BOHICA: Officials: Two dead at Kansas City shopping center

[teotwawki]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/mall.shooter/index.html

 

[pacodelahoya]

I couldn't find the info on the website for wards parkway center, but since they are owned at least in part by Toyota(anti gun) then I would assume that the mall was posted no weapons. Anybody local that knows for sure?

 

[griz]

From the article:

Janet Coleman said she saw "a young man with a sawed-off shotgun" in the parking lot being chased by police.

"I could just see a blunt-sized gun bigger than, like a regular .44," she said, adding that she gained her expertise in weapons from watching "a lot of crime TV."

If it wasn't so tragic that would be funny.

 

[AZTOY]

Put on Fox News!

 

[TexasRifleman]

From the Fox News article:

The man was shot to death inside the mall, but police were still trying to determine exactly who shot him,

Potential CCW here, guess we won't know for a while, but it sounds possible.

Wouldn't that just mess it all up for the antis. I pray its what happened.

 

[teotwawki]

We can only hope it was a CCW

 

[Wayne G.]

If it was a CCW who shot the man and the mall was "No guns" posted, will the individual who shot the perp (thereby ending the mele) be charged with carrying concealed or worse?

Seems that it's only in "NO GUNS" places that these shootings happen. College campus, malls, etc. If CCW's could carry anywhere, I bet these scenarios would unfold much differently.

Just my $.02

 

[teotwawki]

Most likely they will not be prosecuted if that is the case. The two folks that ended the shooting in VA that predated the VA Tech one went to get their weapons and entered a no guns campus and terminated the dirtbag that was shooting folks. The DA didn't touch them.

 

[bogie]

Could be a criminal on criminal thing too... Never discount that...

 

[Sharps-shooter]

Thus far I've read one article that has him carrying a sawed off shotgun and another that reports he was "srpaying bullets" from a rifle (as described by a witness in an aticle on msnbc.com).

Sounds like it probably wasn't a pistol. Also, in the Cnn article, all the victims were at the mall, but on msnb, one of them was at a previous location.

Journalism at its finest.

 

[Technosavant]

If it was a CCW who shot the man and the mall was "No guns" posted, will the individual who shot the perp (thereby ending the mele) be charged with carrying concealed or worse?

Not in MO. Carrying in a posted location, unless it's off-limits due to other legislation (airport security zones, etc.), is NOT a crime in this state. They can ask you to leave, but they can't do squat to you unless you refuse to do so.

 

[TexasRifleman]

Well Fox now reporting it was a cop that shot him, but who knows.

 

[Ala Dan]

Update~!

Four now confirmed dead, including the gunman.

 

[RIDE]

4 Dead After Violence in Kansas City Mall

Link here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070430/D8OQN9T80.html


Story:

4 Dead After Violence in Kansas City

Apr 30, 12:46 AM (ET)

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH

(AP) Kansas City police stand at the entrance of a store in the Ward Parkway shopping center in Kansas...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A man driving a dead woman's car shot a police officer, then opened fire in a parking lot and a mall Sunday, authorities said. By the end of the day, four people, including the gunman, were dead.

The chaos ended when police shot the gunman to death outside a Target store inside Ward Parkway Center in south Kansas City, police spokesman Tony Sanders said.

The gunfire sent shoppers and employees scurrying for cover. Target employee Cassie Bradshaw, 19, of Kansas City was in a break room with two other people when they first heard shots. Then, her co-workers saw a man in his 50s with a rifle "shooting everywhere," she said.

"It sounded like maybe firecrackers at first but then they got louder and louder and louder, and it sounded like someone shooting a gun," she said.

The string of violence began early Sunday afternoon, when police went to a home to check on an elderly woman relatives hadn't seen for days. The woman was found dead and her car missing, Sanders said.

The car was spotted later in the day at a gas station by an officer, who pulled the driver over and was shot in the arm, police said. The officer, whose wound was not life-threatening, returned fire and shattered the window of the gunman's car.

The car took off and reports began arriving about 10 to 15 minutes later of shots fired at the shopping center. The man pulled into a parking space and fired at the cars on either side of him, killing two people, authorities said. He fired more shots, wounding at least two people, then went inside the mall, Sanders said.

"Everybody was leaving the mall when the officers ran inside," Sanders said. "They confronted the man and after confronting him, shot and killed him."

Although witnesses reported hearing shots inside the mall, Sanders could not immediately confirm it.

"We have hundreds and hundreds of witnesses we have to interview and try to determine that," he said.

Police did not say how the elderly woman died, or if the gunman was a suspect in her death. But they did say they believed the events were connected.

The mall, one of the city's busiest shopping centers, was shut down and officers went through each store to see if anyone else might have been involved, Sanders said. The gunman and victims' names were not immediately released, and conditions of the wounded were not available.

The wounded officer was treated at an area hospital and released, but the conditions of the other wounded people were not available.

 

[mondocomputerman]

The original CNN.com report included this:

"Janet Coleman said she saw "a young man with a sawed-off shotgun" in the parking lot being chased by police.
"I could just see a blunt-sized gun bigger than, like a regular .44," she said, adding that she gained her expertise in weapons from watching "a lot of crime TV."

What an idiot.

I live in a suburb of Kansas City, but haven't been to that mall in a while.

 

[CNYCacher]

Well Fox now reporting it was a cop that shot him, but who knows.

Indeed. I have no doubt that a citizen stopping a massacre with a CCW has journalist brains screaming "does not compute!"

I remember reading about the MS school shooting where the principal ran 1/2 mile to his car and back to retrieve his pistol and stopped the shooting. Something like 180 articles were written about that event, the number of them that mentioned the his involvement using a gun were in the single digits.

 

[never_retreat]

Is this mall another Victim disarmant zone?

 

[ilbob]

We can only hope it was a CCW

Personally, I would not wish such a thing on anyone solely to advance a political agenda. Thats the way liberals think and not THR.

 

[bogie]

So the cops basically chased the guy to the shopping center?

 

[LaEscopeta]

I don't think we are going to get a lot of comments of slow/non-existent police response to this one.

Also, is seems like the people who followed the “hide and hope he does not find me” plan had it work for them a lot better than it did for people who tried it in several other recent cases.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/mall.shooter/index.html

Officials: Three shot dead at Missouri shopping center
POSTED: 0307 GMT (1107 HKT), April 29, 2007
Story Highlights
• Three shot to death including shooter
• One police officer wounded in an earlier incident police believe was related
• Witness saw "a young man with a sawed-off shotgun" being chased by police
• Another victim shot to death at an incident -- possibly related -- 6 miles away

(CNN) -- A gunman already suspected of wounding a police officer shot and killed two people and wounded at least two others at a shopping center in Kansas City, Missouri, before being gunned down by police, authorities said Sunday.

"It appears that he came to the mall to shoot people," said Sgt. Tony Sanders, a Kansas City police spokesman. "Whether it was random or not we do not know."

Police are also investigating any connection the man may have had to the death of an elderly woman whose body was found in her home a few miles away, police said. (Watch a witness describe hearing shots and seeing people flee the mall )

Sanders said the man shot and killed two people in the parking lot of Ward Parkway Center, about nine miles south of downtown, about 3:30 p.m.

He continued into the mall, where witnesses said he fired several more shots with what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun, but police later determined to be a rifle.

Shots near Starbucks
"I was in my truck and the gunman was two cars over from me," shopper Queea Miller told CNN.

She said she saw the gunman shoot in the direction of a Starbucks coffee shop.

"Then, after he stopped, he re-loaded and started shooting again," said Miller.

Miller said during the shootings, she and her 18-year-old daughter leaned their seats all the way back.

"I got to praying. You could hear the shots going off again," said Miller.

Then police, their guns drawn, began "coming from everywhere," she said.

Clothing store manager Lissa Young said "several rounds of gunfire" were followed by two customers who ran into the store and said shots had been fired.

She said she immediately locked the doors and ordered the customers to the back of the store, where they waited until police gave them the all-clear.

Sanders said police shot the gunman outside a Target department store. Investigators have no clue as to his motive, Sanders said.

Officer shot; then mall chaos
The mall shooting took place less than 20 minutes after a Kansas City police officer was shot and wounded on a nearby road -- and about an hour and a half after police found the body of a woman in her home about five miles from the mall.

Officers found the woman dead and her car missing at 1:49 p.m., Police Capt. Rich Lockhart said in a statement issued Sunday evening. A police officer spotted the car on a nearby road at 3:11 p.m. When the officer pulled the car over, the driver opened fire, hitting the officer in one arm.

The 44-year-old officer, a 15-year veteran, was treated and released Sunday afternoon, Lockhart said.

"He had his wherewithal enough to put out a suspect description and direction of travel and vehicle," Sanders said.

"It is believed the dead man [the mall shooter] is the one who shot the officer on Bannister road. His vehicle was found in the parking lot," Lockhart said.

Barely 15 minutes after the officer was wounded, police received the first reports of the shooting at the shopping mall.

In addition to the wounded police officer, Sanders said at least two people turned up at nearby hospitals after being shot at the mall. Investigators were combing through the mall Sunday evening to ensure the gunman had no accomplices, and Sanders called the building "a giant crime scene."

"We have hundreds of witnesses who were inside the mall when he came in," he said.

"It was a Sunday afternoon at a mall in Middle America, so you can imagine it was crowded."

 

[jpk1md]

Sad story for the victims but its no more newsworthy than the 100-150 Auto related deaths on our highways every day.

The story is struggling to maintain a LINK on the front pages of the major news outlets....bury it and be done with it.....make the story go away.

 

[ilbob]

So the cops basically chased the guy to the shopping center?

Like you can herd an irrational and violent thug somewhere you would prefer?

I would say more like followed him the the shopping center.