Duke shot himself after firing at school board members during a meeting Tuesday. No one else was hurt. Before opening fire, he painted a red V on a wall and talked about his wife being fired.
Officials say she worked for the schools, but it wasn’t clear whether she resigned or had been fired or what her job was. She was apparently living with her mother in a nearby town. Van Etten says the shooting was not “spur of the moment.” Police also found anti-government paraphanelia in Duke’s home.
The entire school board shooting was captured on camera, as Melissa Bell explained:
In the chilling video captured by a WMBB News 13 camera, the board members try to reason with Duke and try to save one another from the gunman.
Ginger Littleton, one school board member, stayed in the room even after Duke ordered her to leave. In the video, she swings her purse at him, in an attempt to knock the gun out of Duke’s hand. She falls to the ground, and Duke stands over her but does not kill her. Another school board member comes back into the room at that time and asks the gunman to let Littleton leave, which Duke does.
At another point, Superintendent Bill Husfelt asks Duke to let everyone else go, saying Husfelt was likely the one responsible for firing Duke’s wife. Duke turns his gun on Husfelt and fires, but the bullets miss Husfelt.
Expect to see much more of this in the coming days, weeks, years.
#58
The anti-government paraphernalia comment disturbed me most from the news report. I’m guessing all of us at DU could have that label applied if it were convenient for local law enforcement. There should be no such thing in a democratic and free society. How long before a vote against an incumbent administration ican be considered an act of treason?
# 42 Faxon
“Thank you. You just proved many of my core points.”
I say
1) The US has 10-30 times the amount of gun related deaths compared to countries with tight gun control.
2) That as an indication of crime the US there are 7 times per captia people incarcerated than other industrialized nations.
You say
1) It’s the mexicans.
2) “Perhaps if criminals convicted of capital offenses were executed, we wouldn’t have so many people in jail.”
On 1 – You did notice that half of all those deaths were suicides? Presumably they weren’t mexicans. Or say 16 times the unintended deaths of the Uk for example. Don’t see what that has to do with the mexicans.
Thats not to say crime leading from illegal immigration with mexico isn’t a problem. Just that its hard to see how it could equate to more than a small part of the magnitude (we are talking 30 times) of the issue.
On 2 – States with the death penalty apparently also have higher rates of murder.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-death-penalty-have-had-consistently-lower-murder-rates
So probably not. Unless you’re proposing killing all criminals? I mean that would presumably keep the numbers down. For some reason civilized societies don’t favor that position.
It would seem killing is your go to solution for difficult problems. That being the case – it would explain your gun fetish (I mean why are you telling me the type of gun you have ?!)
Saw a clip of his wife this morning. He was bipolar, and couldn’t afford meds.
Also heard some psycho-oligists on CNN last night…according to them he wasn’t likely to shoot until the superintendent said he was just looking for the cop to kill him.
His wife also said he was a very good shot, practiced a lot. Fits in with my earlier theory that he missed on purpose.
Was that you with the gun and a wig Dvorak?
Olo–I saw that wife clip also. Thought she excused his conduct a bit too much. I don’t know why I immediately thought the guy missed on purpose as well–perhaps that he let the audience go and also let the crazy attack with a handbag supervisor go a second time. He demonstrated he didn’t actively WANT to kill anyone. But shooting bullets close to your conversational adversary is over the line.
I assume with an appropriate active social safety net this guy would have been under meds and follow up care that would have avoided this situation, and absent such support, yes, guns come out. Someday this equation will be understood even by the SuperRich/powerful/Pukes but I tend to doubt it. Status Quo assumptions are held dearly by people who have an advantage over other people. They are favored by god and deserve what they have and can get.
Our destruction from within, by our own hand, continues apace in front of our very eyes, with too many urging it on. Who can I confront to resolve these issues??? Firing words on a blog just doesn’t have any impact at all. Ah well, there is “some” comfort in at least understanding what is happening, a comfort that Duke did not have.
PS–I do respect that Board Member that tried to direct Duke and calm him down. Maybe no words would have worked as the problem was past talk and medication. School Board.
He was crazy, and not much of a lefty… A true nut job lefty would shoot at a Board of Directors meeting and NOT a School Board meeting
Paul–or other inamorato of label handing: what makes this guy a lefty? I see crazy and a gun nut but not the lefty part.
The woman supervisor has been on the tube a few times. (Mrs Littleton) If Duke is more “crazy” than disgruntled it strikes me that Mrs Littleton is more stupid than heroic. Having the time to think about it would she do it again? If not, then what she did was stupid, not heroic. If she would do it again, again she would be stupid, not heroic.
To react in a completely incompetent manner? Hero: see a situation and act to combat it?
I know, just words, why spoil a moment of mindless acclamation? Why, just call me stupid, or a hero, or a wordsmith.
Stupid Linguist.
The psych on CNN said these people handled the shooter far better than any random group would ever be expected. My earlier comment was their only mistake, according to the psych. Good on them.
Not to make light of a terrible disorder, but I will anyway, does being bipolar make him flip-flop between right and left? Seems kind of hard to pin down this guy with a simple label.
71) “Seems kind of hard to pin down this guy with a simple label.”
I hope that was sarcasm.
The fact of the matter is, most people are “hard to pin down […] with a simple label”.
Making this a left v. right issue is idiotic.
That being said – no one’s commented that the guy spray paints the V from V For Vendetta on the wall. (That character, and its author, Alan Moore, are both anarchists, i.e., far right of Libertarians, which themselves are far right of Republicans. So whatever he thought he was doing, he clearly meant for it to be a ‘rightist’ action. Comic books, people, obviously! [And, yes, *that* was sarcasm.])
Aberrant–yes good reminder. Of course now you are “assuming” he knew what the symbols meant and he meant them the same way you interpret? Maybe he was on the couch the night before all ozoned out in paranoid fantasies and he saw the ad for “V” as in Visitors?
“A disturbed man with an apparent death wish.” was his problem. The other problems all appear to be ours?
Heh, heh. I remember monks dousing themselves in gasoline and going out in flames to protest various things. Very telling what a religion “really is” by looking at their extreme actions. Kill yourself/kill others—says something about the core beliefs.
“You are killing me with your policies”===might as well make it more express?
Aberrant, you made my point a bit more directly.
A TV report had his Faceboob page, his profile pic was the logo from that show, same symbol he painted on the wall. No idea what it all means, other than the guy was mentally ill and probably all over the place with his views.
I do find it interesting that some on the right…not just here…jumped at the chance to cast him as one of those damned progressives.
I don’t care what you guys think but I praise this guy. He’s a poor shooter of course but hey it got the job done for what many of us, especially parents, secretly wish for.
No, I don’t feel bad saying this. When I think of this incident I think how the school board, the schools, counselors and few teachers screwed up my two younger brothers education with crap schedules and classes because classes were full, not available, not require, or whatever the fck they think he doesn’t need.
So for them to succeed in college they’re taking Shakespear, career (how to look for jobs after high school. This is an actual fcking class), multi-media, Alegebra (when they’ve done Calculus 1 already ><!), typing, etc. Yeah, those classes will help them with the Chemisty classes they have to take, the Physics and Math and lets not forget History because we all know how much we excel in it.
So yea, I wish this happens all over country soon. The more the better. You're damn right I'm pissed at the school system.
Do you people not see and hear what is in front of you?
He said his benefits just stopped. He killed himself
knowing that he would slowly starve to death.
Faxon, I know I’m late to this thread but you’ve stated “When Australia confiscated all the guns, major crime skyrocketed”. I don’t know where this started but I’ve seen this argument a few times and I can tell you that it’s not true on many levels. Where did this come from?
Matto. He’s just talking about the old wacky NRA ad from about 10 years ago. Charlton and the NRA had to pull the ads and FUD from their website although they never apologized for the absurd cock up.
his 2nd shot was aimed at the floor.
The whole thing seemed kinda weird, and the V was just way over the top.
This is a fake. Or he was an MKultra droid who had enough willpower to miss on purpose.