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Tag: Newtown

  • Adam Lanza Made Strange Call To Radio Station

    New information into the mind of Adam Lanza, the Newtown massacre shooter, has been released. Nearly a year before Lanza went on a rampage through Sandy Hook Elementary School, Lanza allegedly called in on an Oregon college radio station AnarchyRadio, and rambled on about a chimp named Travis that mauled a woman’s face in 2009.

    During the very strange call, Lanza, who refers to himself as Greg, can be heard speaking in a low monotone voice, comparing Travis, the monkey, to a “teenage mall shooter.” The radio show’s host John Zerzan says that he remembers the call well. “The voice was kind of odd … sort of robotic … and maybe he was trying to disguise his voice or something. I don’t know,” Zerzan said.

    Below is the full excerpt from Lanza’s call:

    Immediately before his attack, he had desperately been wanting his owner to drive him somewhere, and the best reason I can think of for why he would want that, looking at his entire life, is some little thing he experienced was the last straw, and he was overwhelmed by the life he had and he wanted to get out of it by changing his environment. And the best way he knew how to deal with that was by getting his owner to drive him somewhere else.

    And so when his owner’s friend arrived, he knew that she was trying to coax him back into his life of domestication, and he couldn’t handle that, so he attacked her and anyone else who approached him.

    And dismissing his attack as simply being the senseless violence and impulsiveness of a chimp, instead of a human, is wishful thinking at best.

    His attacks can be parallel to the attacks, the random acts of violence, that you see on your show every week, committed by humans which the mainstream also has no explanation for. An actual human, I don’t think it would be such a stretch. He very well could be a teenage mall shooter or something like that. …

    If the voice is, in fact, Lanza’s, it seems obvious that he is drawing parallels to Travis and himself. “I think the subtext of what he is saying is that violence is innate and instinctual to humans and really should not be punished because it is their natural basis. That’s the message he’s trying to get across, and the parallel to himself is obvious,” Criminologist Casey Jordan said. “He feels possessed by this need this compulsion to commit violence.”

    On December 14, 2012, Lanza shot and killed his mother before driving to the Sandy Hook Elementary School and opening fire. During what is now known as the Newtown Massacre, 20 children and six teachers lost their lives, before Lanza turned the gun on himself.

    Image via NDN

  • Newtown Police Release Final Report on Shooting

    It’s been a little over a year since 20-year old Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., and yesterday police released the final incident report, says CNN.

    The report showed that problems for Lanza began when his mother Nancy began volunteering at Sand Hook. Apparently, he believed she cared for the students more than she did him.

    “Lanza apparently felt that his mother loved the students more than him,” the report read, which may explain why he shot and killed her before going to Sandy Hook and opening fire on 20 small children and six staff members.

    In addition, the report showed that Nancy often dealt with Lanza having Asperger’s syndrome, although many experts believe the disorder had nothing to do with his violent rampage. Plus, a former teacher of Lanza said he seemed to have a preoccupation with war, battles and bloodshed.

    “Adam would write ten pages, obsessing over battles, destruction and war,” said the teacher. The work he submitted was “so graphic that it could not be shared.”

    The report also showed several text messages that Nancy sent to friends about her son’s condition and one message in particular showed her declining some sort of invitation so she could spend more time at home.

    “I really wish I could but I have so much to do and want to spend a little extra time with Adam before I go,” Nancy wrote, as she was planning a lone trip to New Hampshire. “Also, lots of cooking to do because I like to leave him with all his favorites.”

    Plus, an identified man who claimed that he dated Nancy once, said she was planning a trip to London that was supposed to take place on the same week of the shooting, and some believe Nancy might have noticed that Lanza was getting worse, which is why she wanted to get out of town.

    “A couple of last minute problems on the home front” prevented Nancy from taking the trip,” said the unidentified man, who also knew that Lanza had a gun collection. “He knew Lanza to own weapons and that she invited him to go shooting because it was a good stress release,” the report showed.

    But despite the information in the report, police admit they still don’t have a lot of insight into Lanza’s frame of mind on the day of the shooting.

    “What contribution this made to the shooting, if any, is unknown as those mental health professionals who saw him did not see anything that would have predicted his future behavior,” read the report.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Newtown: Obama Addresses Shooting One Year Later, Calls for Stricter Gun Laws

    Today marks the first anniversary of the second deadliest school shooting by one person in history. On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza first killed his mother and then went to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where he went on a five-minute shooting rampage. The lives of six staff members and 20 first-grade students were taken during the shooting.

    Many people are taking a moment today to remember the victims of the atrocity, including President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle. The couple remembered the victims of the shooting at the White House today. The Obamas lit a candle for each Sandy Hook victim in the Map Room at 9:29 a.m.

    After the Obamas lit the 26 candles, the president acknowledged the Newtown shooting during his weekly radio address and touched on gun control. Despite efforts to create stronger gun control laws over the past year, nothing has changed, something the president is begging Americans to work on. Check out excerpts from his address below.

    One year ago today, a quiet, peaceful town was shattered by unspeakable violence. Six dedicated school workers and 20 beautiful children were taken from our lives forever.

    As parents, as Americans, the news filled us with grief. Newtown is a town like so many of our hometowns. The victims were educators and kids that could have been any of our own. And our hearts were broken for the families that lost a piece of their heart; for the communities changed forever; for the survivors, so young, whose innocence was torn away far too soon.

    But beneath the sadness, we also felt a sense of resolve–that these tragedies must end, and that to end them, we must change.

    And on this anniversary of a day we will never forget, that’s the example we should continue to follow. Because we haven’t yet done enough to make our communities and our country safer. We have to do more to keep dangerous people from getting their hands on a gun so easily. We have to do more to heal troubled minds. We have to do everything we can to protect our children from harm and make them feel loved, and valued, and cared for.

    And as we do, we can’t lose sight of the fact that real change won’t come from Washington. It will come the way it’s always come from you. From the American people.

    While many people are remembering the Newtown shooting victims on Twitter, quite a few folks are irritated that the president used the shooting to bring up gun control.

    [Image via YouTube]

  • Colorado Recall: Gun Control Debate Fires Up

    Reuters reported that two Colorado Democrats are finding themselves on the unfriendly side of a recall election this week. John Morse of Colorado Springs and Angela Giron of Pueblo both face potential recall in the wake of national gun control debates and the laws they chose to support.

    Morse, in particular, helped lead an effort to ban magazines with a bullet capacity of greater than 15 rounds and a similar effort that would require private gun sales to include background checks. Both Democrats are finding themselves targeted by gun control opponents and NRA television ads.

    Colorado suffered a national tragedy when James Holmes entered a crowded movie theater in Aurora and killed 12 people while injuring 58. Holmes was armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol. The incident, combined with the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, led lawmakers to try and manage fallout through legislation.

    Gun rights advocates are adamantly seeking recall as a way to send a message to lawmakers about their voting records regarding gun control, while gun control advocates find the gun rights advocates to be bullies. Both sides are pouring the dollars into the campaign, with the NRA donating $368,000 to recall the two Democrats while almost $3 million have been donated to fight the recall effort. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City personally donated $350,000 to defend the Democrats while LA billionaire Eli Broad donated $250,000.

    A great deal of mudslinging has already taken place: a Rocky Mountain Gun Owners ad accused John Morse of obeying “East Coast liberals like billionaire playboy New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,” who earned himself the nickname “Nanny Bloomberg” for his repeated regulatory efforts perceived as governmental intrusion.

    Regardless of the politics involved, each side of the aisle is watching the election with great anxiety. If the recall goes through, lawmakers may find themselves under fire for attacking gun rights, but if the recall fails, Colorado’s stricter gun laws may just be coming to a county near you.

    Tom Cronin, author of a book about recall elections and a professor at Colorado College, said that “In terms of the math, it’s like a pebble… But it’s a pebble that will send a wide message.”

    If you want to know more, the LA Times has a more in-depth report.

    [Image via this YouTube video of a lady shooting guns]

    UPDATE: In a Tuesday morning announcement, both Democrats have been formally recalled by election and will be replaced by Republicans. Expect politicians to be more paranoid about expressing pro-gun control opinions in the future.

  • Sandy Hook “Truthers” Say Man Is Lying About That Day

    A group of people who believe the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings either never happened or didn’t happen the way the public was made to believe are targeting a man who says he took a group of children and a bus driver into his home for safety, saying he’s lying.

    Gene Rosen said he was startled to see a small group of children and one adult in his driveway that morning, and when he went outside to see what was going on, the kids told him they couldn’t go back into their school because their teacher was dead. The teacher, Victoria Soto, had been shot in her classroom by Adam Lanza just moments earlier; the kids had escaped.

    Rosen says he allowed the group into his home and gave them juice, trying to comfort them during the most horrific morning of their young lives. But now he’s being targeted by a group of people who call themselves “truthers” and says he’s in fear for the safety of his family now that his home address and phone number have been compromised.

    “I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor,” Rosen said. “The quantity of the material is overwhelming.”

    Since the day of the shootings in December, many people have been confused as to what to believe actually took place due to the extremely confusing, scattered information the media released. Because there were so many conflicting stories in the early hours of that day, some believe the entire thing is a conspiracy. Others say that we shouldn’t believe everything we’re told, including a Florida professor who wrote a lengthy blog post on the issue.

    “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place — at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described,” he said.

    As for Rosen, he says he was just doing what he thought was the right thing.

    “My grandson and my granddaughter have taught me how to be with children,” Rosen said. “I went upstairs to my grandson’s toy box and I brought down all these stuffed animals and I gave one to each of the children. It was my grandchildren who taught me how to be with these children. I am so thankful for that.”

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  • Adam Lanza: Haircut Was “Uncomfortable” For Barber

    Among the first people to describe what it was like to interact with Newtown shooter Adam Lanza and his mother–who lived notoriously private lives and never invited people into their home–were hair stylists Bob Skuba and Diane Harty. As investigators uncover clues about the boy’s behavior bit by bit, the comments are becoming more important as everyone involved tries to understand what the Lanza’s world was like.

    “I would say, `Adam, come on.’ He wouldn’t move,” Skuba said. “And his mother would have to say, `Adam, come on, he’s ready.’ It was like I was invisible.”

    Harty agreed, saying that the Lanza’s regular visits to their salon were “a very long half an hour. It was a very uncomfortable situation.”

    Both stylists say they never heard Adam speak during any of his frequent visits, and that he and his mother had stopped making appointments a few years ago; employees of the salon thought the family had moved away.

    Adam is said to have suffered from the learning disability Asperger’s but was extremely bright. His mother reportedly quit her job to stay home and take care of him full time, relying on her ex-husband’s substantial child support payments for income. Acquaintances say she was loathe to let anyone into her home, however, and that Adam was extremely isolated. He allegedly spent much of his time in one of the two rooms he occupied in the sprawling home, playing video games and working on the computer. Investigators have taken that computer as evidence and are trying to extract any information from the hard drive that might lead them to a motive for the shooting, or point them in the direction of what Adam was doing that morning before he killed his mother and then headed to Sandy Hook Elementary. However, the boy destroyed the hard drive with a sharp object and police aren’t sure they’ll be able to find anything useful.

  • Adam Levine Joins “Voice” Judges For Teary Tribute

    Adam Levine, Christina Aguilera, Cee-Lo, and Blake Shelton took to the stage at the beginning of their top 3 show to pay tribute to the young victims of the Newtown shootings on Monday night, leaving the audience teary-eyed as they joined the remaining contestants in a haunting rendition of “Hallelujah” while holding up namecards for each victim.

    The tribute, which took the place of the show’s usual loud, bright, over-the-top opening routine, has been widely regarded as the most touching version of the song that’s come about in a long time and was a much-needed nod to the families and victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy. “Saturday Night Live” also replaced their opening bit with a tribute, adding a children’s choir to the stage rather than a comedy sketch.

  • Samuel L. Jackson Defends Movies In Gun Debate

    In the past few days, debates over gun control have raged harder than ever as the nation grieves along with Newtown, Connecticut, and the question of whether or not violence in movies and video games is once again at the forefront of many discussions. While everyone seems to have a clear-cut opinion on what needs to happen regarding gun control laws, some are torn on the issue of violence in entertainment and how it affects young people. Actor Samuel L. Jackson, however, says it’s more a question of how children are being raised now and what they have access to.

    “I don’t think movies or video games have anything to do with it. … I don’t think it’s about more gun control. I grew up in the South with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone. This (shooting) is about people who aren’t taught the value of life. … We need to stop deranged people from getting access to guns,” he told the L.A. Times.

    Since the horrific shootings on Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School, investigators have been trying to find information stored on shooter Adam Lanza’s personal hard drive, but because he destroyed it, they say they’re not having any luck retrieving data. Unfortunately, we may never know what he might have been doing the morning he killed his mother, 20 children, six school faculty members, and himself, although many of those closest to his family say he spent a lot of his time on the computer playing video games.

  • Adam Lanza’s Hard Drive Yields No Answers

    Adam Lanza’s Hard Drive Yields No Answers

    Adam Lanza, the 20-year old who tore through Sandy Hook Elementary School on a violent, murderous rampage last Friday in Newtown, Connecticut, destroyed his computer’s hard drive before the shootings, and police have been valiantly trying to recover anything from the damaged files that might give them a clue as to why he committed such a heinous act. However, it looks like we may never find out what he was doing or who he was communicating with that morning, and hope of discovering even the tiniest bit of motive is rapidly disappearing.

    It appears Lanza destroyed the hard drive with a hammer or screwdriver, and the lengths he went to in order to protect his computer history have led investigators to believe there must be something worth trying to recover.

    Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, to death as she lay in bed before leaving for the elementary school. With his father and brother both living out of state and even the closest friends of the family saying they rarely saw Adam, it will be difficult for law enforcement officials to glean much about his recent behavior. It’s now being reported that he suffered from a learning disability–Asperger’s Syndrome–and was isolated much of the time in the home he shared with his mother. Friends and family say he was a highly intelligent boy who spent hours on the computer and loved video games, something which is stirring the debate about violent imagery in games and the effect it has on young people.

    For now, police say they won’t give up trying to extract data from the hard drive, but it’s looking like they won’t be able to come up with much. As for the survivors of the shooting, today marks the first day their peers return to school, but it hasn’t been decided yet when the Sandy Hook children will return. Their own school is still a crime scene.

  • Nancy Lanza: Did She Play A Role In Son’s Breakdown?

    Nancy Lanza, the 52-year old mother of the gunman who took 26 lives in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday, is being portrayed as a potential source of the issues plaguing her son.

    Lanza was an avid gun collector and was described by those who knew her as a “survivalist” who stockpiled water and food for an oncoming economic crisis. She was also loathe to let anyone into her home and friends and family say they rarely saw Adam Lanza; it’s been reported that he suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome, and some say the combination of the disorder and a lack of social interaction could be huge factors in what set him off last week.

    Described by those close to him at school as a “genius”, Adam struggled with a learning disorder and spent much of his time at home on the computer, absorbed in his own world. Rumors that Nancy Lanza was so protective of her youngest son that she wouldn’t let him out of her sight–even to use the restroom–are being circulated after it was reported that she stopped working in order to spend more time taking care of him. Still, the anti-social behavior continued right up until the shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

    “You would say ‘‘hi’’ and he would say ‘‘hi’’ back but he didn’t give you a lot to work with. He wasn’t exactly welcoming,” said Kate Leen, who attended school with Adam.

    An acquaintance of Nancy’s who spoke to her in a pub about a week before the shootings says she knew something was going on with her son but felt she couldn’t help him.

    “Nancy told me he was burning himself with a lighter. In the ankles or arms or something,” he said. “It was like he was trying to feel something.”

    Nancy Lanza was found shot to death in her bed after police raided the home, and a computer in Adam’s room was smashed to bits on the floor; investigators are currently trying to repair the hard drive in an effort to look for any small clue as to why Adam took off with his mother’s guns on Friday and ended so many lives.

  • School Shooting In Connecticut Leads To Different Ryan Lanzas Being Mistaken For Shooter

    Once CNN released the name of alleged shooter Ryan Lanza (reports are now saying it was his brother), a mad media scramble ensued to look for this person’s social media profiles. One Facebook profile in particular seemed to fit the bill in that Ryan Lanza was listed as from Newtown, Connecticut (though listed as living in New Jersey).

    Some media outlets began to show the profile picture, and there were even a bunch of fake Facebook pages that quickly popped up:

    Lanza Facebook pages

    Shortly thereafter, reports came out that this was not the same Ryan Lanza. Gawker points to a couple of people who are allegedly Facebook friends of Lanza’s, who say it’s not him, sharing alleged screenshots (it has not been confirmed that these are authentic, to my knowledge) of Lanza’s profile, where he says things like:

    “IT WASN”T ME I WAS AT WORK IT WASN’T ME,” “I’m on the bus home now it wasn’t me,” and “Everyone shut the fuck up it wasn’t me.” The profile has since disappeared from Facebook.

    Another Ryan Lanza on Twitter assured everyone that it was not him either, despite recent tweets like “fuck parents” and “depression… fml…”

  • President Obama Speaks on Connecticut Shooting [VIDEO]

    President Obama has just wrapped up his statements on the terrible tragedy that took place in Newtown, Connecticut this afternoon. A mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school has left upwards of 30 people dead, a majority of them children.

    The President fought back tears as he expressed his sadness at the loss of life that occurred today.

    “Our hearts are broken today for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these children and the families of the adults we lost. As a country, we have been through this too many times. This evening Michelle and I will do whah every parent in America will do – hug our children a little tighter and tell them that we love them. There are families in Connecticut that cannot do that tonight and they need all of us tonight. May god bless the memory of the victims and in the words of scripture heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds,” said the President as he closed his remarks.

    Watch his entire statement below:

  • Apple Unveils New iPad Commercial

    Apple begun airing a new iPad commercial last night entitled "What is iPad?" The new ad is a slight departure from their "normal" advertising. As the name of the ad suggest, Apple asks the very simple question and proceeds to answer it in a very whimsical way…

    "iPad is thin. iPad is beautiful. iPad goes anywhere and lasts all day. There’s not right way or wrong way. It’s crazy powerful. It’s magical. You already know how to use it. It’s 200,000 apps and counting. All the worlds” websites in your hands. It’s video, photos. More books than you could read in a lifetime. It’s already a revolution and it’s only just begun."

    Do you have a problem with the way Apple is advertising the iPad in the new commercial? Let us know.

    One of the reoccurring complaints I’ve seen is that people really hate the iPad being referred to as "magical". Personally, I thought it was a bit much… but you can watch the ad below and make up your own mind.


    MacRumors points out that the new iPad ad pays homage to "What is Newton?", an Apple commercial from nearly 20 years ago. For those of you who don’t remember the Newton, it was the first PDA, which was released in 1993. They also state that "If Apple keeps up with the theme, we should be seeing a "Who is iPad" ad and "Where is iPad" to mirror Who is Newton and Where is Newton."


    Do you have any complaints about the new iPad commercial? Tell us.