Police: NY gunman set 'trap' for firefighters
By JOHN KEKIS, Associated Press
Updated 12:02 pm, Monday, December 24, 2012
WEBSTER, N.Y. (AP) — A gunman ambushed four volunteer firefighters responding to an intense pre-dawn house fire Monday morning outside Rochester, N.Y., killing two, wounding two others and then killing himself, authorities said. Police used an armored vehicle to evacuate more than 30 nearby residents.
The gunman fired at the firefighters when they arrived shortly after 5:30 a.m. at the blaze near the Lake Ontario shore in Webster, town Police Chief Gerald Pickering said. The first Webster police officer who arrived chased the suspect and exchanged gunfire with him, authorities said.
"It does appear it was a trap" for the first responders to the fire, Pickering said at a news conference.
The gunman, William Spengler, had served more than 17 years in prison for beating his 92-year-old grandmother to death in 1980 at the house next to where Monday's attack happened, Pickering said. Spengler, 62, was paroled in 1998 and had led a quiet life since, authorities said. Convicted felons are not allowed to possess weapons.
Police say he set fire to a car and house to lure firefighters to his home on the shore of Lake Ontario. When they arrived, he opened fire from outdoors, probably with a rifle and from atop an earthen berm.
"He laid in wait with armament and shot first responders," Pickering said. Police don't know a motive yet.
Two firefighters, one of whom was also a town police lieutenant, died at the scene, and two others were hospitalized. A fifth man who was passing by was also injured. The police officer who exchanged gunfire with Spengler and "in all likelihood saved many lives," Pickering said.
Seven houses were destroyed in the blaze, Pickering said, and police have not been able to get inside the houses to determine if there are any more victims. They said Spengler's 67-year-old sister Cheryl Spengler was unaccounted for. He lived in the house with his sister and mother, Arline, who died in October.
source
How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
JG. KIND OF GIVES NEW MEANING...
... to the word "fire-arms."
"Convicted felons are not allowed to possess weapons." Exactly! They are convicted felons because they don't give a shit about our "nation of laws." Find a way to curb this element of our society, plus what drives the mentally ill into murderous rampages, and the good ol' USofA will be virtually crime free. Problem solved!
"We're killing much more efficiently, but we're still killing." Jack the Ripper, "Time After Time"
"Convicted felons are not allowed to possess weapons." Exactly! They are convicted felons because they don't give a shit about our "nation of laws." Find a way to curb this element of our society, plus what drives the mentally ill into murderous rampages, and the good ol' USofA will be virtually crime free. Problem solved!
"We're killing much more efficiently, but we're still killing." Jack the Ripper, "Time After Time"
“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.”
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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
So he was 29-30 years old when he beat his 92 year old grandmother to death. And he served 17 years and then was let go. Probably he'd have served two years probation if it had been someone else's grandmother. I urge again for the death penatly - death by incarceration that is. Stay in prison and get probation when you die.The gunman, William Spengler, had served more than 17 years in prison for beating his 92-year-old grandmother to death in 1980 at the house next to where Monday's attack happened, Pickering said. Spengler, 62, was paroled in 1998 and had led a quiet life since
Meade
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
If He had only Had a Gun....
Chinese man drives car into students, injuring 13
Updated 1:12 am, Tuesday, December 25, 2012
BEIJING (AP) — A man angered by a court ruling in the murder of his daughter rammed a car loaded with a gas tank and firecrackers into a group of middle schoolers, injuring 13 in the country's latest attack on students.
The man ran down 23 students at Fengning No. 1 Middle School in northern China's Hebei province on Monday, the official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday, citing local police.
Xinhua said the man, identified as 48-year-old Yin Tiejun, later lit a bottle of diesel in an attempt to set his car on fire.
Police put out the fire and found the gas tank and firecrackers in the trunk of the car, but Xinhua said Yin told police in an interrogation later that the materials were not meant for an attack.
Yin has been detained on charges of endangering public safety, Xinhua said.
Xinhua described Yin as having been upset for years that a court did not sentence to death all four assailants involved in the murder of his daughter three years ago. The report did not give further details of the murder but said the children hurt in Monday's car crash were not tied to the case.
Xinhua said the man did not act under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Students were hospitalized with injuries that included skull fractures and crushed feet, Xinhua said.
The local Fengning county government confirmed the incident in a written statement and said Yin was driving a Geely sedan.
Citing eyewitnesses, the Beijing-based state-run Jinghua Times said the accident occurred when students were leaving school for noon break and that the car accelerated and knocked down students, many of whom were on bikes.
On Dec. 14, a Chinese man took a kitchen knife and went on a stabbing spree that left 23 students wounded in an elementary school in Henan province.
China has seen more than a half-dozen school attacks in less than three years, though the death tolls have been mostly in single digits, largely because knives have been the most-used weapon. China largely prohibits private ownership of guns.
Several of the attacks have been sparked by grudges, which some experts say shows that the violence stems from simmering and widespread frustration over the growing wealth gap, corruption and too few legal channels for people who have grievances.
source
Updated 1:12 am, Tuesday, December 25, 2012
BEIJING (AP) — A man angered by a court ruling in the murder of his daughter rammed a car loaded with a gas tank and firecrackers into a group of middle schoolers, injuring 13 in the country's latest attack on students.
The man ran down 23 students at Fengning No. 1 Middle School in northern China's Hebei province on Monday, the official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday, citing local police.
Xinhua said the man, identified as 48-year-old Yin Tiejun, later lit a bottle of diesel in an attempt to set his car on fire.
Police put out the fire and found the gas tank and firecrackers in the trunk of the car, but Xinhua said Yin told police in an interrogation later that the materials were not meant for an attack.
Yin has been detained on charges of endangering public safety, Xinhua said.
Xinhua described Yin as having been upset for years that a court did not sentence to death all four assailants involved in the murder of his daughter three years ago. The report did not give further details of the murder but said the children hurt in Monday's car crash were not tied to the case.
Xinhua said the man did not act under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Students were hospitalized with injuries that included skull fractures and crushed feet, Xinhua said.
The local Fengning county government confirmed the incident in a written statement and said Yin was driving a Geely sedan.
Citing eyewitnesses, the Beijing-based state-run Jinghua Times said the accident occurred when students were leaving school for noon break and that the car accelerated and knocked down students, many of whom were on bikes.
On Dec. 14, a Chinese man took a kitchen knife and went on a stabbing spree that left 23 students wounded in an elementary school in Henan province.
China has seen more than a half-dozen school attacks in less than three years, though the death tolls have been mostly in single digits, largely because knives have been the most-used weapon. China largely prohibits private ownership of guns.
Several of the attacks have been sparked by grudges, which some experts say shows that the violence stems from simmering and widespread frustration over the growing wealth gap, corruption and too few legal channels for people who have grievances.
source
Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
Gun laws should never have even entered into the equation in the case in the OP....
If this piece of human excrement had gotten the sentence he deserved for beating his grandmother to death, he would have been put down years ago.
If this piece of human excrement had gotten the sentence he deserved for beating his grandmother to death, he would have been put down years ago.
Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
Here's a thought; instead of having armed shooters to protect schools*, why not put a teacher in each gun shop?
* Would anyone here seriously live in a society where primary schools needed armed guards? Seriously?
* Would anyone here seriously live in a society where primary schools needed armed guards? Seriously?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
Apparently about 25% of schools have armed security already:
As I said in the other thread, I'm not entirely persuaded that this is the way to go, but I can be persuaded, and if I reach the point where I believe that this sort of thing would in fact prevent or reduce the scale of the bulk of these kinds of attacks then I would reluctantly support it.
If we go this road, for the reasons I stated in the other thread, I would vastly prefer that we pay the money to provide a regular on duty local cop, rather than a patch work of rent-a-cops.
ETA:
I want to make clear, that unlike the hopelessly obtuse Wayne LaPierre, by no means do I see this as a sufficient action to take, even if we take it. We absolutely need to follow the prescription outlined by Judge Burns as well.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12 ... -hook?liteRonald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, a joint project of the U.S. Education and Justice departments, said there's no centralized database tabulating how many school systems have an official armed presence on campus, but he estimated it at 25 percent.
I would prefer not to live in a society where I have to go through all the security hassle I have to go though to board a plane or enter a government building, but I understand why it's necessary.Would anyone here seriously live in a society where primary schools needed armed guards?
As I said in the other thread, I'm not entirely persuaded that this is the way to go, but I can be persuaded, and if I reach the point where I believe that this sort of thing would in fact prevent or reduce the scale of the bulk of these kinds of attacks then I would reluctantly support it.
If we go this road, for the reasons I stated in the other thread, I would vastly prefer that we pay the money to provide a regular on duty local cop, rather than a patch work of rent-a-cops.
ETA:
I want to make clear, that unlike the hopelessly obtuse Wayne LaPierre, by no means do I see this as a sufficient action to take, even if we take it. We absolutely need to follow the prescription outlined by Judge Burns as well.
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oldr_n_wsr
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Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
Many of the LIB-ER-ALS send their kids to schools which do have armed guards.
An armed guard can be made to "blend in" and in the wake of the present situations, it seems the logical choice.
Conn. had laws against "assault rifles" similar to the assault weapons ban that expired so we now know that those types of laws can be gotten around. Mom owned the weapons, son had no weapons. Yet he was the one who obtained them (prosecute mom? good luck with that). AFAIK she was not shot with the bushmaster, which was not even under the assault weapons ban way back under the law that expired. No flash suppression, no "frontal" pistol grip, nothing that banned it. Not Conn., nor federal under the old law. Mom owned it legally. Don't know if she had them locked up, but once she's dead, son has ample time to find the key/combo or just break the locker.
Seems to me, that the only way to stop this, and the only time the perpetrators finally stop, is when the ARMED assualt team (aka cops) is closing in and are ready to shoot him/them. Maybe, just maybe, had an armed guard been present, the perp in Conn may have been confronted and maybe taken out before he got into the school/classrooms. People may say the NRA is crazy for saying the only way to stop gun play is with a gun but Obama himself said 4 years ago, "you don't bring a knife to a gunfight" (or something similar).
An armed guard can be made to "blend in" and in the wake of the present situations, it seems the logical choice.
Conn. had laws against "assault rifles" similar to the assault weapons ban that expired so we now know that those types of laws can be gotten around. Mom owned the weapons, son had no weapons. Yet he was the one who obtained them (prosecute mom? good luck with that). AFAIK she was not shot with the bushmaster, which was not even under the assault weapons ban way back under the law that expired. No flash suppression, no "frontal" pistol grip, nothing that banned it. Not Conn., nor federal under the old law. Mom owned it legally. Don't know if she had them locked up, but once she's dead, son has ample time to find the key/combo or just break the locker.
Seems to me, that the only way to stop this, and the only time the perpetrators finally stop, is when the ARMED assualt team (aka cops) is closing in and are ready to shoot him/them. Maybe, just maybe, had an armed guard been present, the perp in Conn may have been confronted and maybe taken out before he got into the school/classrooms. People may say the NRA is crazy for saying the only way to stop gun play is with a gun but Obama himself said 4 years ago, "you don't bring a knife to a gunfight" (or something similar).
Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
It's necessary, as people like you and all the other good folk here are prepared to put up with it.Lord Jim wrote:Apparently about 25% of schools have armed security already:
I would prefer not to live in a society where I have to go through all the security hassle I have to go though to board a plane or enter a government building, but I understand why it's necessary.Would anyone here seriously live in a society where primary schools needed armed guards?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
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oldr_n_wsr
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Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
It's not a question of putting up with it. Just like marshals on planes, they can blend in. If a sicko see's a sign, "School Zone, no Guns or Drugs allowed" he sees an easy target. If it says, "School Zone, Armed Guard Present" he may think twice. And if not, then there is a chance to minimize the damage.
I don't want guns taken away as the only guns taken away will be those of law abiding citizens like myself. I have no need for high capacity mags, heck, my rifle only holds 6 shots anyway and I usually only put 3 in when hunting. And most rifle ranges I've been to, limit you to one cartridge in a chamber anyway. And the best home defense weapon is a shotgun preferably a pump with 8 shots and alternate the load between slugs and buckshot.
How is it that all of these animals kill themselves only when armed opposition is closing in on them? The faster armed opposition makes it to them, the less that can be done.
I don't want guns taken away as the only guns taken away will be those of law abiding citizens like myself. I have no need for high capacity mags, heck, my rifle only holds 6 shots anyway and I usually only put 3 in when hunting. And most rifle ranges I've been to, limit you to one cartridge in a chamber anyway. And the best home defense weapon is a shotgun preferably a pump with 8 shots and alternate the load between slugs and buckshot.
How is it that all of these animals kill themselves only when armed opposition is closing in on them? The faster armed opposition makes it to them, the less that can be done.
Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
Thanks there O-n-W, the fact that you find all of that acceptable just highlights my point.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
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oldr_n_wsr
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- Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 1:59 am
Re: How would a New Gun Law have helped here...?
I don't view it as acceptable, I view it as the way it is. I find that many of the perps are now dead, which is as it should be. Sadly, innocents die but that's what happens when we are allowed to have guns (or cars for that matter). I have had a gun pulled on me (.45 pistol). Scared the crap out of me (but I didn't have to change the undies 
) but I was so pissed off I swung the bat I had in my hand. I missed the bastard but he dropped his gun and ran off.
Guns don't scare me, people (with or without guns) scare me.
) but I was so pissed off I swung the bat I had in my hand. I missed the bastard but he dropped his gun and ran off. Guns don't scare me, people (with or without guns) scare me.