WebProNews

Tag: sandy hook shooting

  • Troutdale Shooting: One Student, Shooter Dead

    A gunman shot and killed a student at an Oregon high school Tuesday and was later found dead in a bathroom stall.

    Authorities have identified the victim as 14-year-old high school freshman Emilio Hoffman.

    This is the third violent outbreak in a high school or college campus in less than three weeks and brings the total number of school shootings to 74 since the Sandy Hook shooting in December 2012.

    This means, on average, a school shooting occurs every 7.33 days since the tragedy in Newtown — a statistic that troubles President Barack Obama.

    “We’re the only developed country on Earth where this happens,” Obama said Tuesday during a question-and-answer session on Tumblr. “And it happens now once a week. And it’s a one-day story. There’s no place else like this.”

    Reynolds High School — in Troutdale, a suburb of Portland — was immediately locked down and evacuated room by room following the shooting.

    “A gunman entered the high school this morning, shot one student. Unfortunately, that student has died,” Troutdale Police Chief Scott Anderson said at a news conference. “The gunman was located and the gunman is also deceased.”

    Todd Rispler, a Reynolds HS gym teacher and track coach, was grazed by a bullet but was able to make his way to the school’s office to initiate the lockdown, Anderson said.

    Although no official statement has been made concerning the shooter, USA Today cited a police spokesman as saying the shooter was a teenager who shot himself to death in a bathroom stall following the attack.

    President Barack Obama spoke of his fear and frustration Tuesday at the lack of gun control and rash of violence in schools.

    “The country has to do some soul searching about this. This is becoming the norm and we take it for granted in ways that, as a parent, are terrifying to me,” Obama said.

    “Today, Oregon hurts as we try to make sense of a senseless act of violence,” said Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber.

    Image via YouTube

  • Adam Lanza: Odd Radio Show Recording Surfaces

    Adam Lanza, the young man who opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012 and killed 26 people, may have called in to a radio show in 2011 to comment on the killing of a chimp who had attacked and mauled someone. A newly-surfaced recording features a monotone voice that reportedly belonged to Lanza, according to friends.

    The call was made to an Oregon-based radio show called “AnarchyRadio” and is remembered by the host as “odd”.

    “The voice was kind of odd … sort of robotic … and maybe he was trying to disguise his voice or something. I don’t know,” John Zerzan said.

    Lanza dealt with various mental and emotional problems from childhood, according to a police report released after the shooting, and he was fascinated with the behavior of chimpanzees because of their capacity for human emotion, like empathy.

    “In preschool his conduct included repetitive behaviors, temper tantrums, smelling things that were not there, excessive hand washing and eating idiosyncrasies,” prosecutors said in the report.

    “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,” the caller, who identified himself as “Greg”, said. “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. …”

    While the voice on the recording hasn’t been officially verified as belonging to Lanza, the New York Daily News says a friend of Lanza’s came forward to confirm it.

    “It’s him,” said Kyle Kromberg, who shared a Latin class with Lanza. “I talked to him every day for about an hour each day from freshman to junior year, so I know his voice. He’s a very soft-spoken kid, but very articulate.”

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Paul Simon: Newtown Victim Was A Family Friend

    Paul Simon was among the mourners at the funeral for one of the victims of last Friday’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary; teacher Vicki Soto was a family friend.

    The beloved folk singer performed “The Sound Of Silence” at Soto’s memorial service, which no doubt left not a dry eye among the grieving family members. The song was Soto’s favorite; she died a hero after news spread of her courage in the classroom, trying to shield her students from the gunfire.

    “Today, Paul Simon, at the request of their family friends, the Sotos, performed ‘Sound of Silence’ at the funeral for their beloved daughter Vicki Soto. The Sotos and Simons met through Vicki’s mother and Paul’s sister-in-law, both nurses,” said Simon’s rep.

    Soto’s sister Jillian gave a touching eulogy during the service, calling her big sister her hero.

    “Somebody wrote me a letter about the recent tragedy that I would like to share with you: In it, it said they had to sit down with three small children, explaining to them that monsters sadly do exist out there. But they felt relief that because of my sister, they were able to tell them that superheroes also are very real. You are my superhero.”

    Simon also performed the song at a memorial for the victims of 9/11.

    Image: Anthony Delmundo for NewYorkDailyNews