Posted on 12/24/2012 1:54:39 PM PST by Pinkbell
The gunman who ambushed four volunteer firefighters, killing two, in upstate New York had spent 17 years in prison for beating his grandmother to death with a hammer in 1980, police said.
Undated booking photo of William Spengler, who shot and killed two firefighters Monday.
William Spengler opened fire on the volunteers as they responded to a blaze just before 6 a.m. ET in a small cluster of homes along Lake Ontario in Webster, N.Y., police said, rocking this close-knit community.
The 62-year-old convicted felon had apparently set a trap, firing on the first responders from atop an earthen berm.
"It does appear that it was a trap that was set," said Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering, his voice breaking at times. “People who get up in the middle of the night to fight fires, they don’t expected to get shot and killed."
Pickering lost a colleague in the incident: Police Lieutenant Michael Chiapperini, who was a volunteer firefighter. The other firefighter killed by Spengler was Tomasz Kaczowka.
Despite being shot, one of the injured firefighters was able to flee from scene under his own power. But the others remained pinned down on the narrow strip of land between Lake Ontario and Irondequoit Bay until a SWAT team arrived.
As police closed in, Spengler took his own life with a gunshot wound to the head, Pickering said. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1981 after the death of his grandmother, Rose Spengler, and was paroled in 1998.
Spengler's 67-year-old sister Cheryl Spengler is unaccounted for, Pickering said. Spengler lived in the house with his sister and mother, Arline, who died in October.
Prior to Monday's shooting, Webster police had not had any run-ins with Spengler since he was paroled, they said.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.nbcnews.com ...
Police would not say what kinds of guns Spengler used, but as a convicted felon, he could not legally own firearms.
Here's a perfect example of a person banned from getting guns who wanted guns getting them anyway.
This is a travesty on Christmas Eve. Those poor families. These men were heroes who volunteered their time to make the world a better and safer place. They didn't deserve to be taken out by this lunatic.
Why was this lunatic out of a jail? HE BEAT HIS GRANDMOTHER TO DEATH WITH A HAMMER! He should have never seen the light of day. What was wrong with that parole board?
Gun prosecutions under Obama down more than 45 percent
http://washingtonexaminer.com/gun-prosecutions-under-obama-down-more-than-45-percent/article/2516175#.UNCXuHfZ-pc
Exclude DC, Chicago, LA, Philly, E.St.louis & Baltimore and we’d probably have the gun murder rate of Switzerland.
I wonder what the execution rate is down to?
He should have been executed!
Liberal judge liberal system New York liberals....
We have let liberals control the language for too long. Any weapon used in an assault is an assault weapon; be it a baseball bat, knife, vehicle, piece of log chain, tazer.
This fact will not get traction in the national Pravda media.
It's counter to their agenda.
Wayne LaPierre personally gave him the gun...even signed it for him. Just ask Prince Morganna.
Why is there parole for murderers?
He kills Granny with a hammer, and Mom and Sis still let him live there? There’s a whole lot of messed up in this family.
Well he obviously learned his lesson and didn’t use a hammer.s/s
Why didn’t ‘they’ just put up a ‘NO GUN ZONE’ sign in his front yard as apparently the law didn’t make it clear enough that you shouldn’t fire on firefighters doing their job.
Assault hammer, and now an assault gun.
And/or a whole lot of weird.
Good. Perhaps there was too many prosecutions under Pres. Bush having to do with guns away.
Guns aren’t the problem. What was the Bag ‘O **** doing out of prison?
If only murdering firefighters was against the law...
If only murdering firefighters was against the law...
Normally I don't buy into conspiracies but Fast and Furious and Benghazi have convinced me that nothing is beyond this progressive diease infecting our government.
I really do believe they are looking for violence.
Televised hangings - a great deterrent and one heck of a reality TV program.
In New York, felons have voting rights.
You’re right Pinkbell. You don’t take guns away from the good guys because of the bad ones....the bad ones can get them any time.
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