History > 2007 > USA > Gun violence (V)

Philly Officer Shot in Doughnut Shop

October 31, 2007
Filed at 1:22 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A police officer walked into a doughnut shop Wednesday while it was being robbed and was shot in the head, authorities said, becoming the third officer in four days to be wounded by gunfire in this city.

The 54-year-old officer, Charles Cassidy, was checking on a Dunkin' Donuts shop around 10 a.m., Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said. The robber shot him almost immediately after the officer walked in.

''He actually walks into a robbery, a holdup, unbeknownst to him,'' Johnson said.

The bullet went through the officer's brain, the commissioner said. He was taken to a hospital, where doctors were ''doing everything they can to save his life,'' Johnson said.

The robber left the shop, returned to pick up the officer's gun and then fled, Johnson said. Police swarmed the North Philadelphia neighborhood in a search for the gunman, combing the area on foot in squad cars and in a police helicopter. More than a dozen schools in the area were locked down.

Mayor John F. Street said he met with the officer's family at the hospital. ''We told them we're going to catch the perpetrator of this act,'' Street said at a news conference.

The shooting came about 12 hours after a masked gunman shot Traffic Officer Mario Santiago in the shoulder during a chase downtown.

Santiago was responding to a report of a gunman in a sport utility vehicle shooting at another car, injuring two men and a woman, police said.

He was chasing the SUV when the gunman eventually got out of his vehicle and approached the squad car, firing twice through the window. Santiago was hit once in the right shoulder, police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said.

Santiago survived and was in fair condition Wednesday.

The gunman in that shooting apparently jumped into the Schuylkill River, where searchers later recovered a body. Police said Wednesday morning that they had not determined if it was the suspect's body.

Early Sunday, an officer responding to a melee at a West Philadelphia nightclub was shot in the ankle. More than two dozen bullets were fired, police said. One suspect was fatally shot and another was arrested.

    Philly Officer Shot in Doughnut Shop, NYT, 31.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Officers-Shot.html

Teen Admits Stockpiling Weapons

October 26, 2007
Filed at 11:53 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- A 14-year-old boy accused of plotting a Columbine-style attack on a suburban Philadelphia high school admitted in court Friday that he illegally stockpiled weapons.

Dillon Cossey, 14, admitted to three crimes -- criminal solicitation, risking a catastrophe and possession of an instrument of crime -- in Montgomery County juvenile court.

Cossey, a home-schooled student from Plymouth Township, was arrested earlier this month. He tried to recruit another boy in the plan, which included chaining shut the doors at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said Friday.

He had amassed a stockpile of weapons, including a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle, about 30 air-powered guns modeled to look like higher-powered weapons, swords, knives, a bomb-making book, videos of the 1999 Columbine high school attack in Colorado and violence-filled notebooks, authorities said.

The boy will be placed in juvenile custody. The longest he can remain there is until his 21st birthday.

Cossey will receive regular evaluations by the Judge Paul Tressler.

''I'm going to make it clear to you and your parents, if you get to the point where you're ready to get home, but they're not worthy of having you, I'll send you somewhere else'' such as to a relative or foster home, Tressler told Cossey.

Authorities accused Cossey's mother, Michele, of helping him build his weapons cache.

Michele Cossey, 46, is charged with illegally buying her son a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle with a laser scope.

Cossey took the stand during Friday's hearing and answered yes and no questions.

Cossey admitted to telling a friend that he wanted to stage an attack similar to the 1999 assault on Columbine High School in Colorado, telling him, ''The world would be better off without bullies,'' according to Castor.

Authorities do not believe the teen was close to pulling off an attack; he had no ammunition and the teen he approached was the first he had asked for assistance.

    Teen Admits Stockpiling Weapons, NYT, 26.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Student-Arsenal.html

Man, Woman Dead in NYC Triple Shooting

October 26, 2007
Filed at 7:54 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- A gunman shot three people in the head inside an apartment early Friday, leaving a man and a woman dead and gravely wounding another man, police said.

It wasn't clear what spurred the shootings, and investigators had not made any arrests.

The victims were found just after midnight after someone reported hearing gunfire in an apartment in the New York City borough of the Bronx.

Ludmildy Rosado, 20, and Daniel Newton, 34, were dead when rescuers arrived. Police said it wasn't clear whether the two knew each other.

The surviving victim, who wasn't identified, was taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said.

Police removed several dogs from the apartment, turning them over to animal authorities.

    Man, Woman Dead in NYC Triple Shooting, NYT, 26.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Triple-Shooting.html

1st Guilty Plea Linked to Shooting Spree

October 26, 2007
Filed at 12:53 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A man charged with selling a handgun to a teenager who killed five people at a shopping mall pleaded guilty on Thursday.

Brenden Taylor Brown was sentenced to a year of probation for the misdemeanor and was fined $500 by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball. Prosecutors dropped a felony charge of lying to federal investigators.

Brown, 21, said he didn't know about Sulejman Talovic's plans or that the Bosnian immigrant was a minor who wasn't supposed to have a handgun.

''The whole thing was a big tragedy that I would never want to be a part of,'' he said.

Talovic, 17 at the time, bought the handgun in the back seat of Brown's car while in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant in 2006, according to court documents.

Months later, in February, Talovic, 18, fired at nine strangers, killing five, at Trolley Square mall before dying in a shootout with police. Authorities were never able to determine his motive.

Brown, of West Jordan, is the first of four defendants to plead guilty in the investigation of how Talovic acquired the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol and a shotgun fashioned with a pistol grip.

It is illegal for a teen to possess a handgun, and authorities say Talovic also was prohibited from owning a long gun equipped with the pistol grip.

Talovic, who had a bandolier of shotgun shells under his trench coat and backpack full of ammunition, used both weapons to fire indiscriminately at the mall.

A co-defendant, Mackenzie Glade Hunter, is scheduled to appear Nov. 1 to change his plea. He was charged with helping arrange the handgun sale to Talovic.

Two other people have been indicted. An Army private who authorities say witnessed the handgun deal but denied knowledge of the sale is scheduled to stand trial Nov. 5 on a charge of lying to investigators. And a pawn shop employee is accused of selling the minor a shotgun with a built-in pistol grip and failing to keep a record of the transaction.

Talovic was 10 when his parents brought him to the United States to escape ethnic violence in their homeland. He didn't finish high school and held a blue-collar job at the time of the massacre.

His parents buried him in his native land. He had 11 gunshot wounds after the shootout with police, according to the state crime lab.

    1st Guilty Plea Linked to Shooting Spree, NYT, 26.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Utah-Shooting-Guns.html

Cleveland School Shooting Video Released

October 26, 2007
Filed at 12:23 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

CLEVELAND (AP) -- His face concealed by a white hooded sweat shirt, the student gunman climbs an enclosed staircase with his cache of weapons in a backpack, moments before opening fire on classmates and teachers.

Strikingly clear photos pulled from surveillance cameras and released Thursday show Asa Coon as he moved around SuccessTech Academy on Oct. 10, when he wounded two teachers and two high school classmates before killing himself.

The images show the hallway where students were shot: One is seen lying on the floor, the other is hidden behind a curve in the wall. The scenes are not overtly graphic because the violence is captured by cameras about 100 feet away.

The teacher shootings were inside classrooms, away from the hallway cameras.

''People deserve to know what happened, so we wanted to put the information out there,'' police Lt. Thomas Stacho said.

The initial scenes show an orderly school day: students walking past posters heading to bright blue lockers and into classrooms as a janitor collects trash bags.

Then Coon, 14, changes into a black T-shirt in a restroom and emerges with a .22-caliber revolver in one hand and a .38-caliber revolver in the other. With his arms extended at an angle, he points into one classroom, then another.

Terror emerges in the staccato images of students -- seen from three cameras -- turning sharply away. One, arms flying, almost falls to his knees as he digs in his heels to flee.

Math teacher David Kachadourian, 57, was shot first, out of view of the camera, while rushing his students to safety in a stairwell. Kachadourian, shot in the back, flees down one flight to the third floor, leaving a bloody trail.

Four seconds later, images show Coon moving down another hallway, stopping to look into a classroom and disappearing from view for 18 seconds, long enough to shoot Michael Grassie, 42, who was flunking Coon in a history class.

Coon, apparently looking for a third teacher, headed into a darkened laboratory where students were huddled under tables, Police Chief Michael McGrath said. At that point, he said, Coon apparently heard police sirens and moved down the hall to his suicide location.

The rampage is recorded for 1 minute and 22 seconds -- from the time Coon left the restroom where he changed clothes and armed himself to the time he disappears from camera view, Stacho said. Final scenes show officers, weapons drawn, ducking into classrooms looking for the shooter.

Coon's body was found in a corner room on the fourth floor of the school, which also houses administrative offices.

Police Commander Ed Tomba said Thursday that anger over disciplinary issues may have prompted the shootings, but said the exact motive might never be known. Coon had been suspended for fighting days before the shooting.

The number of shots fired wasn't determined and the weapons could not be traced, Tomba said.

School officials now plan to install metal detectors and security guards in all of Cleveland's 110 school buildings.

    Cleveland School Shooting Video Released, NYT, 26.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-School-Shooting-Video.html

Boy, 15, Charged in School Shooting

October 26, 2007
Filed at 1:26 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) -- A 15-year-old boy was charged in a shooting near a middle school football game that critically injured a high school student and wounded three other victims.

The boy was charged as a juvenile with assault with intent to murder, but Saginaw County Prosecutor Michael D. Thomas said he could bring adult charges as the investigation continued.

The suspect, whose name was not released, and two of the victims attend Saginaw's Arthur Hill High School. A man and a woman were also shot.

A 16-year-old boy who was shot in the neck was in critical condition Thursday, officials said. The others were treated and released, some after being grazed by bullets.

The suspect remained in juvenile custody Thursday, and no one else faces charges, Thomas said.

About 100 people were attending Wednesday's game when gunfire broke out during halftime.

Police Chief Gerald H. Cliff said the shooting apparently stemmed from an altercation earlier in the day that escalated.

''It was kind of a kid thing,'' Cliff said. ''One makes the other one mad, and (one) goes and gets a gun.''

Police were searching for the weapon, Detective Sgt. Mark Lively said.

Classes were held Thursday at the middle school under stepped-up security, said Safiya Mosley, a Saginaw Public Schools spokeswoman. She said crisis counselors were available to students. Arthur Hill High previously had increased security in place, she said.

    Boy, 15, Charged in School Shooting, NYT, 26.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Football-Shootings.html

4 Shot at Mich. Middle School Game

October 25, 2007
Filed at 1:41 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) -- Gunfire erupted during halftime at a middle school football game on Wednesday afternoon, wounding two teenagers and two adults, police said.

A 16-year-old boy was shot in the neck, Detective Sgt. Brent Vanderhaar said. The three others were treated and released, some after being grazed by bullets.

Police late Wednesday were questioning one person whom Vanderhaar described as a ''person of interest.'' The investigator would not say whether the person had been arrested and gave no other details.

Vanderhaar would not say whether the boy had been targeted by the shooter, but did say the other victims apparently were innocent bystanders walking from the game.

No arrests had been made, but police had one person in custody being questioned as a ''person of interest,'' Vanderhaar said.

The injured teenagers were not students at South Middle School, where the shootings took place about 5:15 p.m. The other victims were an adult male and an adult female, Vanderhaar said. He declined to provide more details.

About 100 people were attending the game when the shooting erupted a short distance from the school's football field, where the team was playing Central Middle School, Vanderhaar said.

Safiya Mosley, a Saginaw Public Schools spokeswoman, said players and spectators were moved toward the center of the football field immediately after the shootings. They were allowed to leave after police indicated the situation was under control.

Classes were to be held Thursday at the middle school under stepped-up security, Mosley said. Crisis counselors would be available to students needing them, she said.

''Things that go on in the community sometimes has effects in the schools,'' Mosley said. ''It's going to take the community as a whole to fix it.''

    4 Shot at Mich. Middle School Game, NYT, 25.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Football-Shootings.html

Mom Charged With Buying Pa. Teen Weapons

October 12, 2007
Filed at 12:24 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- The mother of a 14-year-old who authorities say had a cache of guns, knives and explosive devices in his bedroom for a possible school attack was charged Friday with buying her son three weapons.

Michele Cossey, 46, bought her home-schooled son, Dillon, a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle, authorities said.

The teenager felt bullied and tried to recruit another boy for a possible attack at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, authorities said. His mother was not accused of helping plot an attack, ''but by virtue of her indulgence, she enabled him to get in this position,'' Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said.

''This is not the best parenting I've ever seen and she needs to be held accountable,'' Castor said.

Acting on a tip from a high school student and his father, police on Wednesday found the rifle, about 30 air-powered guns, swords, knives, a bomb-making book, videos of the 1999 Columbine attack in Colorado and violence-filled notebooks in the boy's bedroom, Castor said.

The mother bought the rifle, which had a laser scope, at a gun show on Sept. 23 and provided police with a receipt, investigators said in court papers. The teenager said the two .22-caliber weapons were stored at a friend's house.

She was charged with unlawful transfer of a firearm, possession of a firearm by a minor, corruption of a minor, endangering the welfare of a child and two counts of reckless endangerment, and later released on bail. She did not comment at the hearing.

The teen, who also had a brief court appearance Friday, was ordered held at a juvenile facility while he undergoes psychiatric evaluations. He was charged with solicitation to commit terror and other counts, but his lawyer, J. David Farrell, stressed that all but one of the weapons prosecutors put on display were pellet guns and air rifles.

Farrell noted it is not illegal in Pennsylvania for a minor to fire a weapon under adult supervision and said he didn't believe the students at Plymouth Whitemarsh were in any danger.

''They're showing 30 guns on a desk that appear to be handguns and saying this was a Columbine in the making,'' Farrell said. ''That's simply not borne out by the facts.''

Authorities said Friday that the boy's father also tried to buy his son a rifle in 2005, but was not allowed to because he was a felon, authorities said Friday.

Frank Cossey was sentenced to house arrest for lying about his criminal record when he went to buy a .22-caliber rifle for his son in December 2005, police said Friday. On his application he said he had never been convicted of a felony, but he had pleaded guilty in 1981 to manslaughter in a drunken driving death in Oklahoma and sent to prison, police said.

The teen previously attended middle school in the district but had been taught at home for more than a year after voluntarily leaving school, Castor said. Castor has said he does not believe and attack was imminent or would occur at all. He said Friday that the teen had a ''disturbed mind.''

''This was a smart kid that clearly believes he was picked on and was a victim,'' Castor said. ''He had psychological issues and began to act out on those feelings.''

The arrest came the same day a 14-year-old in Ohio opened fire at his Cleveland high school, wounding four before killing himself.

------

Associated Press writer JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia contributed to this story.

    Mom Charged With Buying Pa. Teen Weapons, NYT, 12.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Student-Arsenal.html

Gunman Opens Fire at Cleveland High School

October 11, 2007
The New York Times
By CHRIS MAAG and IAN URBINA

CLEVELAND, Oct. 10 — Disgruntled about having been suspended on Monday after a fight, a 14-year-old student shot and injured two students and two teachers at a downtown Cleveland high school on Wednesday before fatally shooting himself, the authorities said.

None of the victims’ injuries were considered life-threatening.

The gunman was identified as Asa H. Coon, a freshman at the school, SuccessTech Academy.

The police and school officials said that around 1:15 p.m., Mr. Coon arrived at the school armed with two handguns, a .38 and a .22 caliber, and that he began working his way up two flights of stairs before opening fire in a crowded hallway on the third floor.

Within minutes, the principal announced a “code blue” over the intercom, leading some students to flee into the halls, while others hid in closets and under desks.

“Shut up, shut up; I hate this school,” the gunman said, according to Mychael Wilmore-Smith, 14, a sophomore who was in a fourth-floor classroom when the gunman arrived on her floor and began firing.

Mychael said she darted down a flight of stairs before hiding with five other students in a classroom on the third floor. After several minutes, the group, sobbing, decided to sprint down the rest of the stairs, she said.

The police said they believed Mr. Coon had singled out the two teachers, who may have played a role in his suspension.

The police said they found two boxes of ammunition and three knives near Mr. Coon’s body on the fourth floor.

Fellow students described Mr. Coon as sullen, “Gothic” in style and prone to wearing long trench coats and painting his fingernails black.

“He said he was going to take them down,” said Marie Johnson, a 16-year-old junior, describing how Mr. Coon was often mocked for the way he dressed and how he bragged about plans to make targets of his tormenters. “But we didn’t think he was serious.”

In calls to 911, students described Mr. Coon as 5 foot 5, white and “kind of chubby.”

The police would not elaborate on the fight that led to Mr. Coon’s suspension this week. Court documents showed that he spent time in juvenile detention centers, stemming, in part, from at least one incident of domestic violence.

Court records also show that he threatened to commit suicide last year while in the care of a mental health facility, and that he had a problematic relationship with his mother. They also show that he refused to take medication and was suspended from school last year for trying to physically harm another student.

The victims were Michael Peek, 15, who was treated for a gunshot wound to the torso and was in stable condition Wednesday night. Another student, 18-year-old Darnell Rodgers, was shot in the elbow and released from a hospital. David Kachadourian, 57, a math teacher, was shot in the back, and Michael Grassie, 42, a multicultural studies teacher, was shot in the chest. Mr. Kachadourian was in good condition and expected to be released. Mr. Grassie remained in stable condition after surgery at Metro Health Medical Center.

Trinnetta McGrady, a 10th grader who was trampled by students fleeing the gunman, suffered knee and back injuries but was also expected to be released, the police said.

“I’m mad and I’m scared,” said Mr. Rodgers, soon after being released from the hospital. “But I also know this can happen anywhere, whether you are in the suburbs or in the inner city.”

In downtown Cleveland directly across the street from a regional F.B.I. office, the school is housed in a five-story office building, the first two floors of which hold administrative offices for the Cleveland school district. Classrooms are on the top three floors.

The building had a security guard at the entrance, but metal detectors were not in use, students said. There are security cameras in most hallways, and visitors are required to sign in, but most of the classrooms lack doors, said Michael Charney, who retired in 2005 after teaching at the school for a year. The school used to have three security guards, but two were reassigned to other schools, he said.

“I taught for 32 years, and this was calmest school I ever taught in,” Mr. Charney said.

“The students were extremely well-behaved,” he added. “This is not the kind of thing you would expect there.”

In recent years parents have criticized the school for a lack of security. But Eugene T. W. Sanders, chief executive officer of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, said: “It is a small school with advanced students. So typically schools like that do not have the same security level as larger schools. But there was full-time security at this building.”

The school has about 250 students and was started in 2002 with seed money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It specializes in technological studies and this year received an Ohio Department of Education School of Promise Award, Mr. Charney said, given to schools that have at least 40 percent of their students eligible for free or reduced lunch, and that has achieved the state standard in math and reading testing. Its graduation rate is 94 percent, well above the district’s rate of 55 percent, school officials said.

Students must have good grades to apply, then they go through an interview process before they are chosen. Students and parents interviewed Wednesday said courses were tougher than at other schools and teachers more attentive.

Classes on Thursday were canceled, and Friday had already been scheduled as a day off, school officials said.

Chris Maag reported from Cleveland, and Ian Urbina from Washington. Sean D. Hamill contributed from Cleveland, and Bob Driehaus from Cincinnati.

    Gunman Opens Fire at Cleveland High School, NYT, 11.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/us/11cleveland.html?hp

Gunman Opens Fire at Cleveland High School

October 10, 2007
The New York Times
By MARIA NEWMAN

A student who allegedly opened fire inside a Cleveland high school today was killed after he shot and wounded several people, creating moments of sheer terror for students, school officials and parents, according to local news outlets.

The Cleveland television station WOIO-19, a CBS affiliate, reported that the gunman may have been a 14-year-old student, and that he was killed after a brief manhunt by police inside the school, the SuccessTech Academy.

There is no official word yet on whether the gunman died of his own hand or was killed by police who descended on the school, which is housed on several floors of an office building on Lakeside Avenue.

Several students and parents told reporters that the student who was killed had been recently suspended, that he drew a gun inside the school, and that his shots hit several people. Two of the victims may have been teachers, according to local television reports.

“The student had two guns, one in each hand, and fired them both while walking down the hallway,” Channel 19 reported. “Three people have been shot — including two teachers.”

Televised scenes outside the school showed dozens of police cars, SWAT team members running in and terrified parents being reunited with their children coming out of the school. The television station showed three gurneys being wheeled out of the school and loaded into ambulances.

One student told The Associated Press that she heard the principal say “Code Blue” over the public address system, and that prompted students to start running.

Doneisha LeVert said she hid in a closet in the building with some of her friends, The A.P. reported.

Ronnell Jackson, 15, told the news agency that he saw three people brought out of the building on gurneys, The A.P. said.

Mr. Jackson said he ducked out of the door of the school when he saw a shooter running down the hall.

“He was about to shoot me, but I got out just in time,” he said. “He was aiming at me — I got out just in time.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on its web site that city police were called to the school at 1:15 p.m. Eastern time and that paramedics were summoned to Room 310, where one person was shot, and to Room 415, where another was shot in the lower chest. SuccessTech is a nontraditional public high school whose mission, according to its web site, is “Problem-based service learning with an emphasis on technology.” Some administrative offices are also located in the building.

    Gunman Opens Fire at Cleveland High School, NYT, 10.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/us/10cnd-shooting.html?hp

Wis. Town Tries to Recover After Rampage

October 10, 2007
Filed at 8:57 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

CRANDON, Wis. (AP) -- As authorities released a chilling timeline of the weekend's shooting spree, students prepared to return to classes in a northern Wisconsin city shaken by a rampage that left seven dead.

Tyler Peterson, an off-duty sheriff's deputy, burst into a pizza party at his ex-girlfriend's home early Sunday and opened fire with an AR-15 assault rifle. Six people, including the ex-girlfriend, were killed, and a seventh was wounded.

Hours later, officers closed in on Peterson near a friend's home. He was shot four times, the last a fatal, self-inflicted wound to the head, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Tuesday.

The shootings devastated Crandon, population 2,000, where many people knew at least one of the victims.

''I keep thinking, like many of the families, that I'm going to wake up and this is not something that happened, that it's just going to be normal again,'' said Pastor Bill Farr of Praise Chapel Community Church, which all of the victims' families attend. ''That's not going to be the case.''

All six victims were either students or recent graduates of Crandon High School, where Peterson also had graduated. Classes were canceled Monday and Tuesday, and were to resume Wednesday.

At a news conference Tuesday, Van Hollen said Peterson was shot once in the left bicep, from a distance, and apparently shot himself in the head three times with a pistol.

Two shots struck under his chin, while the third hit him in the right side of the head, the attorney general said.

Van Hollen said the shooting occurred after the 20-year-old Peterson, who also was a part-time police officer, went to Jordanne Murray's home, where she and friends were having a pizza party during the school's homecoming weekend.

Peterson argued with Murray after accusing her of dating someone else, Van Hollen said. Murray demanded Peterson leave, and he did, only to return with the rifle.

''He didn't speak, he simply opened fire,'' Van Hollen said.

Investigators found three bodies on or next to a couch -- Lindsey Stahl, 14; Aaron Smith, 20, and Bradley Schultz, 20. Murray, 18, was found in the kitchen.

Lianna Thomas, 18, was found in a bedroom closet, and Katrina McCorkle, 18, was just outside it. Both had apparently been trying to hide, Van Hollen said.

The last person shot was survivor Charlie Neitzel, 21, who pleaded with Peterson after the first shot, only to have him fire again, Van Hollen said. Neitzel fell to the floor, where he lay still as Peterson fired a third time.

''Playing dead until Peterson left, Neitzel survived,'' Van Hollen said.

Neitzel was in fair condition Tuesday after surgery to remove debris from his wounds, said Karla David, a spokeswoman for St. Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield.

The victims' families have met with Peterson's family and ''hold no animosity toward them,'' Van Hollen said.

He said they told him they want ''space to grieve'' and asked that news media leave them alone.

The families, the church and the town's one funeral home were still working on funeral arrangements Tuesday. Farr's wife, Sjana Farr, said Peterson's family had requested his funeral be last out of respect for the victims' families.

------

Associated Press writer Robert Imrie contributed to this report.

    Wis. Town Tries to Recover After Rampage, NYT, 10.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Wisconsin-Shooting.html

Police: 2 Dead, 2 Wounded at Tire Shop

October 9, 2007
Filed at 12:24 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) -- Two people were killed and two people were wounded in a shooting at a tire shop Tuesday, police said.

Police found the victims after responding to reports of shots fired around 7:30 a.m., Sgt. David Livingstone said.

    Police: 2 Dead, 2 Wounded at Tire Shop, NYT, 9.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Tire-Shop-Shooting.html

Wis. Town Mourns 6 Shooting Victims

October 8, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:06 a.m. ET
The New York Times

CRANDON, Wis. (AP) -- An off-duty sheriff's deputy killed six young people and critically wounded another during a homecoming weekend gathering, a rampage relatives of the victims said may have been fueled by a romantic dispute.

Tyler Peterson, 20, was shot to death after opening fire early Sunday at a home where authorities said the friends met for pizza and movies. He was off-duty from his full-time job as a Forest County deputy sheriff; he also was a part-time Crandon police officer.

''I'm waiting for somebody to wake me up right now. This is a bad, bad dream,'' said Jenny Stahl, whose 14-year-old daughter, Lindsey Stahl, was the youngest victim. ''All I heard it was a jealous boyfriend and he went berserk. He took them all out.''

Crandon Police Chief John Dennee declined comment on whether Peterson had a romantic relationship with any of the victims.

The lone survivor of the shooting, a male, remained in critical condition Monday at St. Joseph's Hospital, according to nursing supervisor Penny Funk.

The white, two-story duplex where the shooting occurred was about a block from downtown Crandon, a small town located 225 miles north of Milwaukee in an area known for logging and outdoor activities.

Marci Franz, who lives two houses from the duplex where the shooting occurred, said she was awakened by the gunshots.

''I heard probably five or six shots, a short pause and then five or six more,'' she said.

Then she heard eight louder shots and tires squealing, she said.

''I was just about to get up and call it in, and I heard sirens,'' she said. ''There's never been a tragedy like this here. There's been individual incidents, but nothing of this magnitude.''

Sheriff Keith Van Cleve said he would meet with state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen on Monday morning to discuss the case. Crandon Mayor Gary Bradley said Sunday that a sniper killed the suspect, but Van Cleve would not confirm that officers shot him.

The shooting raised questions among residents about whether Peterson had met requirements to become a law enforcement officer. David Franz, who is married to Marci Franz, said it was hard to accept that someone in law enforcement was the gunman.

''The first statement we said to each other was, 'How did he get through the system?''' Franz said.

Peterson's father, Steve Peterson, said that the family planned to draft a statement to the public, but declined Monday to talk in detail. Nothing his family said about him now would be believable to most people, he said.

''It is very trying,'' he said.

Three of the victims were Crandon High School students, said school Superintendent Richard Peters, and the other three had graduated within the past three years. The Crandon School District called off classes Monday.

''There is probably nobody in Crandon who is not affected by this,'' Peters said, adding that students ''are going to wake up in shock and disbelief and a lot of pain.''

Peters did not know whether Peterson had graduated from the 300-student school. But Crandon resident Karly Johnson, 16, said that she knew the gunman and that he had helped her in a tech education class.

''He graduated with my brother,'' she said. ''He was nice. He was an average guy. Normal. You wouldn't think he could do that.''

One victim, 20-year-old Bradley Schultz, was a third-year student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who was home to visit his friends, said his aunt, Sharon Pisarek.

''We still don't have many details, but from what they've told us, there was a girl next to him and he was covering her, protecting her,'' she said, sobbing. ''He was loved by everybody. He was everybody's son. Senseless.''

Another aunt, Rose Gerow, said Schultz was majoring in criminal justice and wanted to be a homicide detective.

''This is senseless because they were friends,'' Gerow said. ''These guys weren't after his girlfriend, they were just getting together.''

The town of about 2,000 people last made headlines in August, when community groups and a soldier helped bring an Iraqi girl to the United States for a cornea transplant. The mayor pleaded Monday for support to help the town begin to heal.

''This is something we have to put back together,'' he said.

------

Associated Press writer Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

    Wis. Town Mourns 6 Shooting Victims, NYT, 8.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Wisconsin-Shooting.html

Police Kill Man Who Shot 5 at La. Office

October 5, 2007
Filed at 2:35 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) -- Police shot to death a man who had shot five people in a downtown law office and holed up in the building for hours, firing at officers and holding two victims inside.

Police set off five explosions early Friday to blow holes in the rear of the building. Repeated bursts of gunfire were heard, and Sgt. Ronnie Besson said several minutes later the gunman had been killed.

There was no immediate word on whether the two gunshot victims inside the building were alive. Mayor Jacques Roy said he would have no word on them until he had a chance to speak to their families.

Two of the other victims escaped on their own and police rescued a third.

The shooter was identified by a neighbor and The (Alexandria) Town Talk newspaper as John Ashley, a 63-year-old former city worker.

Before the deadly shooting, the gunman had repeatedly fought off attempts to reach the victims and shot at a remote-controlled police robot sent into the building, police said.

Police fired tear gas into the building and tried unsuccessfully to reach the shooter on his cellular telephone and the office phone, Gatlin said. A SWAT team had positioned itself behind an armored car in front of the law firm.

The mayor said that in the final confrontation, the suspect shot at officers until the end, though none were injured.

Police would not identify the shooter.

Town Talk reported that one man, bloodied and in boxer shorts, emerged from the building after police arrived. The paper identified him as attorney Camille Giordano and said he was taken to a hospital. A call to a hospital spokeswoman was not immediately returned.

The Rapides Regional Medical Center identified the other victims as Sam Giordano, an attorney, and Andrea Fletcher Price, the law firm's secretary.

Giordano, 49, was in serious condition, and Price, 27, was in fair condition, said Courtney Michiels, a hospital spokeswoman.

The law office, converted from a one-story family home, is located near the Rapides Parish Courthouse. Police cut electricity to the building and closed off much of the downtown area of this central Louisiana city.

The shooting rampage astounded people who know Ashley.

''I've never heard him raise his voice. I never heard of him being violent,'' said Charlie Gilmore, Ashley's neighbor and a local pastor.

    Police Kill Man Who Shot 5 at La. Office, NYT, 5.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Louisiana-Shooting.html

3 Armored Car Guards Shot in Philly

October 4, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:23 a.m. ET
The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A group trying to rob an armored car outside a bank opened fire early Thursday, killing an armored car guard and wounding two others, police said.

The four suspects, two men and two women, fled and were still being sought.

The shootings happened shortly after 8 a.m. outside a Wachovia bank, Lt. Frank Vanore said.

One guard was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The second was being treated for serious injuries, while the third suffered a graze wound.

    3 Armored Car Guards Shot in Philly, NYT, 4.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Armored-Car-Shooting.html

Memphis Football Player Is Killed

October 1, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:13 a.m. ET
The New York Times

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- A University of Memphis football player was fatally shot on campus in what was believed to be a targeted attack, and classes were canceled Monday as a precaution, officials said.

Taylor Bradford, 21, was shot near a university housing complex about 9:45 p.m. Sunday and then got into a car, driving a short distance before it crashed into a tree, officials said.

University officials said the believed the gunman left campus immediately after the shooting. No arrests had been made Monday.

''We found him with a bullet wound to the body and the ambulance took him to the hospital where he was pronounced (dead),'' said Roger Prewitt, a Memphis Police inspector.

Bradford, a 5-foot-11, 300-pound defensive lineman from Nashville, was a junior who transferred to Memphis after two seasons at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala.

''Our entire football team is deeply saddened by the loss of Taylor,'' head coach Tommy West said in a statement. ''He was well respected and a popular member of our team. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.''

University officials closed residence halls on campus temporarily before police learned that the shooting was likely personal, spokesman Curt Gunther said.

In an e-mail alert sent to faculty, staff and students at 3:40 a.m. Monday, officials wrote that ''the initial investigation indicates this was an act directed specifically toward the victim and was not a random act of violence.''

The university decided to cancel classes Monday, although police believe the person or persons involved in the shooting left the campus immediately.

''We feel like the campus is safe, but we'd rather err on the side of safety than not,'' Gunther said.

The school's administrative and athletic officials were meeting Monday morning to discuss the shooting.

The Memphis Tigers host Marshall University's Thundering Herd Tuesday night. A moment of silence was planned before the game.

Bradford transfered to the school in 2006 and was on the roster this season, but had not made any plays to be listed in the team's statistics.

Bradford lettered in three sports at Nashville's Antioch High School, and held school records in shotput and discus.

The university had 20,562 students enrolled for last fall, according to its Web site.

The school was founded in 1912 as West Tennessee State Normal School and was renamed Memphis State College in 1941. It became Memphis State University in 1957, two years before it admitted its first black students. It was renamed the University of Memphis in 1994.

-----

On the Net: http://www.memphis.edu

    Memphis Football Player Is Killed, NYT, 1.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-University-Shooting.html

Man With Rifle Is Arrested on College Campus in Queens

September 27, 2007
The New York Times
By ELLEN BARRY and COREY KILGANNON

A troubled student wearing a Fred Flintstone mask and carrying a .50-caliber rifle was arrested at St. John’s University in Queens yesterday afternoon, prompting the authorities to lock down the campus for three hours while they searched for a possible second gunman, the police said.

The student, Omeash Hiraman, a 22-year-old freshman, was walking through the campus carrying a black plastic bag with the gun’s barrel sticking out of it when a campus security guard approached him and grabbed at the weapon, police said.

A struggle followed, and another student, Chris Benson, came by and helped subdue Mr. Hiraman. Mr. Benson and campus security guards restrained him until the police arrived.

The police later determined there was no second gunman. There were no injuries.

The police said Mr. Hiraman’s gun contained one round of black powder-charge ammunition. His lawyer, Anthony J. Colleluori, described the gun as “kind of like a Dick Cheney hunting rifle.” Charges are pending, the police said.

Mr. Colleluori said Mr. Hiraman had graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and enrolled at Cornell University, then transferred to St. John’s, a school he “happens to love.” He said his client was “very tired, he’s confused,” and surprised to hear that his arrest had caused an uproar on the campus.

“He’s not a person who would walk into Columbine and shoot people up,” he said.

Mr. Hiraman’s father, Pat, said his son had recently undergone surgery for scoliosis and may have been reacting to medications. “We believe this is a misunderstanding,” he said.

The scene at the university yesterday underlined how campus security has been rethought in this country since April, when a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. Instead of fleeing out of classrooms and onto the street, students at St. John’s were instructed, via text message to their cellphones, to stay where they were.

The messages went out so rapidly that Mr. Benson, a 21-year-old criminal justice major and police cadet, who held Mr. Hiraman against the wall, said he felt his cellphone vibrate with the information while he was restraining the gunman.

It was the first time St. John’s had used the text-messaging system, which was made available at the beginning of this school year, said Thomas Lawrence, the university’s vice president of public safety.

According to the police, Mr. Hiraman arrived on campus in a livery car at 2:20 p.m., 10 minutes before the start of his next scheduled class. By 2:38, a message had been sent to students, informing them that an armed man had been apprehended on campus and instructing them to stay where they were. The police then made sweeps of campus buildings, where many students, “understandably,” had locked themselves in, said John Colgan, an N.Y.P.D. assistant chief.

All afternoon, friends and relatives waited anxiously outside the campus, some of them visibly distraught. Inside, some students piled desks against doors to create barricades. The wait was tense, as text messages ricocheted back and forth. Jay P. Louis Jr. said he received 50 messages during that period, from friends who reported rumors: a hostage situation; a second and even a third suspect; gunmen wearing masks depicting Bill Clinton and George Bush.

“Our whole thing was, what if he’s in here with us?” said Akiera Greene, 18. But as thousands of students poured out of university buildings, shortly after 5:30 p.m., most said the university had managed the situation well.

After the initial text message went out, several students began to cry and “one girl tried to run for it,” said Flavius Pestano, 20, a marketing major. But overall, he said, administrators at St. John’s “did it in a very structured way.”

Marc Iervolino, 21, was driving out of a campus parking lot when the order went out to lock down the campus. His Audi was parked in the same spot, a few feet from the road, an hour later, as he waited for the police to release him. If he had not arrived late for his sports economics class, he too would have been stuck in a classroom, he said.

“It’s freaky,” he said.

Several students said they saw Mr. Hiraman as he walked across the campus toward Marillac Hall, which houses a food court and numerous core classes, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, fatigue pants and a rubber mask. Kaitlin Otte, 18, said “sweat was seeping from underneath the mask,” and Mr. Hiraman looked “weird.” Mr. Benson interrupted a phone call with his girlfriend to tell her, “Let me call you back. A guy just walked past me with a gun.”

Mr. Benson fell in step behind Mr. Hiraman, who was walking quickly, and grabbed him while the security guard tried to wrestle his gun away. He said Mr. Hiraman was totally silent while he restrained him. Yesterday afternoon, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly called to congratulate Mr. Benson, who said at a news conference that he intends to become a police officer.

“My appetite was pretty wet already,” Mr. Benson said.

Jeff Melo, a freshman who watched the struggle from a window, said that the suspect did not appear intent on killing students.

“I think if he had wanted to shoot people, I think he would have done it,” said Mr. Melo, 17.

Late in the afternoon, the police searched Mr. Hiraman’s home, a neat two-story house near La Guardia Airport.

Carlos Acosta, 28, who lives on the same block as Mr. Hiraman, called him “the most strait-laced kid you could meet.”

“He was all about his books and didn’t hang out much,” he said. “He just went to and from school.”

Al Baker, Annie Correal and Jennifer 8. Lee contributed reporting.

    Man With Rifle Is Arrested on College Campus in Queens, NYT, 27.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/nyregion/27rifle.html

Giuliani Defends Right to Bear Arms

September 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:41 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rudy Giuliani, who sued firearms manufacturers and called for tough gun control as New York's mayor, said Tuesday the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a recent court ruling framed his current defense of a right to own guns.

''You have to look at all of these issues in light of the different concerns that now exist, which is terrorism, the terrorists' war on us,'' the Republican presidential contender told The Associated Press in an interview. He also mentioned immigration and border security.

He said his thinking on gun rights also was influenced by a federal appeals court decision that overturned a 30-year-old ban on private ownership of handguns in Washington on the grounds that the Constitution gives individual citizens the right to own guns.

''It is a very, very strong description of how important personal liberties are in this country and how we have to respect them,'' he said of the ruling, adding it ''sort of maybe even did more to crystalize my thinking on the whole gun issue in light of Sept. 11.''

''I think, after Sept. 11 -- I mean I probably would have had the same impression before, I'm not sure -- but after Sept. 11, all that seemed much more powerful to me,'' Giuliani said.

His embrace of gun rights appears to have occurred more recently than the months after the 2001 attacks. He was quoted in 2002 and 2004 -- years later -- staunchly supporting gun control.

In a 20-minute interview in a conference room at his Times Square office, Giuliani explained his thinking on the Second Amendment five days after he sought to reassure the National Rifle Association of his support for gun rights, telling the group Friday in Washington that the 2001 attacks highlighted the need for them. Before the same group, Giuliani's rivals, Fred Thompson and John McCain, tried to exploit Giuliani's past support for strict gun control measures.

As mayor, Giuliani sued gun makers and distributors, backed a federal assault weapons ban and once described the NRA as extremist. As a candidate for the GOP nomination, he is struggling to square that record with his need to win over a Republican base made up of conservatives who fiercely defend -- and in some cases base their votes on -- the Second Amendment.

He no longer argues, as gun control advocates do, that the right to bear arms applies only to the rights of states to maintain citizen militias. He now says that right also applies to individuals as well, and he cites the court ruling, Parker v. District of Columbia, that said the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to own handguns.

In the 1990s, he lobbied Congress to ban assault weapons. Now, aides have said it's not clear he would support such a ban.

Giuliani also went from suing the gun industry in 2000 to telling the NRA on Friday that he dislikes the unintended consequences of that lawsuit, which still is working its way through the courts.

In the interview, Giuliani said, ''The case took a lot of twists and turns in the direction of trying to get a lot of information about the tracing of guns that would be used for private lawsuits'' instead of solely for law enforcement purposes.

''I didn't anticipate that when I brought the case,'' he said.

The ex-mayor spoke as the campaign of Democratic rival Chris Dodd and the International Association of Fire Fighters castigated him over a supporter's fundraiser seeking $9.11 from attendees. The critics argued the event exploits the terrorist attacks for political purposes. Giuliani aides called the $9.11 idea ''an unfortunate choice'' that was done without the campaign's knowledge.

On other issues in the interview, Giuliani:

--Backed President Bush's veto threat of a bill in the Democratic-led Congress that would renew and expand a health insurance program that provides coverage for 6 million children. The bill would boost spending by $35 billion to cover 4 million more children.

''It's a not-so-hidden step toward socialized medicine,'' Giuliani said. ''This is one where the Democrats are playing on emotions, but the reality of it is, it will be very, very dangerous to move children from the more desirable form of coverage, private, to the less desirable form of coverage, which is government.''

--Refused to rule out raising taxes to offset a Social Security shortfall. He said he would assemble a bipartisan group to develop ideas for fixing Social Security, perhaps even before his inauguration.

''I am opposed to tax increases, but I would look at whatever proposal they came up with and try to figure out how we can come up with a bipartisan way to do it,'' Giuliani said, adding that potential solutions must come from both parties. ''The reality is, I'm more concerned about Medicare and Medicaid than I am with Social Security, because I'm pretty sure we can solve Social Security.''

--Argued that he is the only Republican candidate who can ensure the party competes in Democratic-leaning states, such as California and New York.

''I think political professionals would tell you that if my opponents get the nomination, a day after the convention, no matter what they say, the Republican Party operation closes down in 20 states, and then we concentrate on the remaining states,'' Giuliani said. ''I think they would tell you that if I get the nomination, there'll be a Republican Party operation in virtually every state, and then as the campaign goes on, we'll assess where we are.''

    Giuliani Defends Right to Bear Arms, NYT, 26.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Giuliani-AP-Interview.html

18 - Year - Old Charged in Campus Shooting

September 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:17 p.m. ET
The New York Times

DOVER, Del. (AP) -- Police arrested an 18-year-old man in the shooting of two students at Delaware State University, authorities said Monday. As they led him into a courthouse, he told reporters: ''I'm sorry.''

Loyer D. Braden was charged with attempted murder, assault and reckless endangerment, as well as a gun charge, according to court documents.

A justice of the peace set bail for the East Orange, N.J., teenager at $60,000 and ordered him to stay away from the victims and Delaware State. There was no immediate indication if Braden was a student at the school.

Four Dover police officers escorted Braden to the court Monday afternoon with his hands cuffed and his legs shackled.

In response to reporters' questions, he said softly: ''I'm sorry.'' Asked what he was sorry for, he replied only: ''She's in the hospital.''

One of the wounded students, Shalita Middleton, 17, was being treated for abdominal wounds at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del. University spokesman Carlos Holmes said Middleton had not been questioned and ''will not be questioned until we get clearance from the physicians.''

The other wounded student has been talking with police, officials said, but that student's mother said the 17-year-old freshman didn't know who the gunman was or what triggered the shooting at the Village Cafe, a campus dining hall that stays open until 3 a.m.

Nathaniel Pugh III, a freshman biology major, told his mother he had left the cafe when he heard two gunshots about 1 a.m. and started running. A third shot caught him in the ankle, shattering two bones, said his mother, Michelle Blackwell, in an interview from Kent General Hospital in Dover.

''He didn't see who shot him, but there were several students gathered there on the campus who could have seen who shot him,'' Pugh's mother, Michelle Blackwell, told The Washington Post.

''He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Period,'' she said.

Braden was also accused of firing at a third student, James Richmond, according to the documents describing the reckless endangerment charge.

Some students have said the shootings stemmed from a rivalry between students from Washington and New Jersey, although university police have said the investigation has not led them to believe there was a ''turf battle.'' Others have said a dispute followed a card game.

University officials have said some kind of tension between students set off the attack and they planned a campuswide meeting.

Classes on the campus of about 3,690 students were canceled Friday following the early morning shooting. They resumed Monday, Holmes said. Campus police Chief James Overton has said investigators believe the shooter was a Delaware State student.

Mindful of the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 people were killed in April, Delaware State administrators ordered a swift shutdown of the campus after the shooting. They directed students to stay in their dorms, posted notices on buildings and the school Web site, and lowered gates while police searched for the gunman.

------

On the Net:

Delaware State: http://www.desu.edu/

    18 - Year - Old Charged in Campus Shooting, NYT, 24.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Delaware-State-Shooting.html

2 Students Shot at Delaware State

September 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:33 a.m. ET
The New York Times

DOVER, Del. (AP) -- Two students were shot and wounded, one seriously, at Delaware State University early Friday, and the campus was locked down as police searched for a gunman, officials said.

Classes were canceled for the day and students were being kept inside.

''They've been directed to stay in their dorms,'' said Carlos Holmes, a university spokesman. ''We don't know where the shooter's at.''

At the university's main entrance, swing-arm gates were down to prevent people from driving onto campus.

The students were shot near the Memorial Hall gymnasium around 1 a.m., according to a news release on the university's Web site.

Holmes said the female student appeared to have suffered serious wounds. ''They could be potentially life-threatening,'' he said. The male student's wounds were not as serious and he was hospitalized in stable condition, Holmes said.

Police hoped to find out more information once the victims were able to talk.

''We haven't had a chance to talk to them yet, and that's probably a big reason why the suspect is still at large,'' Holmes told KYW-TV of Philadelphia.

Authorities did not know of a motive for the shootings, which were also being investigated by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Holmes told CNN.

Students were instructed to stay in their residence halls until further notice, and nonessential university employees were told not to report to work.

University officials informed students about the shooting with phone calls, a notice posted on the campus Web site and notifications in each dormitory. Holmes said Delaware State had improved the speed of its notifications following the shootings in April at Virginia Tech.

The Dover campus was surrounded Friday by groups of recreational vehicles belonging to NASCAR fans in town for this weekend's races at the Dover Downs Speedway.

A commuter student who arrived Friday morning was barred from campus. Eduardo Rivera, 25, of Milford, said he hadn't known about the shootings and was surprised by the media gathered outside the main gate.

''I thought it was about racing, or NASCAR, or something like that,'' he said. ''I'm shocked. I don't expect to hear something like this when I'm trying to go to class -- it's weird.''

Rivera, a sophomore studying physical education and sports management, said he had felt the campus was safe.

At the start of the fall semester, the campus community held a memorial service for three students and an incoming student shot execution-style Aug. 4 as they hung out at an elementary school in their hometown of Newark, N.J. Natasha Aeriel, 19; her brother, Terrance Aeriel, 18, and Dashon Harvey, 20, were students. Iofemi Hightower, 20, had planned to attend Delaware State this fall. Natasha Aeriel, the only survivor, helped police identify six suspects who have been arrested.

Delaware State was established in 1891 as the State College for Colored Students. It had about 3,690 students last year. The 400-acre campus is in the northern section of Dover, across the street from the racetrack.

------

On the Net:

Delaware State University: http://www.desu.edu 

    2 Students Shot at Delaware State, NYT, 21.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Delaware-State-Shooting.html

1 Killed, 3 Hurt at Texas Party Shooting

September 16, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:23 a.m. ET
The New York Times

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) -- A high school football player was fatally shot and three other students, including two teammates, were wounded at a party after a game, police and witnesses said.

Officers who were called to the home early Saturday found four people had been shot, police Lt. Blake Miller. All were male and appeared to be high school students between the ages of 16 and 18, he said.

Quintarick Wilson, 18, was taken to Medical Center of Arlington, where he later died, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner's office.

The other three were taken to a Dallas hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Miller said. At least one had been released by late Saturday.

Miller said there was a combination homecoming and birthday party going on in the backyard of a home Friday night when several uninvited guests showed up and an argument ensued.

''We still have suspects on the loose,'' Miller said Saturday.

Linda Brown, whose son was celebrating his 18th birthday at their home, told The Dallas Morning News that Wilson and two of the shooting victims played on the Arlington Sam Houston football team. The fourth shooting victim is a student at the school, she said.

    1 Killed, 3 Hurt at Texas Party Shooting, NYT, 16.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Party-Shooting.html

Miami - Dade Officer Killed, 3 Wounded

September 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:05 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CUTLER BAY, Fla. (AP) -- A gunman killed a police officer and injured three others during a traffic stop Thursday, triggering a manhunt in a suburban Miami neighborhood, officials said.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez confirmed that one of officers died. All four had been brought to hospitals, but authorities refused to release further information on them because they were trying to notify their families.

The officers were conducting burglary surveillance when they stopped the man because he was driving a car erratically, said Linda O'Brien, a police spokeswoman. The man opened fire with a high-powered weapon and fled. It was not immediately clear if the officers returned fire.

TV footage showed several officers briefly surrounding a house, guns drawn, before moving on. Others swept through a grassy area on foot and picked through a garbage truck.

Authorities were looking for 30-year-old Kevin Wehner, last seen driving a white Honda Accord, O'Brien said. There was a chance another man also was involved.

Investigators believed they had recovered a vehicle and a gun used in the shooting, O'Brien said.

No other details were immediately available.

Cutler Bay is a suburb southwest of downtown Miami. Several schools were locked down due to the search.

    Miami - Dade Officer Killed, 3 Wounded, NYT, 13.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Officers-Injured.html

Woman Shot to Death at Wis. Factory

September 10, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:02 p.m. ET
The New York Times

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) -- A gunman in camouflage killed a former co-worker inside a Wisconsin factory early Monday, then committed suicide as officers searched the sprawling building, police said.

Police identified the shooter as Shadow Yang, 40, and the victim as Christina Wollenzien, 29. Both lived in Sheboygan.

Wollenzien was an assembly line worker in Rockline Industries' coffee filter division and had worked in the same area as Yang until about a year ago, a company official said.

She was on the job Monday when she was shot to death around 4:30 a.m., police Lt. Michael Williams said. Her attacker fired one shot, hitting her in the stomach, then, when she tried to get away, he shot her in the head, said Kirk Engholt, vice president of human resources for Rockline.

As many as 130 other employees were in the factory near downtown Sheboygan at the time and quickly evacuated as officers cordoned off the area. About 20 tactical team officers searched the block-long building before finding Yang's body; police said he had shot himself.

Police would not comment early Monday afternoon on whether Yang appeared to have specifically targeted Wollenzien.

Yang had quit his job in October, after working there as a materials handler for about five years, Engholt said. The only blemish on his work record was one unexcused absence, he said.

''No problems, no complaints,'' Engholt said. ''That's why we're mystified by what happened here.''

Yang drove a forklift and would have come into contact with Wollenzien occasionally, Engholt said. Wollenzien had worked at the plant about nine years, he said. Her mother also worked there, although on a different shift.

About 45 minutes before the shooting, firefighters were called to a fire at Yang's duplex apartment, Williams said. The fire was intentionally set, he said.

It was minor, brought quickly under control and caused mostly smoke damage in the duplex's upper unit, said Daniel Pitsch, a shift commander for the Sheboygan Fire Department.

Before Monday, police said, the only contact they had with Yang was issuing him a citation for unsafe parking.

Rockline Industries, a family-owned company headquartered in Sheboygan, makes items including coffee filters and baby wipes. It does business in more than 50 countries and has more than 1,800 employees worldwide.

------

On the Net:

Rockline Industries: http://www.rocklineind.com

    Woman Shot to Death at Wis. Factory, NYT, 10.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Factory-Shooting.html

THE DEATH OF ASTEVE' THOMAS

12-year-old Asteve' "Cookie" Thomas laid to rest

Saturday, September 08, 2007
Plain Dealer
John Caniglia
Plain Dealer Reporter

She wore a fluffy white dress that made her look like an angel.

It was a contrast to the violence that ended her life just blocks away.

For 90 minutes Friday, more than 400 people streamed through the aisles of Mount Sinai Baptist Church on Woodland Avenue in Cleveland and glimpsed, for the last time, the body of 12-year-old Asteve' "Cookie" Thomas.

They remembered the chatty girl who loved music and broke out in a dance when someone turned on a radio. They cried for the spunky girl who led her softball team this summer. And they mourned the creative girl who wrote poetry about the Slavic Village neighborhood where she lived.

She was killed a week ago, an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of suspected drug peddlers, as she walked home from a candy store on Francis Avenue. James Yhonquea, 20, of Cleveland, has been charged with aggravated murder. Police have been unable to locate the second suspect in the gunfight, Eric Romel Wilson.

At the funeral, the Rev. C. Jay Matthews, the Mount Sinai pastor, urged Cookie's family to seek solace in religion.

"When death comes in such a tragic manner, only faith can sustain us," he said. But his message was aimed at preventing another child from being struck by a stray bullet. He criticized the gun culture that he said has sprouted in Cleveland and across the country.

"A community that solves its problems with guns ends up in sorrow," he said. "Guns weren't made for display. They were made for destruction. What do we do next? We have to say to ourselves that we're not going to shoot at each other anymore.

"If it were up to me, a person who shoots a child would be dragged to Public Square and face a guillotine."

Others urged a mission to prevent similar slayings from happening in the city.

"At the end of every one of our games, I would tell the girls one thing: Clean up my dugout," said Bryon Tobin, Cookie's softball coach. "Well, it is time that we clean up our dugout, to stop this."

But the service revolved around a little girl who brought joy to her family. Cookie, the youngest of 13 children, was an outgoing girl who went out of her way for others, her family and friends said.

Family members remember how she would sing and smile. Her sisters called her "Woogie," while others called her "Baby Girl." Some relatives have said her given name is Asteve'e, but the funeral program and her birth certificate show the name as Asteve'.

Residents began arriving at the church shortly before 9 a.m., two hours before the funeral. They hugged, dabbed tears and showed off T-shirts that remembered the girl.

"Cookie, the girl with the dream," one said.

Mayor Frank Jackson and Cleveland schools Chief Executive Eugene Sanders attended. Jackson, who knew Cookie through his daughter, spoke briefly. He said, "I didn't come here as the mayor of the city of Cleveland, but as one of you, to mourn."

At Evergreen Cemetery, more than 200 family and friends crowded around the child's blue casket one last time. Before they left, they released three white doves, signifying her spirit rising to heaven.

On the sun-soaked afternoon, the birds flew away quietly, arcing around the child's casket. Family members watched the birds' paths until they soared out of sight.

    12-year-old Asteve' "Cookie" Thomas laid to rest, Plain Dealer, 8.9.2007, http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1189241684161160.xml&coll=2

Newark Boy, 3, Hit in Head as Shots Fired Into Car

September 8, 2007
The New York Times
By RICHARD G. JONES

NEWARK, Sept. 7 — A 3-year-old boy riding in a car was shot in the head Friday afternoon by a masked gunman who stepped into a downtown intersection, fired nine times at the passing vehicle and then fled. A woman walking down the street was also injured by the gunfire.

The boy, Quadir Hutchins, underwent surgery late Friday at University Hospital here for what the police said was a gunshot wound to the head. Afterward, hospital officials said he was stable and out of danger.

The woman, who was about a block from where the shooting occurred, was struck in the hip, apparently accidentally, the police said.

The city’s police director, Garry F. McCarthy, said investigators were seeking the gunman and trying to determine why the car was a target. The driver was Shaquan Marphy and the boy’s sister, Natasha Barnes, 20, was a passenger.

People familiar with the investigation said the police were looking into the possibility that the shooting was retaliation for an argument earlier in the day.

“It could be retaliation, it could be narcotics-related, it could be gang-related,” Mr. McCarthy said during a news conference at the scene of the shooting, near Orchard and Pennington Streets. “At this point, we’re not clear on a motive.”

Whatever the cause, Newark was left with another bloodied street.

Residents are still reeling from a recent spasm of violence, including a triple homicide last month in which three young friends were shot in a darkened schoolyard.

“They should put more security, real security,” said Minebra Cruz, 50, who said she heard Friday’s gunshots, which were fired about a block from the scene of a homicide earlier this week. “If they” — the police — “would do something, this would have never happened. I blame them, and I blame Cory Booker, too.”

Mayor Cory A. Booker has said that cutting the city’s murder rate is a priority for his administration, but the continuing violence has done little to stem a sense of growing frustration among the city’s 250,000 residents.

Aides said Mayor Booker was traveling outside the city and could not be reached for comment.

Friday’s shooting further outraged many residents because of the boy’s age and the boldness of the act, which occurred on a heavily traveled street just a few blocks from City Hall and the new Prudential Center arena.

Mr. McCarthy said that the shooting occurred around 3:30 p.m. Friday as a late-model Toyota traveling south on Orchard Street passed Pennington Street. Mr. McCarthy said the gunman stepped between two parked vehicles and fired nine shots at the car as it passed.

“The vehicle was struck five or six times,” Mr. McCarthy said. “We believe that what occurs is that as the vehicle is passing by and the shots are fired into the vehicle, one of the shots continues down the street and strikes an elderly woman,” he said.

The woman’s injuries were not considered life-threatening, Mr. McCarthy said.

Although he did not identify her, those close to the investigation said she was Sara Palmer, 71, of the 100 block of Orchard Street.

Even as the woman was struck, witnesses said, the Toyota carrying the boy continued down Orchard and then swerved into the path of another car as the driver turned to look at the boy in the back seat.

Ms. Cruz said the man and the woman in the car quickly moved to tend to him.

“She was crying and holding the baby,” Ms. Cruz said, adding that a bystander took off his shirt and gave it to Ms. Barnes to help stop the bleeding.

In a news conference at the hospital Friday night with eight other family members, Rahim Hutchins, an uncle of Quadir’s, said that in the moments after the shooting, family members did not believe Quadir was seriously injured because he was able to talk with relatives.

“Initially, we thought the bullet just grazed his head, we thought he was O.K., we thought it was a scratch, because he was talking and everything,” he said. “It was only when we got inside that we realized the bullet had reached his brain.”

Family members said doctors were not able to completely remove the bullet that struck Quadir and that they might be forced to leave it inside his brain.

A resident of the neighborhood where the shooting occurred, Brenda Rodriguez, 24, said the shooting was another reminder that she must take care with her 5-year-old son, Joshua, whom she held close while officers removed yellow police tape Friday night.

“It’s very scary,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “I feel sad about it.”

She looked down at Joshua, who said, “I’m scared.”

Joshua, who is not much older than the boy who was shot, was asked if he understood what had happened.

“The guy shot the baby in the head,” he said, jabbing an index finger to his temple and wagging his thumb.

Elizabeth Dwoskin and Andrew Jacobs contributed reporting.

    Newark Boy, 3, Hit in Head as Shots Fired Into Car, NYT, 8.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/nyregion/08newark.html

One Dead and Two Wounded in Bronx Shooting

August 30, 2007
The New York Times
By SEWELL CHAN and AL BAKER

A man who was fired from his job as a janitor in Co-op City in the Bronx and lost a lawsuit to get his job back returned to the housing complex this morning with a .38-caliber revolver and shot three former colleagues, one of them fatally, according to the police.

The police said the gunman, Paulino Valenzuela, 50, then boarded a public bus, went to the Bronx Criminal Court building and turned himself in to the authorities.

Mr. Valenzuela, of 120 Casals Place in the Bronx, was fired from the RiverBay Corporation, the management company that runs Co-op City, in 2005. Last year, he filed a federal lawsuit to get his job back. The case was dismissed on Friday.

Before he was fired, Mr. Valenzuela had been suspended three times since 2000 for threatening co-workers.

According to the Police Department, Mr. Valenzuela fatally shot a RiverBay supervisor, Audley Bent, 49, of Rosedale, Queens, in the basement of 2440 Hunter Avenue, at 7:50 a.m.

Mr. Valenzuela then walked outside the building, and on the street, wounded two more men, Sander Palaj and Phil Zudrima, both also employees of RiverBay. Mr. Palaj was wounded in the neck and Mr. Zudrima, a supervisor, in the arm. The two wounded men were taken to Jacobi Hospital, the police said.

The gunman then took a bus to the Bronx Criminal Court building, at 215 East 161st Street, and turned himself in.

The building where the shootings occurred is known as Building 26, part of Section 5 of Co-op City, a 15,372-unit housing development that includes 35 high-rise buildings and 7 townhouse complexes.

Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, a Bronx Democrat who represents the neighborhood, was at the scene of the shooting around 8:30 a.m. “There were dozens of police officers, from the city and from Co-op City’s own police force,” he said. “There were ambulances there on the scene. People were calm.”

In February 2006, Mr. Valenzuela filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan seeking to be reinstated. The lawsuit reveals a troubled history full of conflicts with fellow workers and supervisors.

According to the lawsuit, Mr. Valenzuela is a native of the Dominican Republic and worked for RiverBay from 1994 to 2005 in the janitorial division, spending most of his time as a porter and lobby cleaner and attendant and maintaining basement laundry rooms.

In March 2000, according to the lawsuit, Mr. Valenzuela was suspended for two days for threatening a co-worker, Jesus Maldonado. His union, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, filed a grievance and a request for arbitration on his behalf. In June 2000, arbitrators reinstated Mr. Valenzuela with back pay, on the grounds that Mr. Maldonado’s evidence was not credible.

In May 2001, according to the lawsuit, Mr. Valenzuela was suspended for two weeks after a supervisor, Mr. Zudrima, said that Mr. Valenzuela had been drinking beer during work hours in the basement of a Co-op City building and had threatened Mr. Zudrima after being confronted.

In September 2004, Mr. Valenzuela was suspended for two days for using “foul language” in “a threatening way” with Mr. Bent, his supervisor.

In February 2005, Mr. Valenzuela received approval to transfer from Building 26 to Building 17, also in Co-op City. Mr. Valenzuela and a supervisor got into a dispute over how many personal items he could take from his locker to the new work site. The supervisor, James Sutter, and another worker testified that Mr. Valenzuela “lifted his elbow and hit Sutter’s jaw.”

Mr. Valenzuela was fired “for his repeated violation of RiverBay’s workplace violence policy.” His supervisor noted that Mr. Valenzuela had “received prior counseling for violent and threatening behavior towards co-workers and supervisors at RiverBay.”

The union, Local 32BJ, declined to file a grievance and request arbitration on Mr. Valenzuela’s behalf, according to the lawsuit.

In his lawsuit against RiverBay, Mr. Valenzuela denied striking Mr. Sutter and asserted that he had been discriminated against because he is Hispanic and because he had minor vision and hearing problems.

In a ruling dated Aug. 24, Judge Denise Cote dismissed Mr. Valenzuela’s lawsuit. She found that he had not proved discrimination and found, moreover, that RiverBay had “certainly identified legitimate cause for the termination of Valenzuela’s employment.”

Co-op City opened in 1968. It was the brainchild of Abraham Kazan, a Russian immigrant and union activist who recognized a pressing need for decent housing for garment workers crammed into slum housing on the Lower East Side.

The project was built under the state-aided Mitchell-Lama program, which financed moderate-income housing using low-interest mortgages and tax abatements.

Timothy Williams contributed reporting.

    One Dead and Two Wounded in Bronx Shooting, NYT, 30.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/nyregion/30cnd-shoot.html?hp

Virginia Tech

Criticized for Actions in Shooting

August 30, 2007
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA

RICHMOND, Va., Aug. 29 — A state panel has sharply criticized decisions made by Virginia Tech before and after last April’s shooting massacre, saying university officials could have saved lives by notifying students and faculty members earlier about the killings on campus.

Because university officials misunderstood federal privacy laws as forbidding any exchange of a student’s mental health information, the panel’s long-awaited report concludes, they missed numerous indications of the gunman’s mental health problems.

After a judge ordered the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, to receive outpatient mental health care for making suicidal statements, Mr. Cho scheduled an appointment at the campus counseling center but was given only a pre-appointment interview, the report said, and no follow-up appointment occurred. Records of the interview are missing, and Mr. Cho’s parents were never informed by campus or local officials of his statements or brief commitment to a mental health facility, the report said.

The panel, convened by Gov. Tim Kaine to investigate the April 16 shooting in Blacksburg that left 33 people dead, including Mr. Cho, planned to release its report on Thursday. Instead, it did so late Wednesday after being informed that The New York Times had obtained a copy, according to an e-mail from the governor’s office.

Though the report’s criticism was strong, it concluded that a campuswide lockdown after the first shootings, a double homicide, would have been impractical and probably ineffective in stopping Mr. Cho, 23.

“There does not seem to be a plausible scenario of a university response to the double homicide that could have prevented the tragedy of considerable magnitude on April 16,” the report said. “Cho had started on a mission of fulfilling a fantasy of revenge.”

But if the university had issued an alert earlier or canceled classes after Mr. Cho shot his first two victims, before moving on to shoot the rest in a classroom building, the death toll might have been lower, the report said. It found that even after university officials had learned the full scope of the massacre, their messages to students played down the unfolding emergency as a “routine police procedure.”

“The events were highly disturbing and there was no way to sugarcoat them” in disseminating the news, the report said. “Straight facts were needed.”

Campus and local police responses were “well-coordinated,” the report said, but university police officers erred in prematurely concluding that their initial lead in the double homicide was a good one. The police initially believed the shooting was an isolated domestic dispute and erroneously pursued a suspect who they thought had left the campus.

“They did not take sufficient action with what might happen if the initial lead proved erroneous,” said the report, which was written by an eight-member panel that was led by W. Gerald Massengill, a former state police superintendent, and included former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, as well as other mental health, security and education specialists.

In a raucous conference call with the governor’s office on Wednesday night, family members of victims voiced frustration that the university had not imposed a lockdown after the first shootings and criticized the report for not demanding that some officials be fired.

“Can you explain how 32 people were killed and no one has been fired, no one has been held accountable at that university?” one family member on the conference call asked.

“I can’t answer that question,” responded Larry Roberts, the chief counsel in the governor’s office, adding that panel members did not consider it their job to make personnel recommendations.

The report, consisting of 147 pages and 14 appendices, said that while the campus police knew of Mr. Cho’s repeated instances of inappropriate behavior and his stay at a mental health facility, that information never reached campus workers who deal with troubled students. Contrary to what university officials believed, the report said, federal privacy laws would have allowed them to communicate some information about Mr. Cho’s mental health problems among local, state and campus security officials.

“Information privacy laws cannot help students if the law allows sharing, but agency policy or practice forbids necessary sharing,” it concludes. The report also said “passivity” and lack of resources had hampered local and campus mental health workers.

A spokesman for Virginia Tech said officials there had not received a copy of the report and could not comment on it.

The panel said it found no clear explanation for why the gunman had selected his first two victims in a dormitory before moving on to a classroom building. While the report did not shed new light on Mr. Cho’s motives, it traced his violent fantasies to the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.

After that massacre, Mr. Cho’s middle school teachers in Fairfax County, Va., observed suicidal and homicidal thoughts in his writings and recommended psychiatric counseling, which he received. He also received medication in those years for a short time, the report said.

The panel’s findings come a week after the university released its own report recommending ways to improve security and mental health systems.

Campus officials said they were leaving it to the governor’s panel to critique the university’s handling of Mr. Cho as a student and the decisions made by security officials in the emergency.

The release of the report, which was originally planned to occur last Monday on the first day of the fall semester at Virginia Tech, has been repeatedly delayed, and in recent weeks some victims’ families have voiced frustrations at being denied a representative on the panel.

Some relatives have expressed concern at the potential for bias in having former law enforcement officials in charge of investigating decisions made by law enforcement officials.

The panel initially struggled to obtain records of Mr. Cho’s encounters with the mental health system, but Mr. Kaine issued an executive order in June that gave the group greater access to health and academic records that are protected by privacy laws.

The report largely sidesteps the Second Amendment debate about access to guns in the state and the nation. It cites “deep divisions in American society regarding the ready availability of rapid-fire weapons and high-capacity magazines,” stating that this debate was beyond its scope.

The report commends Mr. Kaine for having closed the loophole that allowed people like Mr. Cho, who had been mandated to receive outpatient mental health treatment, to buy guns. But it says a change is still needed in the state legal code to address the problem, and it calls for state legislation to establish “the right of every institution of higher education in the commonwealth to regulate the possession of firearms on campus if it so desires.”

The report said Mr. Cho’s purchase of two guns violated federal law because he had been judged to be a danger to himself and ordered to undergo outpatient mental health treatment.

“There is confusion on the part of universities as to what their rights are for setting policy regarding guns on campus,” it said, recommending that Virginia require background checks for all firearms sales, including those at gun shows.

The report said that in a paper in a middle-school English class Mr. Cho indicated that he “wanted to repeat Columbine.” He was sent to a psychiatrist, who gave him a diagnosis of “selective mutism,” or an anxiety-related refusal to speak, and major depression. He was given a prescription for the anti-depressant Paroxetine, which he took from June 1999 to July 2000, and “did quite well on this regimen.”

The doctor stopped the medication because Mr. Cho had improved.

In high school, after a teacher reported his barely audible voice to the guidance office, Mr. Cho was placed in special education for speech and emotional problems, which excused him from making oral presentations and answering teachers’ questions.

Despite Mr. Cho’s diagnosis of mutism and his educational accommodations in high school, when he applied to Virginia Tech, the university was never informed nor did it ask about Mr. Cho’s history, the report said.

It compliments the office of the chief medical examiner for its handling of the autopsies and the identification of the dead, but said that communication with families was “poorly handled.”

The report said the state’s procedures for providing professional staff members to help families get information, crisis intervention and referrals to other resources did not work.

Ariel Sabar contributed reporting.

Virginia Tech Criticized for Actions in Shooting, NYT, 30.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/us/30school.html