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Showing posts from February, 2007

Zodiac To Cause Copycats?

A major motion picture directed by David Fincher [ Alien 3 (1992), Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002)] opens across the United States on March 2, 2007, from Paramount Pictures. It stars, among many, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Edwards, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Brian Cox, Chloë Sevigny and Bijou Phillips. It is based on the self-named serial killer who terrorized the San Francisco area during the late 1960s. The Zodiac murdered five known victims near the Solano County communities of Benicia and Vallejo, near Napa Valley's Lake Berryessa, and in San Francisco, California, between December 1968 and October 1969. The Zodiac may have murdered others. The Zodiac claimed as much. On August 1, 1969, three letters written by Zodiac were received at the Vallejo Times-Herald , the San Francisco Chronicle , and the San Francisco Examiner . The letters continued being received by the media through 1974. The Zodiac was never caught and never ident

Trolley Square Mirrored Montreal?

Someone asked me overnight, if I would consider the Salt Lake City shootings a copycat of the case in Montreal at Dawson College? I had to honestly answer that as far as the copycat effect, well, yes, perhaps, maybe, not exactly. The act may fit more comfortably within the context of the greater Columbine cult that still colors most mass shootings by "young people." The Trolley Square shooting may only compare to Montreal in terms of them both being violent cultural "outsiders" who put the mantle of Columbine on themselves to channel their vulnerability and rage. Kimveer Gill (July 9, 1981-September 13, 2006), the shooter at Dawson College, was an an Indo-Canadian born in Montreal, whose parents were part of the Sikh community in the Quebec area. Through Vampirefreaks and other sites, clearly he was obsessed with Columbine. Gill wore a trenchcoat and one of his nicknames was "Trench." Gill's weapons of choice: a Norinco HP9-1 short barrelled shotgun

UT/PA Shootings

Monday night, February 12, 2007, in Salt Lake City, Utah, at about 6:45 PM Mountain Time (8:45 PM Eastern), and at the Navy Yard, Philadelphia, at 8:30 PM Eastern, two mass shootings occurred. The Utah event involved a 18-year-old gunman wearing a trenchcoat who opened fire on shoppers at the Trolley Square shopping mall, killing five and wounding four others before police fatally shot him, was armed with several rounds of ammunition and was carrying two guns. Detectives were trying to figure out what sparked the young man's rampage. Meanwhile in Philadelphia, an armed man opened fire during a company board meeting inside a commercial building at the Navy Yard, killing three men and critically wounding a fourth before turning the gun on himself. It happened during a meeting of the board of directors of a company called Watson International. The board was meeting at 5131 S. 11th St. in a structure known as Building 79, a former Navy procurement office that, like many of the wareh