The Other McCain

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SHOOTING AT OREGON MALL UPDATE: Eyewitness Tells TV Station Shooter Was Teen in Hockey Mask

Posted on | December 11, 2012 | 14 Comments

There are reportedly at least two people dead — including the shooter — after a gunman opened fire at Clackamas Town Center Mall near Portland.

UPDATE: The Oregonian reports:

The Clackamas Town Center shooter has been “neutralized,” a spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed shortly before 5 p.m. [Pacific Time]
Lt. James Rhodes, a sheriff’s office spokesman, declined to say whether “neutralized” meant a suspect was dead, immobilized or in custody. Unconfirmed reports suggested that the assailant may have taken his own life after shooting multiple people at the mall. Two are confirmed dead with more injured.

UPDATE II: The Oregonian has interviews with witnesses. Still waiting for ID of shooter and other information.

UPDATE III: OK, we now have it confirmed that the shooter is dead. Two others are dead, and at least one other person “seriously injured.”

UPDATE IV: The sheriff’s department is apparently waiting to name the gunman and, without a name, it is impossible to know the motive except (speculatively) he was a homocidal psychotic. A local resident informs me via Twitter that the mall is officially a “gun-free zone,” with signs at every entrance declaring “Firearms Prohibited.”

Homicidal psychotics aren’t real big on obeying signs like that.

UPDATE V: The Associated Press is reporting that the gunman shot himself.

UPDATE VI: The search for political scapegoats has become one of the unseemly yet predictable aspects of tragedies like this. Twitchy reports a rather unusual twist in the Oregon shooting:

Details of the mall shooting are still forthcoming, but many on Twitter reported that the shooter was wearing a white mask. Some called it a hockey mask, while others cited an emergency dispatcher referring to a Guy Fawkes mask — the mask made famous by the movie “V for Vendetta” and now associated with Anonymous. Concern for the shooting victims was put on hold in favor of speculation over a mask crackdown.

Let’s not jump to conclusions either way. If the shooter had been a Tea Party activist, I’m sure Brian Ross would have told us about it by now, but I’m not going to commit Ross-ism in reverse by speculating on a possible left-wing motive without any clear evidence. Homocidal psychotics don’t necessarily fall into clear political categories.

Meanwhile (a) we still don’t even have the name of the shooter, so it’s impossible to speculate on his motive, and (b) the Oregonian updates to report that one of the victims — wounded in the chest, but not killed — is a 15-year-old girl.

UPDATE VII: Fire Andrea Mitchell: “The fact that the media has been so silent on the description of the shooter makes me suspicious.”

Well, yeah: If the guy had been wearing a Gadsden Flag T-shirt, MSNBC would have a reporter on the scene doing round-the-clock coverage.

The fact that liberals aren’t yet claiming a right-wing motive may tend to make us supect the shooter was associated with the Left, but we can’t substitute mere suspicion for actual facts.

UPDATE VIII: KATU-TV has an interview with an eyewitness who says (a) the shooter was wearing a hockey goalie’s mask, and (b) the shooter appeared to be a teenager. So the Occupy/Anonymous anarchists apparently can relax about the Guy Fawkes mask angle.

Hat-tip: Seattle Six on Twitter.

Category: Crime, Oregon

Comments

14 Responses to “SHOOTING AT OREGON MALL UPDATE: Eyewitness Tells TV Station Shooter Was Teen in Hockey Mask”

  1. Shooting at Oregon mall, two dead « The Daley Gator
    December 11th, 2012 @ 8:51 pm

    […] saw this at The Other McCain There are reportedly at least two people dead — including the shooter — after a gunman opened […]

  2. dmandmand
    December 11th, 2012 @ 8:53 pm

    it looks like the shooter was neutralized…shot but not known by whom

  3. Mike G.
    December 11th, 2012 @ 9:21 pm

    It’s nuts like this who give lawful gun owners a bad name.

  4. Red Dawn
    December 11th, 2012 @ 10:00 pm

    Sounds like an “Occupy” follow up – part of their marxist domestic insurrection fomented by the likes of Andrew Stern and Frank Marshall Davis, Jr.

  5. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 11th, 2012 @ 10:09 pm

    Tonya Harding? It was just a matter of time before she flipped out again.

  6. Three Dead After Gunman Opens Fire At ‘Gun Free’ Oregon Mall | The Lonely Conservative
    December 11th, 2012 @ 11:22 pm

    […] are dead. I don’t have enough information to know if he owned the firearm legally, but according to The Other McCain the mall was a gun free zone, so he was clearly in violation of the law, but for some reason that […]

  7. JeffS
    December 11th, 2012 @ 11:34 pm

    Local news (I’m in Portland now) had a deputy stating that no weapons were fired by law enforcement, and that the shooter apparently died of a “self-inflicted wound”. Too bad he/she didn’t shoot him/herself first.

    Also…..Fox noted that witnesses said the shooter wore camo, maybe body armor, and “a white mask”.

  8. JeffS
    December 11th, 2012 @ 11:35 pm

    And, oh, yeah, the mall is locked down until the investigation is over…..with no timeline provided. The mall manager is supposed to be putting information on their website for businesses.

  9. Adjoran
    December 12th, 2012 @ 12:10 am

    Yeah, what’s wrong with these jerks? You feel you have to kill yourself, that’s too bad, I’d try to talk you out of it but if you must, find a deserted place where you won’t hurt anyone else and some kid won’t find you.

    Killing someone else first is just evil, what lowlife scum.

  10. Rob Crawford
    December 12th, 2012 @ 12:15 am

    “White mask”? Pure speculation — Guy Fawkes?

  11. JeffS
    December 12th, 2012 @ 1:15 am

    Oddly enough, I thought much the same thing.

  12. Dana
    December 12th, 2012 @ 6:44 am

    The gunman was a teenager wearing a hockey mask? Well, that makes it easy to know who to blame. IFC has been running the old Friday the 13th movies the past week or so — complete with the bare boobies! — and this is just obviously what set this poor young man on the path of death and destruction.

  13. Gun-Free Zones: A Vacuum of Logic and Lawful Defense | Connor's Conundrums
    December 14th, 2012 @ 1:53 pm

    […] all occurred in such places. Ft. Hood, the Aurora movie theater, Trolley Square, Virginia Tech, the Oregon mall shooting just days ago—these and a depressingly long list of mass shootings share a common trait in […]

  14. Gun-Free Zones: A Vacuum of Logic and Lawful Defense – Latter-day Statesmen
    December 18th, 2012 @ 6:13 pm

    […] all occurred in such places. Ft. Hood, the Aurora movie theater, Trolley Square, Virginia Tech, the Oregon mall shooting just days ago—these and a depressingly long list of mass shootings share a common trait in […]