Posted on 11/21/2011 10:48:04 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Violence broke out at Occupy Houston's Tranquility Park site Monday evening. A gunman armed with a .40-caliber rifle shot approximately 15 rounds into the air and into the park's fountains before being shot twice by Houston Police officers patrolling the area. He was taken into custody.
Witnesses say the gunman — a twentysomething male in a dark suit with a white shirt — entered the park through a stairwell at Bagby and Rusk. Walking towards the Occupy Houston site, the man fired several rounds towards the sky and started heading towards the fountains.
Several protestors approached nearby police officers, who initially thought the gunman was only armed with a toy. When bullets started splashing in the fountains, police realized the man was using a real weapon and began to circle the shooter.
The gunman walked onto the metal catwalk that crosses the park fountains when an officer on a bike fired several shots, two of which hit the gunman below the waist. There was some speculation among Occupy Houston protestors that Houston Police Department officers were using rubber bullets, but the HPD says its officers fired real ammunition. The HPD also says the shooter was a 21-year-old with a Houston address but provided no further details on his identity.
"The man pointed his gun at a young lady [from the catwalk], she's a regular occupier, but he didn't fire at her," said protestor Benjamin Franklin Rendon, who says that another occupier was trying to calm the gunman at the time as well.
"He started waving the gun around randomly and then turned towards the cops, at which point he was shot twice," Rendon says. According to authorities, the gunman was carried away fully conscious and responsive.
"I don't think he really wanted to hurt anybody," said eyewitness protestor Capital Baker. "He was aiming all over, but nowhere too specific . . . until he pointed it at the girl."
Numerous rumors circulated in the hour after the shooting, putting everyone in the park on edge. Several occupiers heard there were two additional "well-dressed men" on the Rusk side of the park. Another protestor says that the gunman mumbled a phrase about "being a White Knight for Occupy Houston."
The gunman appeared visibly unstable to most eyewitnesses, one of whom noted that he had a "crazy look in his eyes."
Looney always seeks its own level.
Clean shirt, new gun,
don't need a reason why y y y!
They go runnin' just as fast as they can
A few years ago, some thug in Oakland drew a weapon on a Oakland Police Officer, and the Officer then promptly double-tapped him center mass, killing him.
Some idiot liberal at work lamented “Why didn’t he just shoot him in the leg?”
I asked him “Have you ever fired a handgun?”
“No”
I asked him if he thinks it’s easy to just point at a persons leg and drop him with a single shot, to which he replied “Well, they go to the range all the time. They should be able to.”
I told him that it’s nearly impossible to do so, especially under stressful situations, and that every PD in the US has prohibited such “defensive tactics” because it’s more likely to get the Officer killed if he misses.
I also reminded him of the Femoral artery that runs thru the leg and bleeding out from a leg shot is a high possibility.
He still insisted that police should be trained to wound and not kill.
I told him it will end up in more cops getting killed, to which he replied “Well, that’s a part of their job, isn’t it?”
Lib logic at its finest.
Your lib co-worker, and everyone like him, should volunteer to be human shields for crazed killers. Run an ad in Craig’s List or something. They could do it for cops too. Heck! everybody should have an idiot lib for a human shield when you get down to it.
“I used to instruct my guards to aim low, but to keep shooting until the threat was neutralized.”
As in neuter?
Yup, funny...waste instead of waist.
But when you think it over waste is a pretty good fit in this instance :-)
The idiot with the gun is a waste of space and a lot of other things.
This is a pretty scary story.... I have a bad feeling how this is all going to turn out.
Yup!...I keep waiting for Charlie Sheen to turn up at an occupy rally.
He even pointed the weapon at a woman but did not fire.
Suicide by cop?
A .40 caliber rifle? I know the AR15 platform can come in that flavor, but are there that many others for a handgun round? If it was an AR, I’m sure it would have been described as a military assault weapon.
I guess ZZ Top was home from tour.:)
That also struck me as strange. Then again, Hi-Point does make a .40SW carbine. There's also a Mec-Tech carbine conversion for the .40 Glock pistol.
Also could have been a CX4 Storm.
Yes, forgot about those. I think Ruger used to make some semi auto carbines in 9mm and .40 cal. also. The PC9 and PC40 I think.
I wouldn’t count on the media getting their information correct. I remember a local story where someone was shot, and the reporter stated that the “assailant’s handgun was a high-powered shotgun rifle”.
A sawed off .410/.22? Except for the high-powered part.
So when things get tough, NOW they want the cops to protect them.
What ever happened to the occupiers policing themselves??
Don’t forget about Kel-Tec.
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