Posted on 12/10/2004 7:34:18 AM PST by flutters
Police Officer James D. Niggemeyer shot and killed the gunman, Nathan Gale.
Nathan Gale
" Dimebag " Darrell Abbott, Lead guitarist
Nathan Bray, Fan
Erin A . Halk, Club employee
Jeff " Mayhem " Thompson, Band crew member
Shortly before Damageplan took the stage at the Alrosa Villa, a man approached the band’s bus behind the North Side nightclub.
He wanted to know if lead guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and his brother, drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, were onboard.
Aaron Barns, the heavy-metal group’s sound man, told him the brothers had already gone in the club.
"The next time I see him, he’s walking behind the bass player and singer right over to Dime," Barns said yesterday.
As the band played its opening song Wednesday night, the man rushed across the stage and grabbed Darrell Abbott, firing several shots into his head from a Beretta 9 mm semiautomatic handgun.
The gunman, identified yesterday as Nathan Gale, killed three other people and wounded two before Columbus Police Officer James D. Niggemeyer entered the rear of the club shortly after 10:20 p.m.
Carrying a Remington 870, a 12-gauge shotgun, the officer circled a stack of amplifiers and saw Gale, who was at the back of the stage holding a gun to a man’s head.
From 20 feet away, Niggemeyer killed Gale with a single shotgun blast.
His decision to enter the club without waiting for fellow police officers to arrive saved lives, many said.
"All of the officers have been trained since the Columbine incident that, if there’s shooting going on, to go in and put the pressure on the shooter," Niggemeyer’s supervisor, Sgt. Jeff Leesbug, said last night.
In addition to the band’s guitarist, those whom Gale killed were Nathan Bray, a 23-year-old fan from Grove City; Erin A. Halk, a 29-year-old Northwest Side man who worked security at the club; and Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson, a 40-yearold crew member from Waxahachie, Texas.
Wounded in the shooting were Chris Paluska, the band’s tour manager, and John Brooks, a drum technician. Both were in Riverside Methodist Hospital last night, where Paluska was in serious condition and Brooks was in good condition.
Many in the crowd of more than 400 heavymetal enthusiasts thought Gale was a crew member, a part of the act or an exuberant fan.
"He didn’t pull out the gun until he got to Dimebag," said Brian Kozicki, the club’s lighting director, who watched from the sound booth.
People who had known the 25-year-old Gale in his hometown of Marysville described him yesterday as an unstable man who once asserted that the Abbott brothers’ former band, Pantera, had stolen his song lyrics.
Some witnesses said Gale fired at Vinnie Paul Abbott but missed and then fired at those who attempted to subdue him. "He probably wouldn’t have shot anyone else if other people hadn’t tried to stop him," Barns said.
Mitch Carpenter, an Alrosa security guard working in the parking lot, said he encountered Gale before the concert and asked him to "park his car and buy a ticket or leave." Gale parked behind the building near the band’s bus and was asked to move his car, which he did.
The next time Carpenter saw Gale, he was in the club.
"He had hopped the fence at the patio," Carpenter said. "He was walking really fast toward the stage and I followed him.
"I thought he was going to get up there and stage dive or something during the first song. I figured he was just a guy who didn’t have any money to buy a ticket so he got in the way he did.
"I’ve been going over it in my mind, but when he came in I didn’t want to tackle him. He was a big guy."
Alrosa owner Rick Cautela was tending bar when he heard the shots during the band’s opening song, New Found Power. He thought they were firecrackers.
"I heard the music stop and heard more pops. I figured the band had stopped and was going to start again when they grabbed whoever had the firecrackers," he said of security workers. "I just kept waiting on customers."
But then audience members ran toward the exits.
The panic and confusion can be heard in 10 calls made to 911 operators, beginning at 10:18 p.m., seconds after the first shots were fired.
"I’m at the Alrosa Villa and there’s a shooting. Someone is shooting the band on the stage," said a female caller.
"They’re still shooting. The person is still loose with the gun."
Kozicki said he took cover in the sound booth and dialed 911 as soon as Darrell Abbott slumped to the floor. He remained on the line with an operator for five minutes, offering details about the chaos and the gunman’s actions.
A little more than three minutes after his call to 911 began, he told the operator that police had killed the gunman.
Kozicki, a student at Bowling Green State University, called the officer’s action "100 percent in the right."
"If he hadn’t done it, more people probably would have been killed," he said yesterday.
Niggemeyer had just begun his shift at the 18 th precinct, at Karl and Morse roads — about 2 miles from Alrosa — when the report of a shooting came in. When he arrived at the club about two minutes later, security workers pointed him to the back door.
At least five other officers came through another door of the club seconds after Niggemeyer fired. Ultimately, about 60 detectives were at the club, many working overtime. They interviewed about 250 witnesses, putting them on three buses provided by COTA.
This is the first time the 31-year-old Niggemeyer, who joined the force in 1999, has shot a suspect. He has a clean record, with many compliments from citizens, said Sgt. Brent Mull, a police spokesman. The division would not release his personnel file yesterday.
Band members spent Wednesday night on their bus then went back to Texas, where they’re based.
"Vinnie crashed in Dime’s bunk and was crying," Barns said.
Fans of the band created two memorials in front of the club yesterday. Flowers and a bottle of Rogue Dead Guy Ale were among the items on a large rock beside the club’s driveway. A wooden cross with the phrase In memory of the lives lost: RIP December 8 th written on it was leaning against a pole.
David Moran, a 29-year-old fan from German Village, was among those who placed bouquets of flowers on the rock.
He wrote "RIP Dimebag" on the wrapper.
"He was one of the best guitar players out there," Moran said. "The music world lost one of its greats."
a culture of violence and negativity is surprised by violence?
Idiots always
are surprised when a dumber
idiot really
takes their lunatic
ranting to heart and tries to
live out the madness . . .
I'm glad that some real policemen have learned a lesson from the disgraceful behavior of the cowardly "policemen" at Columbine.
So do you believe that any musician other than the members of "Up With People" should be summarily executed?
somebody needs to start a chant: "It's' only a song, only a song, a song..."
LOL~! What I am saying is that if you lie down with the dogs you wake up with fleas. And what that happens, you should be surprised...
if there’s shooting going on, to go in and put the pressure on the shooter,"
Isn't this what we did in Afghanistan?
Seems to work.
Pretty sad. I was a pretty big Pantera fan back in my college days. Needless to say once children & family and the related responsibilities came into play, they pretty much disappeared from my music rotation.
I still throw a CD in every now and then when I'm in the car by myself and feel the need to get wound up.
Too bad the POS had to take his grudge out on fans and employees too.
Precisely. Read the lyrics to these guys' songs. Disturbing crap.
I'll stick with jazz, thank you.....more music (!!!), less mayhem....
I hope other police departments learn from this.
I don't care what the lyrics say. No one deserves to be murdered. I wasn't a big fan of Pantera, but someone writing lyrics you don't like doesn't excuse his murder.
And what I am saying is that, being a poster on FreeRepublic like me, you might be closer to a "flea infestation" than you think you are. I own firearms and so do a lot of other Freepers, but certainly do not condone people running around shooting other people for no reason.
Maybe if you were to more explicitly identify the "dogs" and the "fleas" in your statement, I wouldn't be so suspicious about it.
Bad Ohio permit-carry law.
http://www.ohioccw.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2592
That cop has an unfortunate name, that's for sure.
Well, since some FReepers here are freeling blaming metal music for the murder, I think I am safe in blaming jazz for rampant druge and alcohol use and the destruction of millions of lives.
Oh, that name is going to cause him trouble some day. Just wait til Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson hear about him. Poor guy.
Lucky for him, this time around it was a white guy he had to shoot. Next time, who knows?
(1) "Dimebag" Darrell didn't derserve to be murdered, but some people definitely do deserve to have their lives taken. Your statement is incorrect.
(2) My point was that someone who cultivates a lyrical persona of being a hard, violent, out-of-control psycho will probably attract violent, out-of-control, psycho fans who have a much harder time separating the reality from the bravado.
Mr. Dimebag apparently miscalculated his fan base.
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