Police: 8 killed in Texas mall shooting, gunman also dead
By JAKE BLEIBERG and REBECCA BOONE
ALLEN, Texas (AP) — A gunman stepped out of a silver sedan and started shooting people at a Dallas-area outlet mall Saturday, killing eight and wounding seven others — three critically — before being killed by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said.
Authorities did not immediately provide details about the victims at Allen Premium Outlets, a sprawling outdoor shopping center, but witnesses reported seeing children among them. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.
The shooting, the latest eruption of what has been an unprecedented pace of mass killings in the U.S., sent hundreds fleeing in panic. Barely a week before, authorities say, a man fatally shot five people in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbor asked him to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept.
A 16-year-old pretzel stand employee, Maxwell Gum, described a virtual stampede of shoppers. He and others sheltered in a storage room.
“We started running. Kids were getting trampled,” Gum said. “My co-worker picked up a 4-year-old girl and gave her to her parents.”
Dashcam video that circulated online showed the gunman getting out of a car and shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle recording the video drove off.
Allen Fire Chief Jonathan Boyd said seven people including the shooter died at the scene. Nine victims were taken to area hospitals, but two of them died.
Three of the wounded were in critical condition in the evening, Boyd said, and four were stable.
An Allen Police officer was in the area on an unrelated call when he heard shots at 3:36 p.m., the police department wrote on Facebook.
“The officer engaged the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called for emergency personnel,” it added.
Mass killings are happening with staggering frequency in the United States this year: an average of about one a week, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
The White House said President Biden had been briefed on the shooting and the administration had offered support to local officials. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings, called it an “unspeakable tragedy.”
Fontayne Payton, 35, was at H&M when he heard the sound of gunshots through his headphones.
“It was so loud, it sounded like it was right outside,” Payton said.
People in the store scattered before employees ushered the group into the fitting rooms and then a lockable back room, he said. When they were given the all-clear to leave, Payton saw the store had broken windows and a trail of blood to the door. Discarded sandals and bloodied clothes lay nearby.
Once outside, Payton saw bodies.
“I pray it wasn’t kids, but it looked like kids,” he said. The bodies were covered in white towels, slumped over bags on the ground.
“It broke me when I walked out to see that,” he said.
Further away, he saw the body of a heavyset man wearing all black. He assumed it was the shooter, Payton said, because unlike the other bodies it had not been covered up.
Tarakram Nunna, 25, and Ramakrishna Mullapudi, 26, said they saw what appeared to be three people motionless on the ground, including one who appeared to be a police officer and one who appeared to be a mall security guard.
Another shopper, Sharkie Mouli, 24, said he hid in a Banana Republic store during the shooting. As he left, he saw what appeared to be an unconscious police officer lying next to another unconscious person outside the outlet store.
“I have seen his gun lying right next to him and a guy who is like passing out right next to him,” Mouli said.
Stan and Mary Ann Greene were browsing in the Columbia sportswear store when the shooting started.
“We had just gotten in, just a couple minutes earlier, and we just heard a lot of loud popping,” Mary Ann Greene told The Associated Press.
Employees rolled down the security gate and brought everyone to the rear of the store until police arrived and escorted them out, the Greenes said.
Eber Romero was at the Under Armour store when a cashier mentioned that there was a shooting.
As he left the store, Romero said, the mall appeared empty, and all the shops had their security gates down. That is when he started seeing broken glass and people who had been shot on the floor.
Video shared on social media showed people running through a parking lot amid the sound of gunshots.
More than 30 police cruisers with lights flashing were blocking an entrance to the mall, with multiple ambulances on the scene.
A live aerial broadcast from a news station showed armored trucks and other law enforcement vehicles outside the mall.
Ambulances from several neighboring cities responded.
The Dallas office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded.
Allen, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, has roughly 105,000 residents.
___
Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas contributed to this report.
Suspect in Texas mall shooting identified as 33-year-old man
By JAKE BLEIBERG and JAMIE STENGLE 38 minutes ago link
ALLEN, Texas (AP) — The gunman who killed eight people at a Texas outlet mall was identified as a person who had been staying at a Dallas-area motel, but his motive was a mystery Sunday, a day after the attack turned an afternoon of shopping into a massacre.
Three law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press named the gunman as Mauricio Garcia, 33, who was fatally shot Saturday by a police officer who happened to be near the suburban Dallas mall. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss details of an ongoing investigation.
One of the officials said investigators have been searching the motel, and two of the officials said investigators searched a home in the Dallas area connected to the suspect. The official said police also found multiple weapons at the scene after Garcia was killed, including an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun.
Authorities released few details in the aftermath of the assault. They offered no clues about why Garcia would open fire on strangers or any details about those who were killed, including their names.
The shooting was the latest attack to contribute to the unprecedented pace of mass killings this year in the U.S. Barely a week before, five people were fatally shot in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbor asked a man to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept, authorities said.
The name of the gunman in Allen emerged as the community mourned for the dead and awaited word on the seven people who were wounded.
John Mark Caton, senior pastor at Cottonwood Creek Church, about two miles from the mall, offered prayers during his weekly service for victims, first responders and the shoppers and employees who “walked out past things they never should have seen.”
“Some of our people were there. Some perhaps in this room. Some of our students were working in those stores and will be changed forever by this,” Caton said.
Recalling phone conversations with police officers, he said: “There wasn’t an officer that I talked to yesterday that at some point in the call didn’t cry.”
The attack unfolded at Allen Premium Outlets, a sprawling outdoor shopping center. Witnesses reported seeing children among the victims. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.
Andria Gaither, the assistant manager at the Tommy Hilfiger clothing store, said she was at the back of the store Saturday afternoon when she saw two young girls trying to hide in a dressing room. At first, she thought they were playing. Then she heard one say shots were being fired.
Gaither looked around to see customers and the store manager running to the back of the business. Eventually, Gaither and the others ran out a back door.
“As soon as I got outside the back of the store, you could hear the shooting,” Gaither said Sunday. “It was so loud. I’d never ever heard anything like that in my life. It was deafening.”
She started running the length of the mall and eventually got in the vehicle of another worker who was leaving.
Dashcam video circulating online showed the gunman getting out of a car and shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle that was recording the video drove off.
Allen Fire Chief Jonathan Boyd said seven people, including the shooter, died at the scene. Two other people died at hospitals.
The wounded remained hospitalized Sunday — three in critical condition and four in fair condition, the Allen Police Department said in a statement.
An Allen police officer was in the area on an unrelated call when he heard shots at 3:36 p.m., the department wrote on Facebook.
“The officer engaged the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called for emergency personnel,” the post said.
Mass killings have happened with staggering frequency in the United States this year, with an average of about one per week, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said the assailant wore tactical gear and fired an AR-15-style weapon. He urged Congress to enact tighter restrictions on firearms and ammunition.
“Such an attack is too shocking to be so familiar. And yet, American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts,” said Biden, who ordered flags lowered to half-staff.
Republicans in Congress, he said, “cannot continue to meet this epidemic with a shrug.”
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings, called the mall attack an “unspeakable tragedy.”
Video shared on social media showed people running through a parking lot amid the sound of gunshots.
Fontayne Payton, 35, was at H&M when he heard gunshots through his headphones.
“It was so loud, it sounded like it was right outside,” Payton said.
People in the store scattered before employees ushered the group into the fitting rooms and then a lockable back room, he said. When they were given the all-clear to leave, Payton saw the store had broken windows and a trail of blood to the door. Discarded sandals and bloodied clothes lay nearby.
Once outside, Payton saw bodies.
“I pray it wasn’t kids, but it looked like kids,” he said. The bodies were covered in white towels, slumped over bags on the ground. “It broke me when I walked out to see that.”
Further away, he saw the body of a heavyset man wearing all black. He assumed it was the shooter, Payton said, because unlike the other bodies it had not been covered.
Stengle reported from Dallas. Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo in Washington, Vanessa Alvarez in New York, James Vertuno in Austin, and Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas and Gene Johnson in Seattle and Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
I believe that the daily reports of mass shootings are more than just a nationwide mental health problem. Our national death toll due to gun violence is a direct result of having more guns in this country than people. It's simple math, dummy.
Freedom isn't free. All guaranteed rights/freedoms in this country come at a cost. 1A guarantees the right for others to say things that we find disagreeable. Being exposed to Nazi rhetoric and speech that demeans me is the price I pay to have my own say about things. I bear that cost willingly, but not happily.
In the case of 2A, the freedom for us to own lethal weapons comes at the cost of wet streets, dead bodies and full funeral homes. Direct cause/effect. It has always been the price. I bear that cost, even though I abhor the constant daily barrage of mass shooting news.
People ask themselves, "What can we do to stop this?" Sadly, my answer is, "nothing."
It's time to quit whining about stuff we set in motion decades ago. This is the bed of nails we made for ourselves. It's now time to lie down in it, feel the pain, and look at all the blood on our sheets.
This genie will never go back in the bottle. This is who we are. It's what we've made of ourselves. Sometimes, the Truth just sucks.
ALLEN, Texas (AP) — Federal officials are looking into whether the gunman who killed eight people at a Dallas-area mall expressed an interest in white supremacist ideology as they work to try to discern a motive for the attack, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official cautioned the investigation is in its early stages.
Federal agents have been reviewing social media accounts they believe Mauricio Garcia, 33, used and posts that expressed interest in white supremacist and neo-Nazi views, said the official, who could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Garcia also had a patch on his chest when he was killed by police that read “RWDS,” an acronym for the phrase “Right Wing Death Squad,” which is popular among right-wing extremists and white supremacy groups, the official said.
Clem, I totally hear you-on top of this shooting, just this weekend I counted at least 4 other mass shooting events-including one in Columbus. There was for whatever reason, a car that ran into a group of people in Brownsville, Tx at a bus stop outside a migrant center that killed 7.
There were also another mall in Texas that was locked down for an active shooter a couple hours after this one and Another mall today in Maryland that had a shooting at a mall. I was out all afternoon, I don't know how bad that one was.
And then when people go after the shooting last night and put pictures on twitter of people including kids that are dead laying in a pool of their own blood and a woman who was expired who they put the paddles on who still had her top open and they posted it. There is no decency. As Clem put it, it is who we are -when we compare ourselves to Mexico or Honduras in terms of gun violence, we have become those third world countries
And then when people go after the shooting last night and put pictures on twitter of people including kids that are dead laying in a pool of their own blood and a woman who was expired who they put the paddles on who still had her top open and they posted it. There is no decency.
This so infuriates me. People care more about likes and followers than they do about the people around them. Every one of those that did this should be beaten with their phone.
Every one of those that did this should be beaten with their phone.
I agree that it's infuriating, FrankZ. Having said that, I'll also add this: beating someone with his/her phone is only another example of the very thing I was mentioning, albeit less lethal than actually pumping hot lead into strangers.
We've allowed ourselves to become dehumanized to the point that human life is no longer sacrosanct.
Although I don't see us retreating from this level of violence any time soon, I still refuse to allow myself violent fantasies regarding those whose behavior I find abhorrent.
I may not see a solution, but I can still resolve to not be part of the problem. Just sayin'...
And then when people go after the shooting last night and put pictures on twitter of people including kids that are dead laying in a pool of their own blood and a woman who was expired who they put the paddles on who still had her top open and they posted it. There is no decency.
This so infuriates me. People care more about likes and followers than they do about the people around them. Every one of those that did this should be beaten with their phone.
It is bad, but honestly, we can't be distracted by this. To hell with "Likes" seekers! We need to focus on the REAL problem. We have people in this country that should not EVER have guns and we must take the guns from them.. Finding them is a problem but to just throw up our hands and say there is nothing we can do is JUST as wrong. ]
Gov. Abbot seems unlikely to be someone that can stand up to the NRA and the rest of the Gun Lobby. SO where do we look to find the leader that has the Balls to stand up and say enough, then put those words to work IRL.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
I don't think I am a "dummy." Having a different opinion than the masses that are force-fed stories by our political leaders and media does not make someone a dummy. I am able to think for myself and do the research to find some answers. This is a multi-faceted problem. Ignoring all the other factors and trying to make this about just one issue is not intelligent. I do think that stricter gun laws need to be in place. I have never denied that. However, there are just too many other dimensions to this complex problem.
I believe that the daily reports of mass shootings are more than just a nationwide mental health problem. Our national death toll due to gun violence is a direct result of having more guns in this country than people. It's simple math, dummy.
Freedom isn't free. All guaranteed rights/freedoms in this country come at a cost. 1A guarantees the right for others to say things that we find disagreeable. Being exposed to Nazi rhetoric and speech that demeans me is the price I pay to have my own say about things. I bear that cost willingly, but not happily.
In the case of 2A, the freedom for us to own lethal weapons comes at the cost of wet streets, dead bodies and full funeral homes. Direct cause/effect. It has always been the price. I bear that cost, even though I abhor the constant daily barrage of mass shooting news.
People ask themselves, "What can we do to stop this?" Sadly, my answer is, "nothing."
It's time to quit whining about stuff we set in motion decades ago. This is the bed of nails we made for ourselves. It's now time to lie down in it, feel the pain, and look at all the blood on our sheets.
This genie will never go back in the bottle. This is who we are. It's what we've made of ourselves. Sometimes, the Truth just sucks.
.02
I agree.
I will say that anybody who just shows up and starts shooting people without motive has a mental issue. I certainly don't condone it, but I get murders of passion or revenge and things like that. Even if twisted, there is a reason they do something like that, but people who simply show up at some place with a crowd and start indiscriminate killing, that is a sick dog that needs to be put down ASAP.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
By The Associated Press Federal officials are looking into whether the gunman who killed eight people at a Dallas-area mall expressed an interest in white supremacist ideology Sunday as they work to discern a motive for the attack, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official cautioned the investigation is in its early stages.
Federal agents have been reviewing social media accounts they believe were used by Mauricio Garcia, 33, and posts that expressed interest in white supremacist and neo-Nazi views, said the official, who could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Garcia also had a patch on his chest when he was killed by police that read “RWDS,” an acronym for the phrase “Right Wing Death Squad,” which is popular among right-wing extremists and white supremacy groups, the official said.
In addition to reviewing social media posts, federal agents have interviewed family members and associates of Garcia to ask about his ideological beliefs, the official said. Investigators are also reviewing financial records, other online posts they believe Garcia made and other electronic media, according to the official.
Allen Police Chief Brian Harvey declined Sunday evening to answer questions from the AP, saying of the investigation, “we actually don’t have a lot.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety identified Garcia as suspected of killing eight people at a Texas outlet mall, a day after the attack turned an afternoon of shopping into a massacre.
Garcia was fatally shot Saturday by a police officer who happened to be near the suburban Dallas mall.
A law enforcement official said investigators have been searching a Dallas motel near an interstate where Garcia had been staying. The official said police also found multiple weapons at the scene after Garcia was killed, including an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun.
Two law enforcement officials said investigators also searched a Dallas home connected to the suspect. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss details of an ongoing investigation.
A woman who lives three houses down from the low brick house said she saw a large group of uniformed officers go into the home Saturday between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.
“They went in like real fast, and I seen them do that like twice,” said Marsha Alexander, who said officers were still in the area when she went to bed around 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. They were gone by Sunday morning.
On Sunday afternoon, a woman named Julie was sitting on the porch of her house, next door to the one searched the day before. She declined to give her last name to an AP reporter but said she awoke from a nap around 6 p.m. Saturday to see four police squad cars and a large group of officers outside her neighbor’s home.
She said they entered the home and were joined about an hour later by FBI agents and other people wearing plainclothes, who she also took to be law enforcement.
The woman said she did not know her neighbors well, but knew them to be “very polite, very nice people.” She said the man she now understands to have been the shooter was always friendly and would wave or honk his horn as he came and went.
At about 2 p.m. Sunday, a man entered the home that was searched, but when reporters knocked on the door and waited, no one answered.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said the assailant wore tactical gear and fired an AR-15-style weapon. He urged Congress to enact tighter restrictions on firearms and ammunition.
“Such an attack is too shocking to be so familiar. And yet, American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts,” said Biden, who ordered flags lowered to half-staff.
Republicans in Congress, he said, “cannot continue to meet this epidemic with a shrug.”
The shooting was the latest attack to contribute to the unprecedented pace of mass killings this year in the U.S. Barely a week before, five people were fatally shot in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbor asked a man to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept, authorities said.
This year has seen an average of about one mass killing per week, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
Information about the gunman in Allen emerged as the community mourned the dead and awaited word on the seven people who were wounded. Authorities have not publicly identified those who were killed.
The wounded remained hospitalized Sunday, three in critical condition and four in fair condition, the Allen Police Department said in a statement.
John Mark Caton, senior pastor at Cottonwood Creek Church about two miles from the mall, offered prayers during a regular Sunday morning service for victims, first responders and the shoppers and employees who “walked out past things they never should have seen.”
“Some of our people were there. Some perhaps in this room. Some of our students were working in those stores and will be changed forever by this,” Caton said.
Caton offered similar sentiments during a Sunday night vigil at the church attended by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings in Texas, and other elected leaders. Earlier that day, Abbott said on Fox News that Texas wouldn’t enact gun control now.
“People want a quick solution,” Abbott said. “The long term solution here is to address the mental health issue.”
The attack unfolded at Allen Premium Outlets, a sprawling outdoor shopping center. Witnesses reported seeing children among the victims. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.
Andria Gaither, the assistant manager at the Tommy Hilfiger clothing store, said Sunday she was at the back of the store Saturday afternoon when she saw two young girls trying to hide in a dressing room. At first, she thought they were playing. Then she heard one say shots were being fired.
Gaither looked around to see customers and the store manager running to the back of the store. Eventually, Gaither and the others ran out a back door.
“As soon as I got outside the back of the store, you could hear the shooting,” Gaither said Sunday. “It was so loud. I’d never ever heard anything like that in my life. It was deafening.”
Allen, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas and with a population of about 105,000 residents, is among the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s diverse suburbs. The area saw the largest Asian American growth rate of any major U.S. metro area, according to U.S. Census figures. Those statistics show Allen’s population is about 19% Asian, 10% Black and 11% Hispanic.
Allen also is connected to another of Texas’ recent mass shootings. Patrick Crusius lived there in 2019 before he posted a racist screed online that warned of a “Hispanic invasion” and drove to El Paso, where he opened fire at a Walmart, killing 23. Crusius, 24, pleaded guilty to federal hate crime and weapons charges in February.
And then when people go after the shooting last night and put pictures on twitter of people including kids that are dead laying in a pool of their own blood and a woman who was expired who they put the paddles on who still had her top open and they posted it. There is no decency.
This so infuriates me. People care more about likes and followers than they do about the people around them. Every one of those that did this should be beaten with their phone.
It is bad, but honestly, we can't be distracted by this. To hell with "Likes" seekers! We need to focus on the REAL problem. We have people in this country that should not EVER have guns and we must take the guns from them.. Finding them is a problem but to just throw up our hands and say there is nothing we can do is JUST as wrong. ]
Gov. Abbot seems unlikely to be someone that can stand up to the NRA and the rest of the Gun Lobby. SO where do we look to find the leader that has the Balls to stand up and say enough, then put those words to work IRL.
I agree with some of what you say. The problem is you don't always know before hand, so with that said I know your motivation and solution, and disagree with that.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
In an effort understand what RWDS is, I did a search...
RWDS Right Wing Death Squad – Used as a hashtag on Twitter by racist / fascist Donald Trump supporters to call for the creation of said squad. Also used to call for deportation, burning, killing, etc. of non-white or non-american people. Often seen in combination with the hashtags trumptrain and MAGA.
For a lesson on how history repeats itself, read up on the Pogroms of the 19th and 20th century – particularly the Kristallnacht and the Nazi German death squads. @7thHouseOfK: "@amyschumer @Lin_Manuel time to go Amy, of your own volition to another country, or to the ovens in this one. #RWDS #MAGA" by the-unknown-observer November 14, 2016 link
Yep .the radicalized right wing republicans have turned the rest of the GOP into the party of crime and death. While the gop embraces this moniker as a badge of honor, our kids are being gunned down by right wing radicals.
A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. – Jackie Robinson
And then when people go after the shooting last night and put pictures on twitter of people including kids that are dead laying in a pool of their own blood and a woman who was expired who they put the paddles on who still had her top open and they posted it. There is no decency.
This so infuriates me. People care more about likes and followers than they do about the people around them. Every one of those that did this should be beaten with their phone.
Or, people want to show the actual carnage caused by gun violence in our nation. Put a face to those victims and show exactly what really happened to them. Of course there are some who have reasons why they wouldn't want that to be shown. They have reasons why they want people to think of them as nothing more than just a number. They don't want people to look at what gun violence is actually doing. As such they attack those showing the truth.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
And then when people go after the shooting last night and put pictures on twitter of people including kids that are dead laying in a pool of their own blood and a woman who was expired who they put the paddles on who still had her top open and they posted it. There is no decency.
This so infuriates me. People care more about likes and followers than they do about the people around them. Every one of those that did this should be beaten with their phone.
Or, people want to show the actual carnage caused by gun violence in our nation. Put a face to those victims and show exactly what really happened to them. Of course there are some who have reasons why they wouldn't want that to be shown. They have reasons why they want people to think of them as nothing more than just a number. They don't want people to look at what gun violence is actually doing. As such they attack those showing the truth.
I'm not surprised that you are not surprised. You should have expected that someone was going to post the truth. Showing the actual carnage caused by gun violence is certainly objectionable by some and there are reasons for that.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Typical, shocked by words, but not the death of hundreds of innocents that could have possibly been avoided by a few simple policy changes. And expect to see other innocents beaten to death with their phones for showing the violence caused that you don’t want to see because you support it.
A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. – Jackie Robinson
Or, people want to show the actual carnage caused by gun violence in our nation. Put a face to those victims and show exactly what really happened to them. Of course there are some who have reasons why they wouldn't want that to be shown. They have reasons why they want people to think of them as nothing more than just a number. They don't want people to look at what gun violence is actually doing. As such they attack those showing the truth.
I would think family and close friends of victims might feel this way, and maybe they would have the right to do so. I would worry that overwhelmingly the posts are from people looking for attention. It's a reflection of today's social media society. I'm very happy never to have had a FB page, or twitter or any of the other versions of such things. As we saw through Covid and the Trump debacle - even if you just have a Family and Friends FB page - it can lead to angst and animosity in ways that conversations and talking to people face to face would not.
Last edited by mgh888; 05/08/2310:47 AM.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
I remember being shown grotesque blood on the highway movies. Scenes of dead car accident victims by the Ohio State Police in High School. Nobody said boo about that. But posting this carnage on SM is a cardinal sin makes sense these days.
A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. – Jackie Robinson
I'm not surprised that you are not surprised. You should have expected that someone was going to post the truth. Showing the actual carnage caused by gun violence is certainly objectionable by some and there are reasons for that.
Oh I didn't say you posted the truth. That would, of course, surprise me. I'm not surprise you made a convoluted assertion to have something to argue about. Though it would not surprise me for gun control zealots to stand on the bodies of dead children and use graphic pictures to sell a cause.
I'm actually not questioning nor promoting the motives behind posting such things, only the results.
I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam era. It was the first real war where the vast majority of Americans had TV's and where journalists were embedded with the troops. The reality of war was brought into living rooms across the country every night. Where we saw dead and wounded troops on the battle fields and rows of caskets brought home. The reality of war was brought front and center to the American people.
It caused people to question why were we there and if why we were there was worth the cost of all these young men's lives. It created much of the outrage and anti Vietnam war sentiment seen across our nation. Now one could say that the networks were doing this for nothing more than shock value. They could claim it was for nothing more than their ratings. And that could be true. But the results can't be disputed. What it accomplished can't be disputed. Reality is often times cruel. It is often times shocking and disturbing. Yet without it no one comprehends the true picture.
I see this in that very same light. Until the America people actually witness the first hand results of mass shootings, the carnage that is actually caused, the imact of them may never hit home.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
I'm not surprised that you are not surprised. You should have expected that someone was going to post the truth. Showing the actual carnage caused by gun violence is certainly objectionable by some and there are reasons for that.
Oh I didn't say you posted the truth. That would, of course, surprise me. I'm not surprise you made a convoluted assertion to have something to argue about. Though it would not surprise me for gun control zealots to stand on the bodies of dead children and use graphic pictures to sell a cause.
I know showing the reality of the carnage that results from such mass shootings worries you. Once the American people see it first hand, you have a right to worry considering your extreme stance.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
I'm not surprised that you are not surprised. You should have expected that someone was going to post the truth. Showing the actual carnage caused by gun violence is certainly objectionable by some and there are reasons for that.
Oh I didn't say you posted the truth. That would, of course, surprise me. I'm not surprise you made a convoluted assertion to have something to argue about. Though it would not surprise me for gun control zealots to stand on the bodies of dead children and use graphic pictures to sell a cause.
I know showing the reality of the carnage that results from such mass shootings worries you. Once the American people see it first hand, you have a right to worry considering your extreme stance.
No you don't know that. You think that. There is a difference.
Okay. Yet at the very same time you certainly didn't deny it.
I forgot I need to speak in very small simple words for you.
It is completely about not showing victims. I don't like when people need to post pictures from car crashes either. Or when buildings fall on people. Or when someone is hit by a train. Give the victims a modicum of respect and discretion.
Do you need further clarification or was that simple enough for you to understand?
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