Posted on 04/29/2007 2:02:24 PM PDT by jmq
Just happening at Ward parkway mall
That shotgun and her handgun are likely all that lady cop had.
I have no doubt that you're right.
IIRC the photos from VT showed college cops with ARs.
There is no constitutional or legal right to "shooting in self defense" here in Virginia.
Therefore if you kill an attacker, it is legally assumed to be first degree murder, until such time as the prevailing AG declines to prosecute. In clear cases of self defense, usually they do decline.
KCPD use a standard police pump 12 ga. Winchester shotgun. It is not subject to NFA tax as it is above the length requirements.
I hope they're carrying something, anything: brass knuckles, stun guns, pepper spray, a chain with heavy lock. Anything that can be used as a weapon if needed.
And a little bit of Krav Maga self-defense training.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga
Any updates on this today? I just saw this, WOW. I grew up about 2 miles from WP Mall. I remember that mall back in the 80’s.
That may have just been somebody who needed to switch to decaf...
Au contraire', the most you can do is get caught, mouth off, get on tv, gin up some hate and discontent, and ruin it for everyone, etc., etc. We have a good thing in MO these days and I am going to do everything I can to keep it this way, if not better.
Correct. The French use of the scalp was to pay bounties for dead enemies.
You bring a beaver skin, you get a certain amount of credit to buy manufactured stuff from the French traders.
Enemy Indian tribes are a problem, so in war, bring in a human scalp (presumably an enemy), and get paid for it.
It was just the verification phase of bounty hunting for (human) varmints.
The Islamic shooter yelling “Allah Ahkbar” in the mall as he’s blowing people away is a pretty good indication.
On very rare occasions, metal will set off the detectors they use to prevent shoplifting. On the way in, walk close to the detector and test it. That way you won’t have set it off on your way out.
Exactly. Gun laws were for blacks at first, but when the courts called that discrimination, rather than get rid of the laws, democrats (remember, the KKK and the Dems were TIGHT) decided to apply the laws to all, knowing that their good ‘ol boy sheriffs would simply apply the law to blacks only. As time went on, there were less good ‘ol boys, and the laws began to be applied to whites too. The Politicians couldn’t admit to why they used to support the law (racism), so they kept up the charade at the cost of us all.
Why is it all these nuts with guns crawl out of the woodwork every time a decision is made that favors out Second Amendment rights?
Would you give me the source for that info?
Have they released the shooter’s name?
Not as of their Noon press briefing, though they apparently have a pretty good idea.
Mall shootings leave three dead
Events included the discovery of a woman’s body and the shooting of an officer.
By JOHN SHULTZ, LINDA MAN, MIKE RICE and TONY RIZZO The Kansas City Star
SHANE KEYSER
A security guard watched one of the entrances to Ward Parkway Center this morning. The mall is closed today as police continue their investigation.
Gunman, three others dead
The sounds were short and sharp and in quick succession.
Cathy Crist put down her late lunch and tried to figure out what was going on outside the McAlister’s Deli on the West Side of the Ward Parkway mall. But the windows were covered and she couldn’t see out into the parking lot.
Crist heard more pops, then a woman’s scream: “He’s killing us!”
• • •
A rampaging gunman suspected in a spree of earlier violence sprayed bullets around the Ward Parkway mall Sunday afternoon, killing two people in the parking lot and injuring at least one shopper inside before police felled him with two blasts from a shotgun.
The killer’s body remained in front of the mall’s Target store while police tried to piece together the minutes of terror that sent panicked families and employees scrambling behind shelves and into storage closets for cover, and left a recently revitalized shopping center with shattered windows and bloodstained floors.
Hours earlier, the shooter had pulled a stolen maroon Oldsmobile sedan with a shot-out back window into the mall’s west parking lot, then methodically shot and killed the occupants of the cars on either side of his car before storming into the mall.
A shopper who was shot inside the mall remained hospitalized in critical condition Sunday night. An officer police think the gunman shot earlier in the day was expected to recover from his arm wound.
“He came to the mall to shoot people,” police spokesman Tony Sanders said. “It was mass chaos on a Sunday afternoon. It could have been a much worse situation. It’s a mall in Middle America on Sunday afternoon…it’s crowded.”
• • •
The violence that punctured a sunny spring afternoon likely had its start a few hours earlier and four miles away from the mall in a red one-and-a-half story south Kansas City home that sits in the shadow of U.S. 71.
Patricia Reed’s relatives hadn’t heard from the 67-year-old in days and asked police to check in on her. Reed lived alone. Her husband died years ago.
Officers found a body in her house in the 3700 block of East 93rd Street — the official cause of death, undetermined. However, Police Maj. Anthony Ell said it appeared to be a homicide. Outside, Reed’s maroon Oldsmobile was missing. Police also cordoned off a home next door to look for evidence.
Outside her house, an American flag flew at half staff in honor of the Virginia Tech victims.
The officers put out a description of the woman’s missing car and continued to investigate the death.
It was a little before 2 o’clock.
• • •
The first officer to spot Reed’s missing vehicle saw it cruising along Bannister Road about 3:10 p.m. in front of the federal complex.
The 15-year department veteran switched on his lights and pulled the Oldsmobile over into the parking lot of a Valero station at 1331 E. Bannister. He got out of his police car and started to move toward the Oldsmobile.
Before he could get there, the driver began firing, hitting the 44-year-old officer once in the arm. The officer pulled his weapon and began peppering the Oldsmobile with shots of his own, blasting out the back window.
“I’ve been shot,” he shouted into his radio, after half a dozen gunshots rang out.
As other officers sped to the scene to assist their comrade, the Oldsmobile peeled away.
• • •
Twenty minutes later, as Crist was eating at McAlister’s, the Oldsmobile pulled into the mall’s parking lot off State Line road.
Ward Parkway’s mall started fading in the last decade, hemorrhaging stores and shoppers as department stores waned and consumers flocked to big-box stores and newer malls around the area.
In the past few years, though, new stores like Target and Pet Smart opened and the mall added a strip of outdoor storefronts to its west side.
Shoppers can go to the Starbucks just by the mall entrance, then the Pier 1 or Off-Broadway Shoes nearby without ever entering the mall proper.
Sharon Bryant was at the Starbucks counter ordering tea when one of the shop’s glass windows shattered.
There were shots. It was “like a cannon going off.”
Bryant hit the ground and scrambled for cover.
Nearby, a man sat by the window, bleeding. Bryant wondered if he’d been shot or just cut by glass. She never found out.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Bryant said. “It was going to be a quiet Sunday afternoon.”
Kansas City Councilwoman-elect Beth Gottstein also was at the Starbucks with friends. She had stepped out just before the shooting started. She and other customers were able to get away from the building, but a few of Gottstein’s friends were trapped in the coffee shop. She stayed in contact with them by cell phone throughout the ordeal.
“I was more fearful for the people around me,” Gottstein said.
Outside, a gunman — police said he was white, possibly in his 50s — was walking toward the mall with a long gun. There were spent shell casings sprinkled across the parking lot. Shots smashed into a glass door to the mall. It shattered too.
Crist crawled under a table at McAlister’s.
Inside the mall, Claudia Scanlon was flanked by her daughter and grandchildren — ages 2, 4, 6, and 7. At least four members of her party were excited to be on their way to the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie at the mall’s AMC theater.
Then they heard the shots.
“Everyone started yelling ‘Get down,’ ” Scanlon said. “At that point I knew it was real.”
The group darted into New York Fashions, where employee Brienna Ishkuntana hurried them to a closet in the back.
From inside, they heard more gunshots and screams, Scanlon said.
Ishkuntana was worried about her own family. Some of her relatives, including a brother and her nieces, were at the mall, too. Ishkuntana’s mother, Bridget, said she has loved going to the mall since she was a child.
“This is a family place,” she said. “You just don’t think something like this could happen in your backyard.”
The shooter walked from the south side north toward Target, passing Design Jewelry, a mall kiosk owned by Bobby Baya.
Baya said he saw the shooter walking through the mall firing shots at random.
“There was a lot of panic,” Baya said.
Sharon Sanders Brooks, another incoming councilwoman, was trapped in the TJ Maxx store with a few dozen shoppers, many of whom got updates by calling friends who were watching CNN.
Dennis Council was at work at the Footlocker store when he heard the shots.
Council said an assistant manager immediately scrambled to the front of the store and yanked the security gates closed. He reopened them a moment later to let a woman inside. Then the group hid in the back.
Council said he didn’t see anyone get shot but later did see blood on the floor in front of his store.
• • •
The end came outside Target in the mall’s common area.
As screaming Target shoppers dove for cover behind shelves or fled the store, mall security and police from Kansas City and Leawood came face to face with the shooter.
A few seconds later it was over.
Police fanned out into the mall looking for victims and survivors.
An officer knocked on the door to the closet the Scanlons were hiding in and the group came out. Other officers evacuated movie theaters.
Police declared the entire 80,000-square-foot mall a crime scene and cordoned it off with police tape. It was unclear Sunday night when the mall might reopen.
Several ATA buses were sent to the scene for witnesses’ comfort late Sunday afternoon.
Those waiting to be interviewed by police were allowed to board the air-conditioned buses. Police also brought in cold bottled water.
Family and friends waiting to be reunited with their loved ones gathered in the parking lot outside the police perimeter. They exchanged cell phone calls with people still in the mall, and waited.
The Star’s James Hart, Sara Stites and Christine Vendel contributed to this report.
I have not seen anything yet. I am sure it will appear here before most places you would look.
It’s very sad about the 3 that died but it is amazing how no more were shot. I’m impressed with the small store staff actions too. Sometimes we see the best of America at our worst.
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