keep Ethan Crumbley on campus that day if the parents had shared information about the new gun, which the boy on social media called his “beauty."
The words with the disturbing drawing said: “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me. The world is dead. My life is useless.”
“He literally drew a picture of what he was going to do," McDonald said. “It says, ‘Help me.'”
Besides 17-year-old Justin Shilling and 17-year old Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, 14, and Tate Myre, 16, were also killed. Seven people were wounded.
Ethan Crumbley, now 17, pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism and is serving a life sentence.
Jennifer Crumbley told jurors that it was her husband's job to keep track of the gun. She also said she saw no signs of mental distress in her son.
“We would talk. We did a lot of things together," she testified. "I trusted him, and I felt I had an open door. He could come to me about anything.”
In a journal found by police, Ethan Crumbley wrote that his parents wouldn’t listen to his pleas for help.
“I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the ... school,” he wrote.
Prosecutors introduced evidence that Ethan Crumbley texted his mother in spring 2021 about “demons” throwing bowls and other hallucinations. But she told the jury that it was “just Ethan messing around.”
“I have asked myself if I would have done anything differently. I wouldn’t have. I wish he would have killed us instead,” she testified.
The jury of six men and six women included people who own guns or grew up with them in their home.
Jennifer Crumbley will get credit for roughly 2 1/2 years in the county jail when she returns to court for sentencing on April 9. The judge will set the minimum prison sentence, based on scoring guidelines and other factors.
It will be up to the Michigan parole board to determine how long she actually stays in prison. The maximum term for involuntary manslaughter is 15 years.
Prosecutors have not said if they will ask for consecutive sentences on the four convictions, which could mean a maximum of 60 years if Judge Cheryl Matthews agrees.
___
Follow Ed White on X at https://twitter.com/edwritez
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
HOUSTON (AP) — A woman in a trenchcoat opened fire with a long gun inside celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s megachurch in Texas before being gunned down by two off-duty officers who confronted her, sending worshippers rushing from the building between busy Sunday services, authorities said.
The woman entered the Houston church with a 5-year-old boy shortly before 2 p.m. and the child was shot and critically injured. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said it was not clear whether the child was struck by the off-duty officers who returned fire. He said a 57-year-old man also was shot and wounded.
The child was in critical condition at a children's hospital, while the man was stable at a different hospital with a hip wound.
Finner said that after the woman began shooting, both officers “engaged” her and the woman was killed. He said that unfortunately “a 5-year-old kid was hit" although he released no immediate details on how the confrontation unfolded.
He praised the officers for quickly confronting the woman, adding, “She had a long gun, and it could have been a lot worse."
The slain woman was not immediately identified, and her motive wasn't clear.
The shooting happened between services at the megachurch that is regularly attended by 45,000 people every week, making it the third largest megachurch in the U.S., according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Osteen’s televised sermons reach about 100 countries.
It was not clear where Osteen was at the time. But he joined police at a news conference afterward and said the church is “devastated.” He added that the shooting could have been much worse if it had happened during the larger 11 a.m. service. He added he would pray for the victims and for the woman who did the shooting and their families.
“We’re going to stay strong and we’re going to continue to, to move forward,” Osteen said after authorities spoke. “There are forces of evil, but the forces that are for us -- the forces of God -- are stronger than that. So we’re going to keep going strong and just, you know, doing what God’s called us to do: lift people up and give hope to the world.”
Witnesses told reporters that they heard multiple gunshots shortly before the church’s 2 p.m. Spanish language service was set to begin.
Christina Rodriguez, who was inside the church, told Houston television station KTRK that she “started screaming, ‘There’s a shooter, there’s a shooter,’” and then she and others ran to the backside of a library inside the building, then stood in a stairway before they were told it was safe to leave.
Longtime church member Alan Guity, whose family is from Honduras, said he was resting inside the church’s sanctuary before the 2 p.m. service as his mother was working as an usher when he heard gunshots.
“Boom, boom, boom, boom and I yelled, ‘Mom,’” he said.
The 35-year-old ran to his mother and they both laid flat on the floor and prayed as the gunfire continued. They remained there for about five minutes until someone told them it was safe to evacuate. Outside, Guity said, he and his mother tried to calm people down by worshiping and singing in Spanish, “Move in me, move in me. Touch my mind and my heart. Move within me Holy Spirit.”
Guity was among the many congregation members who waited Sunday evening to be allowed to return to their vehicles as police continued to search the building. The church is located in what used to be an arena where the NBA's Houston Rockets used to play years ago.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a separate statement saying “our hearts are with those impacted by today’s tragic shooting and the entire Lakewood Church community in Houston. Places of worship are sacred.”
At least 20 police and fire trucks were near one of the church’s entrances Sunday afternoon, including the fire department’s hazardous materials truck. Finner said it was reported that the woman had a bomb, but no explosives were found when her vehicle and backpack were searched.
Worshippers could be seen leaving the building as authorities evacuated the church before the news conference. Officials announced a reunification center had been set up at a nearby gym for people to find their loved ones.
The church has grown tremendously over the past 25 years since Joel Osteen took over after his father's death in 1999 with an upbeat style of Christian televangelism that has captured a following of millions. The elder Osteen founded the church in a converted feed store in 1959.
At times, Lakewood Church has served as a shelter during flooding in Houston. After the pandemic, it reopened for a time at one-quarter of its capacity with only 4,000 worshippers allowed.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
or we could have sensible gun laws which would have little effect in the short term but could change the tide in the long term.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."