Posted on 01/01/2009 7:20:44 AM PST by NYer
NEDERLAND, Colo. – A gunman who broke into a staff meeting at a Colorado ski resort ranting about religion asked the manager what he believed and shot him twice when the victim responded he was Catholic, according to reports published today about the tragedy.
The gunman later was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy in a firefight alongside a snowy mountain road, authorities confirmed.
The Boulder County coroner identified the gunman as Derik A. Bonestroo, 24, who had been living in Nederland. According to a report in the Boulder Daily Camera, witnesses said Bonestroo burst into the staff meeting yesterday at the Eldora Mountain Resort near here.
Sheriff Joe Pelle said Bonestroo was yelling something about religion to employees when resort General Manager Brian Mahon heard the commotion and came into the room. The Camera said witnesses reported the shooter asked Mahon which religion he believed, and when Mahon said he was Catholic, the shooter fired twice and killed him.
Sheriff's Commander Phil West said, "There are various interpretations about what was said. Witnesses told us (Bonestroo) had been through some emotional crisis."
Mahon, 49, leaves behind a wife and two children. He had worked at Eldora since 1991.
According to a statement from Boulder County Undersheriff Tom Shomaker, deputy John Seifert was on duty in Nederland when the call came in about the shooting. Told the shooter had fled and given a description of the vehicle, Seifer spotted a suspect vehicle on the Peak-to-Peak Highway only a few miles downhill from the ski area. After a short pursuit, the suspect vehicle stopped, the sheriff said.
"The male driver immediately opened fire on the deputy after stopping his vehicle," the sheriff's department statement said.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
[I wonder what his DU screen name was?] (not joking)
They are creating a hostile work environment for you based on your religious beliefs. Tell them to knock it off or HR will hear about it.
Don't have an HR dept.? Well, call EEO--you're paying for them anyway through your taxes.
The spirit of Antichrist is growing in the world.
happy new year
Every religion probably has a few ultra-fervent worshippers who are so wrapped up in their own beliefs that they detest and abhor everyone elses. I have to believe that a deep and sincere relationship with Christ is so much more important than rituals.
I have no doubt he is in adult jail by now. Most of these stupid kids cannot hold it together long enough to stay out of trouble. I am watching neighborhood kids grow up only to return home after failed marriages, careers, and jail time.
This happened only a few miles from where I live. I can look out the window and see the ski slopes at Eldora. I heard the ambulance go by my house that morning. It has really been hard to decipher the religious angle because of the poor reporting in the liberal newspapers. Most reports just said that he shouted something about religion and started shooting. My thoughts were that if he were claiming to be religious then it would be all over the news, but if he were an anti-religion leftist then it would be covered up.
“hostile work environment “
Nah. HR is evil in itself. We just return the favor by picking apart their reasonings. I am more of a Southern Baptist in upbringing: If you aren’t one, give us a minute; it is our job to convert you!
LOL! I helped found a Southern Baptist church once.
I agree with you that HR is evil, but you have to wise with dealing with your serpent co-workers. They’ll dump “hostile work environment” charges on YOU in a NY minute if you cut too close in your defense of faith.
You’re the best judge of your work environment. Don’t let them make your job miserable because of their unbridled hatred.
Catholics are not the only Christians who are targets of bigotry in America.
Derik Bonestroo led an unremarkable life until Tuesday. He went to church, worked and had never been in trouble.
Football was his life at Lyons High School, where he was a model student. He later built his own trailer for a welding project at Trinidad State Junior College in Alamosa. He wanted to become a machinist.
“Something happened between high school and now,” said Lyons High School principal Mark Mills. “I’m befuddled and shocked.”
Tuesday morning, Bonestroo, 24, walked into a staff meeting with fellow lift operators at Eldora Mountain Resort and began a religious rant, authorities say. He then fatally shot general manager Brian Mahon.
Bonestroo eventually died in a shootout with a Boulder County deputy.
“I
Extras
View a slideshow from the shooting.
Read the Boulder County Sheriff’s report.
don’t know what happened,” Bonestroo’s uncle Greg Bonestroo said Wednesday. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and it can’t be taken back once it happens. He was a good kid.”
The Boulder County coroner’s office said Wednesday evening that although Bonestroo was hit multiple times by the deputy’s AR-15 assault rifle, his death was classified as a suicide. Bonestroo shot himself with the same semiautomatic pistol used to kill Mahon, the coroner’s statement said.
Derik Bonestroo’s landlord in Nederland, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said that while Bonestroo was quiet and paid his rent on time, he “was obviously socially very awkward.”
In the past three weeks, Bonestroo’s behavior became increasingly odd — to the point that the landlord was very worried. Conversations became bizarre — not ordinary talks about Christianity.
Bonestroo asked what kind of Bible the landlord had. Bonestroo said he hoped it wasn’t “Satan’s Bible.”
Greg Bonestroo, who lives in Phoenix, said his nephew was raised in an Army family. His father was an officer who became an air-traffic controller. His mother was a bank vice president. He has one older brother.
The family had lived in Hawaii, Arizona and Colorado.
A Boulder County Bomb Squad robot maneuvers behind the suspect’s vehicle after the shootings near Eldora Mountain Resort near Nederland on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008. (POOL LONGMONT TIMES-CALL | RICHARD M. HACKETT)Derik loved the outdoors and as a kid was very good at rollerblading.
Mills said Derik Bonestroo was a good student whose parents were very involved in his progress.
He was on two football teams that lost to Akron High School in state championship games. He was the starting center his senior year, Mills said.
Derik Bonestroo liked to go hunting.
The last time Greg Bonestroo saw his nephew was about a year and a half ago when he came with his family to Arizona on vacation. Both of Derik Bonestroo’s parents are retired.
Derik was eager to ride go-carts in the desert.
“He was laughing and enjoying himself,” Greg Bones- troo said.
In November, Derik Bonestroo got a job as a lift operator at Eldora, said Rob Linde,
Employees console each other Wednesday at Eldora. Resort officials said Brian Mahon, slain Tuesday, would have wanted them to smile through adversity. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post )Eldora spokesman. He lived alone in a rented room on Jackson Street in Nederland, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said.
Recently, Bonestroo suddenly told the landlord that he was going up to the resort on Tuesday to quit his job.
The landlord, who had been contemplating what to do with his quiet and strange tenant, became very concerned.
The landlord never felt threatened. He had never felt reason to call the police. But Bonestroo had said he was taking Lithium and antidepressants.
Bonestroo had also told his landlord he had studied gunsmithing. But Bonestroo claimed he had no guns in his Nederland room.
When, on Tuesday, the landlord heard of the shooting at the ski area, he suddenly thought of his tenant. And later the police came and went through the room he had rented to Bonestroo.
Co-workers described him as a quiet loner, said Cmdr. Phil West of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.
“He didn’t socialize,” West said.
West said he was advised by county attorneys not to comment on any possible psychological care Derik Bones troo had received. But he said Bonestroo had never been arrested and had only a traffic violation on his record.
“He was just a fine young man. He never got into trouble,” Mills said. “That’s why it’s such a shocking and sad thing. My heart not only goes out to his family but to the family of the man he shot.”
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
[Derik] Bonestroo [the murderer], who was not well-known in the laid-back mountain community and had worked only this season as a lift operator, fired a bullet into the ceiling of the resort’s locker room after saying something along the lines of: “I’m a Christian and if you’re not a Christian I’m here to convert you.”
West said that Bonestroo asked resort manager Brian Mahon about his own beliefs. Mahon told the gunman he was Catholic before being shot to death.
They’ve searched Bonestroo’s small apartment in Nederland, and confiscated several items to aide in their investigation. They also found a dead cat in the apartment, West said. It’s unclear how the cat died, but he said there was a lot of blood.
http://marymajor.blogspot.com/2008/12/catholic-wrong-answer-to-gunman.html
“Christian! You F****** Christian!”
looks like you were convicted of being a christian
Interesting analogy.
I agree with that. It would be testing God. And, that's a sin.
But, who knows why he chose to tell the truth. Perhaps he decided long ago that he was willing to die for his faith. Or, that allowing himself to become the target would save the others in the room.
Not knowing the state of mind of the gunman, there was the remote possibility in a case like this, that a gunman would surrender himself to someone of a particular faith. Tragically, that was not the case here.
“Don’t let them make your job miserable because of their unbridled hatred.”
In my position that would be impossible. I can make theirs a little uncomfortable...and I do.
“Christian” seems to be the word liberals use to try to insult people with values. I hear the word being used more and more as a disparagement. I now know the anger, ignorance, and stupidity the Romans needed to feed the Christians to the lions. I also know the firepower that is going to be required to ensure that never happens again.
>>I have to believe that a deep and sincere relationship with Christ is so much more important than rituals. <<
Which of course seems to say...Those who follow rituals DON’T have a sincere relationship with Christ.
Way to prove a point!
>>Catholics are not the only Christians who are targets of bigotry in America. <<
Catholics, Jews and Evangelical Christians.
I don’t hear too many late night jokes about Methodist Ministers. Or their depiction in Gay Pride Parades.
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