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 ...
“Liberals directly and indirectly kill people.”
The most obvious example is abortion. Obama is a hypocrit. He mourns the years that were stolen from the Newtown children and yet it is OK to eliminate the entire life of unborn children. What a sick POS.
I know dat’s right...scary to think some people believe it. :(
The Amish’s favorite tactic back then.
I wonder who he voted for?
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