Another US school shooter - Portland, this time

[merithyn]

 

Fahdiz, your kids okay?

Authorities said Tuesday a suspect in a high school shooting near Portland dead and the situation is stabilized.

The Multnomah County sheriff's office said there were reports of shots fired about 8 a.m. at Reynolds High School in Troutdale.

Students say they were told over the intercom there was a lockdown and to quietly go to their classrooms.

Students were evacuated from the school, hands on their heads, to be reunited with their parents in a supermarket parking lot.

Freshman Daniel DeLong, 15, said while waiting after the shooting that he saw a physical education teacher at the school with a bloodied shirt.

"I'm a little shaken up," DeLong said. "I'm just worried."

He said he was texting friends to make sure they were all OK.

"It just, like, happened so fast, you know?" he said.

Freshman Morgan Rose, 15, said she was hunkered down in a locker room with another student and two teachers.

"It was scary in the moment now knowing everything's OK I'm better," she said.

SWAT teams were going through the school room by room, KGW-TV reported.

Police set up tape around the area and were not allowing people to pass through. Fire trucks were on the scene.

The shooting follows a spate of recent attacks at or near school campuses.

On June 5, a 19-year-old man was killed and two other people wounded when a gunman opened fire in a building at Seattle Pacific University.

[merithyn]

One victim dead. Shooter dead.

A student was killed by a shooter at an Oregon school late Tuesday morning, after police responded to shots fired and hurried to lock down the facility. The shooter was killed.
Fox News announced the development — the shooter being killed — shortly after noon. It's not clear if the gunman took his own life, or was fatally shot by police.

Details are still emerging, but so far, nobody else at the Reynolds High School in Troutdale was reported as injured.
Fox News showed uniformed law enforcement congregating around an armored police vehicle outside the school shortly before noon eastern time. The officers were dressed in body armor and holding rifles.

KPTV Fox 12 reported that authorities have asked people to stay away from the property.

The wife of the vice principal at the school said she was tipped off to the incident when she received a text message from her husband, saying a shooter was roaming the school hallways. The school is located in a suburb of Portland.

[Valmy]

I heard something about a shooting in Nevada.  Is that true?  Man so many of these now.

[merithyn]

I heard something about a shooting in Nevada.  Is that true?  Man so many of these now.

There was one back in October. Is that what you mean?

SPARKS, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada seventh-grader who went on a deadly schoolyard shooting rampage had images of the Columbine gunmen on his cellphone and told a therapist three days before the October attack that classmates were teasing him, authorities said Tuesday.

But Jose Reyes, 12, gave contradictory accounts in two suicide notes about whether he was acting out of revenge when he opened fire at Sparks Middle School, killing a teacher and wounding two boys before turning the gun on himself, Sparks Police Chief Brian Allen said.

Allen released a 1,300-page report detailing the investigation into the shooting. He also announced at a news conference that no charges will be brought against the parents of the boy, who brought the semi-automatic handgun from home.

While detectives found instances where Reyes might have been teased or mistreated by other students, there wasn't enough evidence to merit bullying charges, Allen said.

Reyes wrestled with speech problems since kindergarten and felt inadequate with his family, police said. He also recently had been prescribed an antidepressant and had shown some signs of autism.

The youth offered conflicting motives in two handwritten suicide notes.

In one to teachers and students, Reyes "clearly expressed anger" over his belief that he was embarrassed and mistreated at school, and he "indicated he would get revenge," Allen said of the boy who was a voracious player of violent video games.

In a second note specifically to his parents, Reyes suggested the rampage "was not a result of shooting games or bullying," the police chief said.

Both notes alluded to the fact that "his life would end in the process."

Police learned one of the students Reyes shot had teased him about not having muscles during a physical education class. Other students called Reyes names and accused him of wetting his pants after they poured water on him.

Allen included a message to students during the news conference: "Be nice. Be kind. Treat your fellow students with respect. We're all a little different. It matters."

According to the report, three days before the shooting, Reyes' father took him to a psychotherapist, who said the boy showed signs of a depressive disorder. Reyes had a generic form of the antidepressant Prozac in his system at the time of his death, police said.

The boy told the doctor he was being harassed and called names at school.

[Barrister]

I heard something about a shooting in Nevada.  Is that true?  Man so many of these now.

There was one back in October. Is that what you mean?

Nah - some right-wing nutjobs shot up a couple of cops and a Walmart.  Not a school shooting.  Happened just a day or two ago.

[garbon]

Only recent Nevada thing I know of was those cops.

[Valmy]

No there was something about a survivalist in Nevada on the news this morning it sounded like a shooting situation.  But maybe not.

[Valmy]

I heard something about a shooting in Nevada.  Is that true?  Man so many of these now.

There was one back in October. Is that what you mean?

Nah - some right-wing nutjobs shot up a couple of cops and a Walmart.  Not a school shooting.  Happened just a day or two ago.

Ah yes that was the one.  Sorry I did not mean to imply it was a school shooting.

[merithyn]

It's so sad that this is how the conversation goes now. Not, "Wow, that's shocking!" Instead, it's, "Wait, is this a different one, or the same one that I heard about earlier?"

[sbr]

This is the 74th school shooting since Sandy hook 18 months ago.

Thank god for out freedom.

[Tamas]

This seems to be getting out of hand

[merithyn]

This seems to be  is getting out of hand

[sbr]

'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens


ISLA VISTA, CA—In the days following a violent rampage in southern California in which a lone attacker killed seven individuals, including himself, and seriously injured over a dozen others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. "This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there's nothing anyone can do to stop them," said North Carolina resident Samuel Wipper, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world's deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. "It's a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn't anything that was going to keep this guy from snapping and killing a lot of people if that's what he really wanted." At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past five years were referring to themselves and their situation as "helpless."

[crazy canuck]

The Daily Show did a segment a couple of days ago on how often these tragic events occur and how predictable the media coverage has become.   It was dark humour at its best. 

Ironically (given sbr's post) they were particularly picking up on the "there is nothing that can be done" meme.

Want to know what you can do?  Maybe look at the gun laws every other civilized society has.

[Valmy]

There might be something we can do but we are never going to have gun laws like that.  We have a Supreme Court precedent.