Monday, February 4, 2013

Taking a Shot at a Post About Texas

Well, they have the reputation.... 

"‘American Sniper’ author shot to death in Texas" by Michael Schwirtz  |  New York Times, February 04, 2013

NEW YORK — Since retiring from the Navy SEALs, Chris Kyle, whom the Pentagon has deemed as among America’s deadliest snipers, would occasionally take fellow veterans shooting as a kind of therapy to salve battlefield scars.

Kyle, 38, author of the best-selling book “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” was with a struggling former soldier on just such an outing on Saturday, hoping that a day at a shooting range would bring some relief, said a friend, Travis Cox.

But Texas authorities said Sunday that the troubled veteran turned on Kyle and a second man, Chad Littlefield, shooting and killing both before fleeing in a pickup truck....

I don't know. Looks like a car to me. If the MSM is going to start the report off that way.... 

The police identified the gunman as Eddie Ray Routh, 25, who had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and had suffered from mental illness. The police offered no information about a possible motive....

Kyle, who lived outside of Dallas, had his own difficulties adjusting after retiring from the SEALs in 2009. He was deployed in Iraq during the worst years of the insurgency, perched in or on top of bombed-out apartment buildings with his .300 Winchester Magnum.

His job was to provide “overwatch,” preventing enemy fighters from ambushing Marines as they moved through Iraqi towns.

He did not think the job would be difficult, he wrote in his book, but two weeks into the war, he found himself staring through his scope into the face of an unconventional enemy. A woman with a child had pulled a grenade from beneath her clothes as several Marines approached. He hesitated, he wrote, but then fired the shot.

“It was my duty to shoot, and I don’t regret it,” he wrote. “My shots saved several Americans, whose lives were clearly worth more than that woman’s twisted soul.”

Oh, the supremacism inherent in that very statement is sickening. ALL LIFE is PRECIOUS!

Just wondering how some American women would have reacted had Iraqis invaded and occupied our nation over lies? Heck, the redneck women from down south would be doing the same thing!

Over time, his hesitation diminished and he became better at his job. He was credited with more than 150 deaths.

You mean murders. 

He became the scourge of Iraqi insurgents, who put a price on his head and were said to have called him the “Devil of Ramadi.”

He was another shooter, huh? 

Did he ever have the opportunity to plant a, oh, I don't know, grenade?

*********************

Kyle received two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars for valor. He would later describe his service in humble terms, preferring to talk not about the enemies killed, but the lives saved.

“I feel pretty good because I am not just killing someone, I am also saving people,” he said in a January 2012 interview with The Dallas Morning News. “What keeps me up at night is not the people that I have killed, it is the people I wasn’t able to save.”

How odd that his soul is beyond saving. 

In an interview with The New York Times in March, Kyle said that he had hesitated to write a book about his experiences.

Why? Everyone else is ca$hing in on the lies.

But he was persuaded to do so after hearing that other books about SEALs were in the works.

Related: Sunday Globe Special: Put the Blame on Plame, Boys!

I wonder if Kiriakou will write a book.

“I wanted to tell my story as a SEAL,” he said. “This is about all the hardships that everybody has to go through to get the respect and the honor.”

But he also wanted his sense of humor to come out, he said, noting that he tried to “write in a Texas drawl.”

The book, which was published in January of last year, spent months on The New York Times best-seller list and turned Kyle into a celebrity. He appeared on talk shows like “Conan” with Conan O’Brien.

He also played a role in the NBC reality program “Stars Earn Stripes,” in which celebrities were paired with elite soldiers to carry out military-style missions.

Wasn't that canceled because it was in such bad taste?

For all his success, friends and fellow veterans described Kyle as a humble warrior and down-to-earth family man who loved his wife and two children.

Who just happened to destroy about 150 families. 

--more--"

NEXT DAY UPDATE:

"Suspect in sniper slaying held on bail" by Angela K. Brown  |  Associated Press, February 05, 2013

FORT WORTH, Texas — The Iraq War veteran charged with killing a former Navy SEAL sniper and his friend on a Texas shooting range had to be shocked with a stun gun and restrained in his jail cell overnight after becoming aggressive, a sheriff said Monday.

Eddie Ray Routh, 25, is on suicide watch in the Erath County Jail, where he’s being held on $3 million bond, Sheriff Tommy Bryant said....

Routh, a member of the Marines Corps Reserve, appeared ready to assault jailers Sunday night when they entered his solitary confinement cell because he refused to return his food tray, Bryant said. After warnings, jailers used a stun gun once and then put Routh in a chair that restrains his arms and legs, Bryant said....

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Related: Chris Kyle Shot: The Devil is Dead in Texas

America’s Top Sniper Murdered – By CIA?

I doubt I'll be seeing much more on that shooting in my Boston Globe. 

UPDATEEx-SEAL’s service draws thousands

Also see: Veterans’ gun ownership becomes defense bill issue

Gun Ownership, A Mental Disease

So vets can't fight back or lead us.

Never saw the daily drumbeat of coverage regarding this one, either:

"Three dead in shooting near Texas A&M" by Michael Graczyk |  Associated Press     August 13, 2012

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — A law enforcement officer attacked as he approached a home near the Texas A&M University campus was killed along with a male civilian in a Monday shootout that also left the gunman dead, police said.

Notice how most of these gunmen end up dead?

Two other law enforcement officers and a woman were injured in the shooting in College Station, said Bryan Police Department spokesman Jon Agnew. Bryan police are assisting in the investigation.

Assistant College Station Police Chief Scott McCollum identified the law enforcement officer killed as Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann.

McCollum said Bachmann had gone to an off-campus home near Kyle Field, the A&M football stadium, when the gunman opened fire from inside the house. He said he didn’t know why Bachmann had gone to the home.

Other officers responded to the home after receiving a call that an officer was down. They shot the gunman and took him into custody, McCollum said. The gunman was later pronounced dead.

I think they killed him. Think about it: it saves a lot of time and paperwork.

The two other injured officers were hospitalized and the civilian woman was undergoing surgery, Agnew said.

Agnew said officers had established a perimeter around the area shortly after the shooting just east of the Texas A&M campus, but they do not believe a second suspect was involved. He said police don’t know if the shooter was a student at the university.

Oh, no, NOT AGAIN!!

The school had issued an alert on its website just before 12:30 p.m. warning of an active shooter. The alert warned residents and students to avoid the area, and was later updated with the shooter taken into custody.

Texas A&M spokeswoman Sherylon Carroll said most students were not on campus Monday. The fall semester does not begin until August 27.

Starting to stink a bit!

‘‘It appeared to be fairly quiet,’’ Carroll said of campus. ‘‘It didn’t appear to be a lot of people out and about at that particular time.’’

College Station is about 90 miles northwest of Houston. Texas A&M is home to more than 50,000 students, according to its website.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an A&M alumnus, said at an event in Florida that his ‘‘prayers are with any of those that have been injured.’’

--more--"   

So why did he do this thing?

"Gunman shot dead after killing 2 near Texas A&M" by Manny Fernandez and Michael Schwirtz  |  New York Times, August 14, 2012

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — A gunman opened fire on police near the campus of Texas A&M University shortly after noon Monday, killing at least two people, including a local constable, and wounding four others, the police said. The gunman, who was shot in the ensuing crossfire, died later after being taken into custody....

The gunman, who was identified as Thomas Caffall, 35, opened fire with what a witness said was an assault rifle, and was then shot by the police and taken into custody....

The police visited the house to serve an eviction notice....

Ooooooooooooh!!! 

An image posted on the website of a local ABC News affiliate, KTRK-TV, showed what appeared to be a black assault rifle under a brown sedan. It was not clear from the footage whether the gun belonged to Caffall.

Texas A&M University issued a series of warnings on its website, beginning around 12:30 p.m., when residents near the campus football stadium were urged to remain indoors in the area around Fidelity Street in College Station, about 90 miles northwest of Houston....

The area where the shooting occurred is a working-class cluster of single-family clapboard homes about two blocks southeast of the campus. University students rent many of the houses, and the Texas A&M logo can be seen on mailboxes and screen doors.

Campus police at the university said the shooting took place entirely off-campus, and directed questions to the local police....

On Monday afternoon, dozens of Brazos County sheriff’s deputies, state troopers, police officers, and paramedics converged on the streets in and around the house on Fidelity Street. More than a block away, a number of law enforcement officers formed a line and walked slowly across the front lawns of houses, apparently searching for evidence.

In the blistering Texas sun, some shielded their heads with shirts and other clothing as they stepped on grass that has turned brown and crunchy from a lack of rain.

Residents described the neighborhood as a quiet place where such violence was unheard of.

‘‘If I had been anywhere else, I would have thought it was a gunshot,’’ said James Densey, 62, a construction worker remodeling a nearby home. ‘‘But in this neighborhood, I assumed it was just kids out playing with some late firecrackers.’’

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My theory: the fact that was a shooting related to foreclosure is why the MSM forgot it so fast. Don't want to be giving people who are being fraudulently kicked out of their homes any ideas when the enforcers come to evict. 

That doesn't end the school shootings though:

"AFTERMATH -- Students at a Texas community college north of Houston were evacuated following a shooting Tuesday in which three people were wounded. One of those injured was identified as a college student. Authorities said that a fight between two people led to the shooting, and that a handgun was recovered at the scene (Boston Globe January 23 2013)."

When I post something like that it tells you it was a photograph carried in my printed Boston Globe, and thus would not be found in the web version. 

"2d suspect arrested in Texas college shooting" Associated Press, January 26, 2013

HOUSTON — A young man accused of opening fire at a college after someone ‘‘bumped into’’ him was arrested Friday about 250 miles away from the Houston campus, authorities said.

Trey Foster, 22, was brought back to Houston after being arrested around 1 a.m. in a home in the Dallas suburb of Plano, where he was apparently staying with acquaintances, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said. It is unclear how Foster got there after Tuesday’s shooting that injured three men at Lone Star College, or whether his friends knew he was a fugitive, the sheriff said.

But, Garcia said, Foster ‘‘confirms that being bumped into is at the root of this incident.’’

Authorities say at least 10 shots were fired, causing a campus-wide lockdown and terrifying students.

A gun that authorities believe Foster used during the shootings was recovered during his arrest, Garcia said.

According to court documents, an argument erupted after 25-year-old Jody Neal bumped into Foster on campus. About 30 minutes later, Foster fired at Neal, who was wounded in the abdomen and leg, the documents said. Neal ran into the campus library and collapsed.

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Remember, people, don't take the law into your own hands, you take 'em to court:

"Texas prosecutor gunned down while walking to the courthouse" by Danny Robbins  |  Associated Press, February 01, 2013

KAUFMAN, Texas — An assistant district attorney was shot and killed Thursday morning near the North Texas courthouse where he worked, and authorities said they were searching through his cases to try to find clues about why he may have been targeted....

Investigators had some leads but had not arrested anyone as of Thursday afternoon, Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said. He urged the public to come forward with tips....

What, no security cameras? 

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