Mass Killings and black folks

Saturday, April 4th 2009



More killings, American style - Yesterday a gunman killed 13 and held 40 hostage in upstate New York town. As the blog Mayhem.net notes, "Most mass murderers are male, white, conservative and come from relatively stable, lower-middle-class backgrounds."

Well, here is the new mayhem:

This time Three Pittsburgh police officers are killed by what the NY Daily news calls, a gun-loving maniac. Yes, another Gunman Kills Police Officers this time in Pittsburgh, PA. CNN reports officers were responding to a domestic call in Stanton Heights area. Reports are the gunman wore bulletproof vest as 5 Pittsburgh police officers were Shot & 3 were killed.




AAPP: It seems that everyone and their mama is refusing to take a look and ask the obvious - Is the economy a factor in recent shootings? Also, Why do so many mass killings occur in April? It appears that April has historically been a whole month of assassination, mass murder and mayhem."



Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. were both killed in April. The Oklahoma City bombing, the end of the Waco Siege and the shootings at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech also took place in April.

Speaking of Martin Luther King, It appears that these killings and other killings are taking a big toll on black communities. You see, the Mass Murder of black folks by lynching is nothing new to us.

The 1946 Lynching of 2 black couples at Moore's Ford bridge in northeast Georgia will be the topic of a panel discussion featuring the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the head of the Atlanta office of the FBI. Gregory Jones of the FBI and GBI Director Vernon Keenan will join the panel after the screening at 2 p..m. Saturday of "Murder in Black and White" at the Monroe Community Center. The 45-minute documentary details the murder July 25, 1946, in what is considered to have been the last mass lynching in American history. More HERE

AP

Police escort a female relative of one of the policemen shot in Pittsburgh early Saturday morning, April 4. Richard Poplawski opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said.

Heller/AP

The NY Daily News reports a gunman shot three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pa. on Sat. Apr. 4, 2009. He was reportedly upset over fears President Obama will curtail gun rights.

A gun-loving lunatic who was afraid President Obama would ban firearms killed three Pittsburgh cops Saturday in a blizzard of bullets, police and witnesses said.

"I am going to die today," the killer, who was not identified, told a friend just before the incident.

The gunman was arrested after a standoff that lasted several hours, officials said.

At least five officers were wounded. It was not immediately clear if that number included the three officers who died. Their names were not released.

Edward Perkovic, 22, the suspect's best friend, said the shooter called him at work as the carnage unfolded.

"Eddie, I am going to die today.... Tell your family I love them and I love you," the killer said, according to Perkovic.

"I heard gunshots and he hung up," Perkovic added. "He sounded like he was in pain, like he got shot."

Perkovic said the gunman feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon."

Another friend, Joe DiMarco, said the suspect was upset about getting laid off from his job at a glass factory earlier this year.

Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, 23, said his friend had an AK-47 rifle and several powerful handguns, including a .357 Magnum. He also said the gunman once had an Internet talk show.

Tom Moffitt, 51, a city firefighter who rushed to the scene from his home two blocks away said he heard "hundreds, just hundreds of shots. And not just once - several times."

Neighbor Rob Gift, 45, who heard bursts of gunfire as he was letting his dog out, was stunned by the violence.

"It's just a very quiet neighborhood," said Gift, who said many police officers, firefighters and other city workers live in the tidy neighborhood filled with single-family homes.

The shootings happened just two weeks after four cops killed in Oakland, Calif., March 21., the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001.

Check out the list of the worst U.S. mass shootings since the recession began:

Source: Fox News

A gunman walked into an immigration services center in downtown Binghamton, N.Y. on Friday, killing an unknown number of people, wounding at least six, and taking as many as 41 hostage. Here is a glance at some of the worst U.S. mass shootings in recent years:

— March 29, 2009: Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, N.C. before a police officer shot him and ended the rampage.

— March 29, 2009: Devan Kalathat, 42, shot and killed his two children and three other relatives, then killed himself in an upscale neighborhood of Santa Clara, Calif. Kalathat's wife was critically injured.

— March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people — including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff's deputy — across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself.

— Feb. 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, fatally shooting five students and wounding 18 others before committing suicide.

— Dec. 5, 2007: Robert A. Hawkins, 19, opened fire with a rifle at a Von Maur store in an Omaha, Neb., mall, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

— April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

More on Mass Killings from black blogger, Field Negro: Apple Pies, Chevies, and Massacres.