Move along, nothing to see here-just a crazy loon with chemicals strapped to his chest, and no ID.

Someone has seriously got to be kidding...

Jeepers kreepers.

Doncha just hate it when someone tries to cut in line to see Santa? The things they'll try................

LOL those damn fraternity stunts!

Man shouting `freedom' sets himself afire in suburban Illinois mall; four others also hurt

13:42 ET
Associated Press Newswires
Copyright 2001. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

CHERRY VALLEY, Ill. (AP) - A man shouting "freedom and liberty for all" set himself on fire in a suburban shopping mall Friday and hurled flaming objects at shoppers before he was subdued and taken to a hospital, officials and witnesses said.

Four other people also were injured.

Witnesses said the man, in his late 20s or early 30s, was yelling about freedom as he leaned from a mezzanine railing and threw burning packages onto the CherryVale Mall's center court. The fire was just outside the second-floor entrance to a department store in this Rockford suburb.

Two shoppers subdued him and extinguished the fire that burned him. Security guards put out the burning packages.

Mall employee Jeremy Wolf said the man appeared to have containers of cleaning chemicals strapped to his chest. He had stretched his leg over the railing as if to jump down to the center court, where hundreds of shoppers were waiting in line, Wolf said.

"I could literally see his face on fire," Wolf said.

The man, who was not carrying any identification, was taken to Rockford's OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center and was to be transferred to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Saint Anthony spokesman Gregory Alford said. He had no information on the man's condition; earlier, a dispatch supervisor said the man's burns did not appear to be life-threatening.

Two men who grabbed the man were treated for burns on their hands, and a woman was treated for smoke inhalation, Alford said. A 67-year-old woman remained at the hospital with difficulty breathing but was expected to be released.

Cherry Valley police were at the scene and unavailable for comment immediately Friday.

The mall closed its center court area after the incident. Managers were unavailable to say when it would reopen.

The Rockford Files.

Store publicity stunt gone awry?

This guy must have been a terrorist school drop-out.

Yesterday I recall seeing a news trailer at the bottom of one of the cable news channels advising anyone who notices the unusual purchase of cleaning chemicals to report it to the authorities. The news flas specifically mentioned "cleaning" chemicals

He must have gotten his idea's after reading the Koran.

Maybe incidents like this would be much less frequent if we hadn't (thanks to the Democrats) released tens of thousands of dangerous crazies onto the streets, and then provided virtually NO mandatory follow-up for them.

"OK, Billy- you are free to leave now- but be real sure to take these pills every day, right?"

A story like this really, burns me up. hehe

You mean ones which interact with fire to cause harm to HUNDREDS OF KIDS waiting in line for Santa at the Rockford Mall?

Nothing I could post would outdo that effort. Good job.

A man strapping cleaning materials to his body and setting his face on fire as he jumps from the second floor of th mall is the type of suspicious activity our government wants us to be on the lookout for?

...later identified as Albert W. Gore, Jr., who claimed to have been elected President of the United States last year, and was immediately sedated...

Man shouting `freedom' sets himself afire in suburban Illinois mall; four others also hurt

Was it our own FREEDOMNEWS?

He was screaming "freedom and liberty for all", not "I want a recount".

By the way, did you know that Al Gore invented malls?

All of these terrorist nutjobs get the ideas from movies-didn't Braveheart end with the guy yelling 'freedom'...

And the WTC was right out of Independence Day.

Not likely because he was screaming "freedom and liberty for all", not, "Allah Snackbar".