Posted on 06/13/2004 5:42:29 PM PDT by doubleA
Selma police arrested Lorenzo Walker Saturday, shortly after he allegedly ended his son's birthday party with a hail of bullets.
The shooter was outside the Highland Avenue McDonald's and began firing at Latoya Powell, after the two had left the restaurant while arguing.
"He was at a birthday party for his son," Police Chief Robert Green said. "The victim he shot was his girlfriend's sister. Apparently they'd been feuding for some time."
Witnesses say the shooter argued with Powell and then retrieved a gun from his car and started firing.
Apparently, the man fired eight times, wounding Powell twice, once in the neck and once in the upper torso.
John Green was on the Summerfield side of the McDonald's parking lot. He'd just gotten his order filled and walked to his truck when the shooting started.
"He was shooting sideways...He wasn't aiming, he was just shooting," Green said. "He was hoping to hit somebody."
"Now you know why I go home, go to work and that's it," a visibly shaken Green said. "I ain't never been shot at before."
Brian Sharpe and his family were celebrating a youth baseball win at the Dallas County Sportplex. They'd just sat down to eat when they heard the shots.
"All of a sudden, we heard pop, pop, pop," an ashen-faced Sharpe said. "The glass behind us shattered and this girl came up from the back and said she'd been shot. We just tried to get the kids out."
Six bullets were embedded into two different cars parked nearby, a gray Buick Park Avenue and a blue-green Chrysler New Yorker.
The Buick belonged to Derrick Polnitz, a 32-year-old Selma resident. He said he'd been in line about 10 minutes when the shooting started.
"I hit the floor," Polnitz said. "I didn't see nothing."
Polnitz couldn't understand what prompted the shooting.
"That's messed up...out in public like this," he said.
The other two bullets fired went through a plate glass window into the restaurant.
One of the bullets went over the children's heads, through two more windows and finally buried itself into a wall near the men's room in the back of the building. Another went four feet to the right of the party and lodged itself into an aluminum window frame.
According to J. Green, a small child was in a car seat on one of the tables.
"I just thank the Lord that they didn't get that infant," he said.
Ambulances transported Powell to Vaughan Regional Medical Center. Powell, who is pregnant, is in fair condition, according to hospital officials.
Witnesses said the shooter fled the scene in a white Nissan Maxima.
The Maxima left the scene through the Summerfield exit. Police later apprehended Walker on Alabama Avenue.
Mayor James Perkins was on the scene after the shooting.
"This is just a disgrace," Perkins said. "We're praying for the victim and the family."
Perkins said he plans to discuss the shooting and what can be done at Monday's city council meeting.
"We've got to get these guns off the streets," he said. "They need to bring these guns in and we've got to stop this. I'm making an appeal that the citizens of Selma take these guns...and bring these guns in."
The owners of the store declined to comment. McDonald's replaced the glass a few hours after the shooting. The store was open by 8 p.m.
An officer on the scene, however, did say the restaurant had nothing to do with the crime.
"This could have happened anywhere," Sgt. Swanson said. "This had nothing to do with McDonald's, whatsoever."
Chief Green added that Walker faces a litany of charges. He said they will be announced at a Monday press conference.
Witnesses also said that Walker's mother, who was at the party, had to be taken to Vaughan Hospital for a possible heart condition.
"The suspect's mother had some problems," Chief Green said. "(However) it appears everyone involved is going to be OK."
The name quoted was the victim here, not the shooter. And actually, in Selma Alabama, the black population is 70.1 % of the population.
But I don't think that was his point. It's just a guess, but I think it is as CJ said. To dismiss it as unimportant or not applicable because it wasn't anybody that looked like him. I assure you, laws written by this silly mayor and those like him certainly will be applicable.
The cutesy comments about whether race is mentioned in crime articles, or whether pictures are shown, and winking and nodding to each other about what you think you are so smart to figure out, is small minded and crass, and I reject associating myself with that. As a gun owner I see this kind of stunt to be a great risk to our guns if we ~don't~ play this right, if we ~don't~ call for the same justice here, if we ~don't~ call for all people to fight for their right to defend themselves in McDonalds or anywhere. It should also serve as a warning about getting into passionate feuds.
Reacting to it like we are fringe racists is death to our political voice. I'm not in the same room as that.
"We've got to get these guns off the streets," he said." Whatever it takes! Whatever it takes! It's for the children, he screeched.
No you aren't, you seem to be in the denial room. If we don't admit that facts are facts how will the problem ever be solved?
The responsible members of the minority community are more realistic about the situation than are people like yourself. They don't like the idea of being shot by a drug dealing "homey" any more than white people do.
HA! (how corny is that?) Sorry you didn't have the attention span to get the actual point of my post. Good night.
Yea, shooting adults is a-ok.
I saw some brothers doing exactly the same thing, a couple of white guys.
LOL! And LOL!
Trouble maker ......tis AWB season ...Fa La La la Laaa......La La La Laaaaaa.......:o)
Stay safe !
Selma police arrested Lorenzo Oliver "Skippy" Walker Saturday, shortly after he allegedly ended his son's birthday party with a hail of bullets.
The shooter was outside the Highland Avenue McDonald's and began firing at Latoya Gwyneth "Buffy" Powell, after the two had left the restaurant while arguing.
I got your point, I just disagree with it. Racial bigotry is a despicable thing, but that doesn't mean we should overlook lawless behavior in a mistaken effort to somehow compensate for what happened in the past by ignoring the truth about what is happening in the present.
The illegal use of guns by criminals of all races does more damage to our right to keep and bear arms than almost anything else because it causes a frightened population to want the false security of a gun-free society. As long as we pretend not to notice the predominate factor in our high crime rate, i.e., the inordinately high percentage of minority youth involved in violent crime, we will never make much progress at reducing that rate. And unless we get it under control the hue and cry for more gun laws wil only grow louder.
Maybe I'm a bit too quick to react to posts that IMO are designed primarily to show off the lack of bias and the open mindedness of the poster, but I have had it up to here with such PC nonsense. Facing reality is not racism.
Needless to say, your attempt at "softening the racial overtones" just ended up highlighting them. Was that your goal?
You haven't shown how the race of the victim, or the perpetrator, is an issue at all in this story or in the wider debate on gun control, the Second Amendment, or public safety.
Finally, a true and PC account comes out of who was really involved in that shooting incident. You're a cinch for a Pulitzer for clearing that up.
If you two want to continue berating me, knock yourself out, I'm going to bed.
one must not forget that the reason walker pulled the gun which by right he could possess, is because he was relatively certain that no one else would be armed.
if affronted with a society that was most likely armed and aware of his violent nature represented by the fact that he was arguing with a pregnant woman in public, he most likely would have been subdued by numerous manly men capable of hitting a target and eliminating senseless statements by a grandstanding mayor.
teeman
there is only one race, human, different ethnicities and characteristics, but only one race. accept it and embrace it, and in the immortal words of petey green..."hate the hate"
You haven't shown how the race of the victim, or the perpetrator, is an issue at all in this story or in the wider debate on gun control, the Second Amendment, or public safety.
If a disgruntled factory worker or office worker takes a gun and shoots the boss and a half dozen co-workers, it is usually a middle aged white guy. If someone shoots up a child's birthday party while holding the gun sideways, it is probably a rap music fan. If someone blows up a plane, bus or shopping mall full of strangers, it is probably an adherent of a specific religion.
You can choose to ignore patterns (that would be the politically correct thing to do) or you can make note of them.
BIRDMAN SIGHTS!!!! Now the mayor of Selma will have to call the Feds and have a special investigation like the idiots in another city did when they saw this "joke" web-site. They thought it was real.
Every time I've eaten at McDonald's, I've been tempted to shoot the cooks.
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