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.
Not yet, but the IL Democrats are working on it.
Handguns are illegal for most private citizens in many political divisions of Chicagoland, but with a few local exceptions the rest of the state allows handguns for people who qualify for a firearms owner identity card.
IL is one of the very few remaining states that have no provision for issuing concealed weapon permits to a private citizen whether shall issue or conditional issue. As long as Cook county holds the lion's share of IL voters don't expect the situation to get anything but worse.
Well, it seems the liberals in Illinois might have let this piece of filth out on the street.
You know, if this situation were to occur in my northern Michigan rural small town, on the wrong day when several CCW carrying Citizens were present, the danger would be purely on the culprit, and the only innocent life at risk would be from the crossfire from the multiple directions involved.
McCain’t!
5 people died & some freepers were celebrating & joking about fat people who shop at Lane Bryant .
A freeper Poster who likes beer made comments about mumu sizes & that the victims shopped at the store & implied they deserve what happened because they are overweight etc...
I asked him if he would make those comments to the victim’s family :(
I don’t appreciate you saying the mod is fat either !
The 1 victim was known for her compassion & Love of Life !
Alot of local children are still scared because police went into a local Target in full force .
Was that what the Sgt. said or was the weight translated to UK speak.....?
They did: 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.
It was a translation.
The PC liberal media will not offend minority groups. These are the stations you watch night after night, these are the papers you buy every morning going to work. WHY ARE WE SUPPORTING THE MEDIA WHEN THEY ARE DOING A DISERVICE TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.”WE THE PEOPLE” have a lot to say and do, LETS START DOING IT! Show your disatisfaction! boycott!
I'm confused.
I work at a Lane Bryant. First, the people who work and shop there aren’t all 300 lbs. Next, this story seems strange to me. All retail stores like Lane Bryant are set up the same way. I heard only one employee was shot and unless everyone scattered (which I haven’t read) we are in no way to have a store opened with only one employee present. That is policy. I know there are alot of nut jobs out there that will kill anyone for any reason but I wonder if it’s someones crazy boyfriend that had an ax to grind.
Where? I've only read that one patron was shot.
"we are in no way to have a store opened with only one employee present."
The franchise owner is entitled to open and be the only one present at any time. It does look like there were several employees present though.
"...someones crazy boyfriend that had an ax to grind."
If so, then it was a hit. It was 5 white women that were killed and the person reported to have left the store, by the only witness, was black. These kinds of robberies, followed by killings aren't that uncommon. Usually the number of folks killed is less, so the media drops mention of them after a blurb, or doesn't mention them at all. This one will be kept alive to support more gun grabbing though.
The media source for this article is a BRITISH NEWSPAPER.
Makes you wonder why there wouldn’t be tons of U.S. based MSM articles to put up on F.R. on this terrible, multiple murder.
Or maybe Chicago is now considered ‘foreign territory’?
“So rather than removing posts and warning posters the Mods deleted the whole thread??”
Maybe the offensive posts were spawning so fast, they didn’t have enough moderators to keep up.
They were docile women, in other words targets, but that is what a lifetime of crap propaganda will do to a person.
“For some reason, the victims here went along with the killer’s orders to go into the back room.”
The killer had a GUN.
I think that is why they ‘went along’ with the killer’s orders.
If that was a bad move, what would you have done?
That's what I think.
Who would rob a Lane Bryant in Tinley Park shortly after the store opened on a Saturday morning? There wouldn't be much to rob!
Tinley Park is not a high-rent area. It's middle/working class. This community exists because of white flight from the south side. Lane Bryant is not a high end store either. I doubt that those poor women were carrying much cash; they would have been whipping out their credit cards.
I'll bet one of those women -- most likely the employee -- knew the killer. It sure is strange that the name of only one victim has been released more than 24 hours after the murders.
Lane Bryants aren’t franchised and the article I read was from the AP. I didn’t see any mention of the race of the women - I just find it hard to believe that someone would kill five women over $600. But I also know the kind of world we live in today. And BTW, white women dating black men isn’t unheard of - so it is entirely plausible.
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. And I’ve worked with alot of girls over the last few years who had alot of drama at home. But things like this never make sense - I’ll be curious to see how it unfolds over the next few days.
They’ve released the names of all the victims.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/774574,CST-NWS-SHOOTFINAL03.article
The employee was the store’s manager. That was in the Lane Bryant press release. At least two of the victims were white. Police admit that there wasn’t much cash, but say that some valuables were taken. I still think the killer knew at least one victim.
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