Man on fire in IL Mall had Chemcials strapped on body-Jumping 2 stories at kids waiting for Santa

Yahoo Wire ^ | November 23, 2001 | AP Top Story

[codebreaker]

Jeremy Wolf said the man appeared to have containers of cleaning chemicals strapped to his chest. He has stretched his leg over the railing as if to jump down to the center court, where hundereds of shoppers were waiting in line.

"I could literally see his face on fire," Wolf said."

The man who was not carrying any identification was taken to Rcokford's (IL.)OSF St. Anthony's medical center (from Cherryvale Mall) and was to be transferred to Loyola University Medical Center.

[AmerRepb]

Talaban soldiers have just pick up on the news and are setting themselves on fire and being catapulted at Northern Alliance positions....:}

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Maybe incidents like this would be much less frequent if we hadn't (thanks to the Democrats) released tens of thousands of dangerous crazies onto the streets, and then provided virtually NO mandatory follow-up for them.

As I recall, President Carter had the idea initially of releasing people from mental institutions. This policy was implemented under President Reagan.

[ikka]

They could see his face, but the reporter can't find out if he is white/black/olive-skinned?

[MetalHeadConservative35]

see what happens when a mall has a christmas shopping season..the minute something runs out there a guy kills himself...

[anniegetyourgun]

#137 - that's because you have class, MM!

[NC Conservative]

some people are too stupid to live.

[MarkWar]

>I do not find this amusing, either. My granchildren could have witnessed this, as they will be going to see Santa soon. I have been concerned for some time that children would be targets, and it looks like this may be a precursor of things to come.

I'm not amused either, and here are a couple of other things about the event that aren't amusing.

1) The attack happened around 8:30am local time, yet NOBODY I talked to yesterday in Chicago and south of Chicago even HEARD about it until the afternoon. What if OTHERS had planned similar attacks at other malls? How come the local TV channels didn't broadcast a general & repeated warning to give people a chance to decide if they wanted to go to their local malls and RISK such an attack? (I imagine, of course, that such warnings would hurt business and, say no more.)

2) The mall where this attack happened DIDN'T CLOSE after the attack! They stayed open and just closed their "center court" area. Again, I'm sure it would have been bad business to close the mall, but, again, what if this guy had been coordinated with other nuts in the area?

It's one thing to support a strong economy. This business of letting everyone go to malls and keeping everything open comes darn close to reminding me of the mayor in the movie "Jaws" who insisted that the beaches stay open after the first shark attack...

Mark W.

[floriduh voter]

Time for 27 year olds from the area to look him up on that classmate search engine. It still sounds like an alias to me imho.

[floriduh voter]

Just checking. So whatever happened to the mall dude in Illinois? I am hearing nothing down here either on cable or local. Is he just a nut or are they keeping quiet because he is a terrorist puppet? Any ideas?