The Associated Press
ran this story on the shooting. Here’s my commentary:
Perhaps an hour before the shooting, Hawkins called Maruca-Kovac to say he had left a suicide note. He wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would no longer be a burden on his family, with whom he had feuded. More ominously, he wrote: "Now I'll be famous."
How does bringing this horrible notoriety onto the family relieve their burden?
Entering Von Maur's in the Westroads Mall, Hawkins promptly drew the attention of security officers.
"Mall security actually spotted Mr. Hawkins upon entry. He was under surveillance at that time, just based on his actions," Police Chief Thomas Warren said Thursday.
But the officers were unarmed, Warren said. "Mall security did not have a chance to intervene."
He came into the mall looking suspicious, then left to retrieve the gun. Unfortunately the unarmed mall security people didn’t call the cops before he got his gun. The police would probably prioritize this type of call pretty low, and may not even come, because at this point, he just
looks suspicious. Nevertheless, if he looked
so suspicious that they noticed him, loud alarm bells should have been going off in their collective heads when he returned. Reading between the lines it’s apparent that they never saw him return.
Police believe Hawkins might have targeted the mall simply because it was large and he had been there somewhat regularly.
We can certainly speculate that he targeted the mall because he was aware, since he frequented this mall, that security was unarmed and likely impotent. I doubt he was worried about armed citizens, but most teenagers have less respect for mall security personnel than we do.
Mason, 42, was about 50 feet from Hawkins; his wife was even closer. The clerk at the counter told them to go with her to a hiding place - and they went to a small storage area behind the dressing rooms.
A grandmother and her 4-year-old grandson sneaked into the storage area with them and they waited in fear. Shooting persisted - then stopped for a moment. Then, Mason said, he heard five or six more shots before all went quiet.
They waited about 45 minutes - Mason grabbed a box cutter just in case the gunman came back - and they heard police announce their presence.
This is disturbing – even sickening. Good free Americans cowering in the face of evil, unable to protect their children. One grabs a box cutter for protection, far too little and far too late. We cannot ever be prepared for every contingency, but it helps to be prepared for the ones that are willing to kill you and yours.
By the time police arrived, within six minutes of the first 911 call, customer Gary Scharf was dead.
Read this carefully; don’t miss the jumble of thoughts presented. The mention of the response time seems completely out of place here, but someone thought it important so it was forced into this sentence. Six minutes is an eternity is this scenario, but I think the writer included it as a salve to the nerves of holiday mall shoppers that help is only minutes away.
"These were innocent people going about their daily lives, performing their jobs and shopping for the holidays," said Mayor Mike Fahey. "They are men and women who did not deserve the fate that they were given."
The mayor is a ****wit. Of course they didn’t deserve the fate they were given! They made the lethal mistake of trusting their lives to unarmed, untrained, and underpaid mall security personnel, instead of taking responsibility for their own safety first. Unless the police can guarantee a response time of six seconds or less,
you and you alone are the best protection you could possible hope for. This is a violent society at times, and if you fail to prepare yourself for mortal danger then you are a danger to yourself and the ones over which you hold responsibility. Everyone carries a spare tire in the trunk of their car to be prepared for the minor inconvenience of a flat tire, but foolishly brush aside preparation for the potentially fatal threats that lurk about. None of the shoppers killed in the mall knew that kid, so none of them had any chance of intervening to prevent the tragedy; the best they could have done was stop him after the people that knew him failed. There will be a cry of ‘more gun control’ and ‘better identification of the mentally ill’, but that doesn’t mean squat when there’s a gun barrel turning to your direction. At that point it becomes survival. Far too many Americans trust their survival to someone else.
