Posted on 02/02/2008 7:46:53 PM PST by blam
Gunman kills five women in Chicago store
By Tim Shipman in Chicago
Last Updated: 2:36am GMT 03/02/2008
Five people were shot dead at a women's clothing store in a Chicago suburb on Saturday.
Police evacuated the mall and sealed off the car park after at least five shots were fired
The victims, all women, were killed inside the Lane Bryant store at Brookside Marketplace shopping centre at Tinley Park, south of Chicago.
Police evacuated the mall and sealed off the car park after at least five shots were fired shortly before noon.
It is thought that the shooting occurred after a robbery went wrong and there were reports that the raider had taken some of the victims hostage in the plus-sized clothing store.
Police said that security cameras in the store had allowed them to tentatively identify the man, who is understood to have a history of armed robbery and a murder conviction.
The killer fled the scene after the shooting. A police dogs unit and helicopter were last night working to track down the suspect.
Armed officers also searched neighbouring stores in the area and cars in the parking lot.
Tinley Park Police Sgt TJ Grady said that they were looking for a 5ft 8in tall black man, weighing between 16 and 20 stone and wearing a waist-length black coat, a black knit cap, dark jeans and with braids in his hair.
One victim was was taken to the nearby St James Hospital and Health Care Centres for treatment to gunshot wounds but died later.
Sgt Grady said: "Responding units entered the store and found multiple victims that had been shot and killed.
"No motive has been established. Every store was immediately canvassed and a search by air, too, has given us every indication that the offender has left the scene."
Shoppers said that they were baffled by the motive behind the shooting as it had happened relatively early in the day, about 10.45, while shops would have had quite small amounts of money in their cash registers.
Residents of the predominantly white community of Tinley Park, which describes itself as Chicago's "fastest growing suburb" and has a population of about 58,000, said that they that were shocked by the shooting.
According to FBI crime statistics there was not a single murder in Tinley Park in 2007.
The other violent crime statistics are also low - four sexual assaults, 15 robberies and 38 assaults.
Greg Grace, from nearby Frankfort, who was in the parking lot outside Lane Bryant, said that he saw several stretchers being wheeled into the store. The stretchers were later wheeled out - carrying no wounded survivors.
The mayor, Edward Zabrocki, went to the scene and - looking very shaken - said: "We're very sad about this. We're a victim of our society that we live in."
One witness at the scene described how police officers responded quickly to news of the shootings and hunted the gunman through other stores on the strip mall, with guns drawn and sniffer dogs in tow.
Another witness, Tracy Caccavella, said that she was in a nearby PetSmart store when police burst in with their guns drawn. She said that the officers ordered the store's staff not to let in any more customers before conducting a 20-minute search.
The multiple killing comes a month after nine people died in a shooting at a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska.
Nineteen-year-old Robert Hawkins killed eight people, wounded four, then shot himself at the Westroads Mall on December 5 last year.
It was the deadliest shooting in Nebraska since the rampage of Charles Starkweather, who killed 11 people in 1958.
NBC5.com
Tinley Park Shooting
* Lane Bryant Shooting In Tinley Park
Women Killed By Gunman In Mall Shop Identified
Carrie Hudek Chiuso’s husband was waiting for her to return home from a quick shopping trip to a nearby Lane Bryant clothing store Saturday when he saw the news report: There had been a multiple shooting at the store.
Even worse, he recognized her car parked in front of the store.
Soon after, her family learned the tragic news: She was one of five women gunned down in a robbery turned deadly at the Brookside Marketplace shopping center in Tinley Park.
The killer was still on the loose Sunday morning.
The Frankfort woman’s family “is brokenhearted,’’ said Hudek Chiuso’s sister-in-law, Jennifer Hudek.
“That son of a bitch took more than just her,’’ she said of the gunman. “He took a piece of each of us.’’
Officials said the women — a store manager and four shoppers whose ages ranged from 22 to 37— were herded to the back room of a clothing store during a botched robbery attempt.
In addition to Hudek Chiuso, 33, the other four victims were between the ages of 22 and 37, said Tinley Park Police Chief Mike O’Connell. They were identified Sunday as: Connie R. Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor; Sarah T. Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest; Rhoda McFarland, 42, of Joliet; and Jennifer L. Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Ind.
The Will County coroner’s office said all five died from gunshot wounds.
A sixth woman was injured in the shooting but survived, sources said. She was taken to St. James Hospital and Medical Centers in Olympia Fields.
“We did receive one female victim from the Tinley Park shooting. This person was received yesterday,” said hospital spokesman Sherry Sissac.
She would not release any more details, but sources said she was released from St. James early Sunday.
On Saturday, authorities said no one had survived the attack. When pressed about a possible survivor during a news conference Sunday, Tinley Park Police Chief Mike O’Connell refused to comment.
The robbery unfolded in the full-figured women’s retail store, near 191st Street and Harlem Avenue just south of Interstate 80. At 10:44 a.m., police received a call reporting gunshots inside the store. O’Connell said police arrived on the scene within minutes.
Inside, they found mayhem.
“There is no question it was a horrific scene,’’ a police source said. The women’s bodies were found in a back room.
A witness who saw the gunman leave the store described him as a medium complexion black man, about 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing between 230 and 290 pounds, police said.
The man was wearing a waist-length black coat, a black knit cap and dark jeans.
Tinley Park Police Sgt. T.J. Grady said police were “pretty sure’’ the shooter acted alone.
Why the shooter targeted the small store in the strip mall is anyone’s guess.
“It’s not a place where you would find a lot of cash,’’ a police source said, adding that the man did make off with some valuables.
Also unknown is how and why the robbery turned deadly.
The store did not have its own security camera, O’Connell said, but authorities are checking for cameras within a few miles of the sprawling center.
Built in 2005, Brookside Marketplace includes some storefronts that have not opened yet, making the Lane Bryant store more isolated, the police source said.
“We’re checking every possible means of getting out of this area,” Grady said.
After Tony Chiuso saw his wife’s car in news reports, he left their Frankfort home for the Tinley Park police station. There, he eventually learned the tragic news.
“He’s not doing too good,’’ said his father, Tony Chiuso.
There are at least 40 investigators working on the case. Police searched neighboring stores and cars in the parking lot and used a police helicopter to search the surrounding area, Grady said.
Police even locked down stores in the center, including a Super-Target, PetSmart and Office Max, searching each with guns drawn.
“We are very comfortable that the offender is out of the area,’’ O’Connell said.
Shopper Charlotte Vaitkus, an area resident, said she wanted “to issue a statement to the mayor because of the frequency of crime off Interstate 80. We just don’t feel safe.”
Mayor Edward Zabrocki said that after the shooting, Tinley Park sent extra police patrols into the residential neighborhoods nearby.
“We’re very sad about it,” a clearly shaken Zabrocki said from the scene. “We’re a victim of our society that we live in.”
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s office released a statement Saturday in which the governor pledged the state, “stands ready to assist Tinley Park law enforcement in any way they need.” The governor also stated, “There is no imaginable justification for the deadly and random violence that stole those innocent lives in Tinley Park today. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims and the many people who witnessed the tragedy.”
Police are offering a $1,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the gunman.
Lane Bryant’s parent company, Bensalem, Pa.-based Charming Shoppes Inc. said it was offering a $50,000 reward for information that could lead investigators to the gunman
http://www.nbc5.com/news/15205506/detail.html?dl=mainclick
Thanks for the addition.
You junta Stated (They were docile women, in other words targets, but that is what a lifetime of crap propaganda will do to a person.)
Your above comment is wrong :(
It does look like 1 of the victims fought back !
Actually another of the victims was also a nurse practitioner in the Air Force .
victim a 37-year-old Flossmoor woman appeared to have put up a fight because she had blood under her nails and had several scratches on her body, friends and relatives said.
“She was beat up pretty bad. He must have pistol-whipped and beat them up pretty bad,”
So the women weren’t DOCILE ...
And so the 1 woman put up a fight & the other woman was once in the air force :(
The mother who fought back was a single mom with 2 kids , very hardworking , straight A Crete-Monee High School graduate used to work the night shift at Target to make ends meet. She has 2 kids to support Alone including a 10 year old who suffers from spina bifida .....
What race were the women blam?
"The killer had a GUN. I think that is why they ‘went along’ with the killer’s orders.'
The fact he ordered them into the back meant he was going to kill them absolutely. The reason for taking them into hte back was so the shots wouldn't be noticed. The should have forced notice. They should have taken that warning to refuse and rushed him, or bolted, knocked over clothes racks, and headed out of the store. Tossing a heavy object through the plate glass would have been a good thing.
Never go into the back room and be led off to slaughter. Fight. Force the killer to work hard to aim. Make him waste shots during an attempt to escape and attract attention. Of course it's always better to be prepared with an effective means of self defense and preparation, but this is the land of the grabber, where an NRA sticker in the window could get you a felony stop.
"...what would you have done?"
The heinous pig would have died before he ever hurt one of the women and I'd be in a Tinley Park jail for being real mean with intensity, if not dead.
FR has a loud contingent of heartless bastards who gloat about tragedy and whose fault it was.
They are our worst face.
When I was a boy this would have been headlines like Starkweather, Colb Blood and Boston Strangler were.
Now, it nothing.
especially if the killer is a minority....
I tell my girls and my wife to run and risk getting shot or stabbed versus getting in the car or on one’s knees.
There is no choice.
Better to be armed if possible.
Someone I know who used to shop at Lane Bryant claims that they changed a few years ago from being a store for heavier women to mainly concentrating on clothes for young women with curves.
I've not seen it mentioned, don't know.
Yup. Make your (possibly) last stand in the parking lot...do not get in the car.
That's right and it's really sad that there's scum bags that do this and force that on people.
Of the five victims, two were white and two were black; there hasn't been a picture shown of the fifth victim, the South Bend lady.
Police won't even confirm the existence of the sixth victim, the lone survivor. But she does exist. We don't know anything about her, other than she was shot and released from the hospital on Sunday.
Yea, I remember that. Not well, I was only 8, but I remember how people felt.
However they didn't blame the guns Charlie and his girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugate, used. They blamed Charlie. They electrocuted his a$$. And not after years and years. He was captured in late Jan '58 and executed in June of '59. I also remember the flickering of the lights. (Lincoln's electric system lacked somewhat in those days). The other Nebraska execution I recall was when they turned Pope into a frier. :)
Thanks, MM.
Sounds more like a robbery gone bad by more than one homicidal sociopath.
They had two young blacks kill some Bellacinos kids near here recently.
teenagers...one a girl who supposedly helped
this happened at a McDonalds too near here a few years ago
go to youtube and look up thugs and gangstas videos and you can get an eyeful of these feral humanoids
it’s a different cat from psycho Charlie....more like Drooges
I read that on FR. They released the victim's names and some info about them is out now. 4 were customers, the manager was there alone. A 6th victim apparently walked in on the robbery and is OK after a brief stay in the hospital. There might be a composite sketch released soon.
Although these kinds of robberies are rare, they're common and often end up like this. This was a women's clothing store with many victims. Usually it's a gas station, liquor store, restaurant, pizza delivery, taxi driver, ect... All small amts of money. Those crimes are generally dropped quickly, or ignored.
There was a Brown's Chicken place robbery in the N suburbs years back. At least 5 were killed after being herded into a freezer. They didn't catch the 2 perps until ~10yrs later when one the perp's girl friend told the story to the PD after a domestic.
Maybe, but one at least *feels* that they have different options when armed than when disarmed.
The chain probably has rules against employees being armed in those places where such is allowed by the local Lords and Masters, most national chains do.
That and a 6th victim who survived. Wounded but able to call 911 and able to provide a good description of the perp.
Of course the fact that she was able to call 911 right after the perp left, and he still got away clean does not reflect well on the local police department.
The guy is probably back on the South Side of Chicago, being at least passively protected by "the community".
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