NY - Two firefighters & woman slain, 3 injured in Webster ambush, 24 Dec 2012

[Lois Lane]

The procession of mourners stretched down the road about a half a mile from Webster Schroeder High School.

They waited by a television on which photos of Mike Chiapperini’s life scrolled past: The little boy wearing a play fireman’s hat holding a garden hose becoming the grown man who fought real blazes, when he wasn’t working as a lieutenant in the Webster Police Department.

They watched another screen that flashed images of Tomasz Kaczowka’s young life, cut brutally short: A young man always willing to help those around him, some who knew him say that he volunteered to work that morning so that older men with children could spend Christmas Eve with their families.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20121228/NEWS01/312280045/Webster-firefighters-wake

 

[wfgodot]

Webster, N.Y. gunman who fatally shot 2 firefighters warned he might kill again (New York Daily News)

A gunman who killed two firefighters told a parole hearing 20 years ago that he “couldn’t explain” why he had murdered his grandmother and was unsure if he would kill again.
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During a parole hearing in 1989, he told the board that he “got along fine” with his grandmother. When asked why he killed her eight years earlier, he responded “I still haven’t figured that out.”
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When asked if he would kill again, Spengler responded “That’s the thing that does worry me. If you were capable of it once, are you capable of it again?”

Spengler’s parole was denied following that hearing.
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much more at the links

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The transcripts reveal a well-spoken man [...] The board members mention Spengler testing high for intelligence.

On the day of the killing, he said, he planned to nail shut a basement door to prevent his grandmother from going down and endangering herself. But he said she attacked him, inadvertently kneed him in the groin, and he hit her with the hammer.

"So why do you think you killed her?" Spengler was asked in 1989.

"It was matter of just wanting to get out. She was between me and the door," he replied.
---.

William Spengler Praised By Four Parole Boards After 17 Years In Prison For Killing Grandma (Huffington Post)

 

[Steely Dan]

Webster, N.Y. gunman who fatally shot 2 firefighters warned he might kill again (New York Daily News)

much more at the links

William Spengler Praised By Four Parole Boards After 17 Years In Prison For Killing Grandma (Huffington Post)

It's weird. His neighbors said he was open and honest about his past and was kind to children and his neighbors. It's like something suddenly snapped again. I think his mother's death made something happen. They said his sister had just bought a house across town. He may have blamed her for his mother's death. Who knows. I don't think he falls into any well known psychological template.

 

[Sonya610]

What is it about him that would possess a woman to buy weapons for him?

Uhhh....his offer to give her money?

 

[Steely Dan]

http://www.buffalobills.com/news/ar...th-decal/41fc20b1-4136-4662-8712-7f57cc71b047

ORCHARD PARK, NY - The Buffalo Bills have affixed a ‘WWFD’ (West Webster Fire Department) decal on their helmets for today’s game against the New York Jets in honor of the two fallen West Webster, NY firefighters – Lt. Mike Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka – who lost their lives on December 24th, as well those who were injured in the line of duty....

:sigh: The game is blacked out in my area today.

 

[jjenny]

It's weird. His neighbors said he was open and honest about his past and was kind to children and his neighbors. It's like something suddenly snapped again. I think his mother's death made something happen. They said his sister had just bought a house across town. He may have blamed her for his mother's death. Who knows. I don't think he falls into any well known psychological template.

This guy killed his grandma with a hammer. Long before his mother died.
And told his parole board he didn't even know why he did it, and that he was concerned he could hurt people again. Enough said.

 

[Sonya610]

This guy killed his grandma with a hammer. Long before his mother died.
And told his parole board he didn't even know why he did it, and that he was concerned he could hurt people again. Enough said.

Yeah and I bet he was genuinely very warm and charming and convincing (seriously). Looking at his pic, he could be warm and charming, why he would decide to go postal on firefighters defies logic.

 

[Steely Dan]

This guy killed his grandma with a hammer. Long before his mother died.
And told his parole board he didn't even know why he did it, and that he was concerned he could hurt people again. Enough said.

I wasn't saying the guy wasn't crazy, just that his case is unusual.

 

[dawn929]

If anyone is interested in seeing just how our community is handling this please feel free to visit http://www.facebook.com/WebsterFirefighters?sk=wall it is an amazing thing

 

[justthinkin]

Regarding Adam Lanza, "The gunman was clad in black and used two 9mm pistols to kill 20 small children and six adults at the school."

.http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...pons-used-in-connecticut-school-massacre?lite

 

[Sonya610]

Regarding Adam Lanza, "The gunman was clad in black and used two 9mm pistols to kill 20 small children and six adults at the school."

.http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...pons-used-in-connecticut-school-massacre?lite

So after all of this hysteria over assault rifles Lanza didn't even use one???? WOW! That should prove interesting (or maybe not, maybe people will ignore the facts).

 

[danzn16]

So after all of this hysteria over assault rifles Lanza didn't even use one???? WOW! That should prove interesting (or maybe not, maybe people will ignore the facts).

This was what was originally released and they said the rifle was in the car. But the next day the medical examiner said all deaths except the shooter were done by the rifle. ??? No idea how they could mess that one up.

 

[Steely Dan]

Regarding Adam Lanza, "The gunman was clad in black and used two 9mm pistols to kill 20 small children and six adults at the school."

.http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...pons-used-in-connecticut-school-massacre?lite

This probably belongs in the CT Shooting thread, but that article is from December 14th.

This is from yesterday;

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/30/justice/connecticut-bridgeport-gun-buyback/

Donors spawn Connecticut gun buyback after mass shooting
By David Ariosto and Ross Levitt, CNN
updated 8:43 AM EST, Sun December 30, 2012


...Officials say they have since paid out more than $22,000 in the exchanges, snagging powerful weapons such as the AR-15, the same kind of gun used to kill 26 adults and children on December 14 in the neighboring Newtown school....

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/u...yle-rifle-in-newtown.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Rifle Used in Killings, America’s Most Popular, Highlights Regulation Debate
By ERICA GOODE
Published: December 16, 2012

... The increasing appearance of the rifle in rampage killings — an AR-15 was used by James E. Holmes, who is accused of opening fire and killing 12 people in a movie theater in Colorado in July, police officials say, and by Jacob Roberts, who shot and killed two people and then took his own life in a shopping mall last week near Portland, Ore. — has rekindled the debate about its availability and its appeal to killers bent on mass slaughter.

It has also starkly highlighted the chasm between those who favor tighter regulations for firearms and those who believe that guns like the AR-15 are widely misunderstood and wrongly blamed for the actions of a few individuals....

Conn. gunman had hundreds of rounds of ammunition
12/17/12 By Matt Apuzzo and Pat Eaton-Robb

...The chief medical examiner has said the ammunition was designed to expend its energy in the victim's tissues and stay inside the body to inflict the maximum amount of damage....
___________________________

...The rifle used in the shootings was a .223-caliber Bushmaster, a semi-automatic civilian version of the military's M-16 and a model commonly seen at marksmanship competitions. It's similar to the weapon used in the 2002 sniper killings in the Washington, D.C., area and in a recent shopping mall shooting in Oregon....

 

[jjenny]

This was what was originally released and they said the rifle was in the car. But the next day the medical examiner said all deaths except the shooter were done by the rifle. ??? No idea how they could mess that one up.

He (AL) had four guns with him. One rifle was left in the car. Two pistols and a Bushmaster were found near his body.

 

[jjenny]

So after all of this hysteria over assault rifles Lanza didn't even use one???? WOW! That should prove interesting (or maybe not, maybe people will ignore the facts).

He (AL) had two rifles. He had Bushmaster with him. He used Bushmaster to kill students and teachers. One rifle was left in the car. He also had two pistols. He used one to kill himself.

 

[Lois Lane]

Spengler’s parole hearing records do show that he spent time during his early years of imprisonment in a prison designated for those with a mental illness. We’re looking for more specifics on that. Some readers have asked whether a mental problem may have been ignored while Spengler was jailed. And, as parole hearing records show, Spengler, while expressing remorse, never seemed quite cognizant of what happened when he killed his grandmother. It does appear that Spengler did not return to the corrections mental health facility during the 1990s.

In 1998, Spengler was released – as the law then dictated. He’d served two-thirds of his sentence, and New York statutes made him eligible for “conditional release.”

http://blogs.democratandchronicle.com/watchdog/?p=2464

Informative read.

 

[Lois Lane]

HENRIETTA, N.Y. (AP) — A woman charged in connection with two guns used in a former neighbor's deadly Christmas Eve ambush of firefighters pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a state charge of filing a falsified business record.

Nguyen faces the same charge in federal court.

"She's very sorry that this individual chose to use the guns 2½ years later in this way and really shocked about what happened," Nguyen's lawyer John Parrinello said Monday.

"I hope for her benefit that everybody understands how tangential, if at all, any role she had and how it is totally unrelated to what this maniac did on Christmas Eve," Parrinello said.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/crime...-firefighter-ambush-4173730.php#ixzz2HQqSGVmq

Ugh.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://rochester.twcnews.com/conten...ush-apologizes-to-firefighters-at-sentencing/

Dawn Nguyen, the woman who bought the guns used in the deadly 2012 Christmas Eve ambush that killed two West Webster firefighters, was sentenced Wednesday morning on federal charges. "You gave William Spengler the instruments of death, enabling him to wreak havoc on the community," said Judge David Larimer, in sentencing Nguyen to 8 years that will run concurrently to her maximum sentence of 1 1/3 to 4 years on state charges.

In June, Nguyen pleaded guilty to the federal charges and admitted that she provided guns for a convicted felon who is responsible for a Christmas Eve ambush that killed volunteer West Webster firefighters Mike Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka. She was convicted on the state charges in April.

Nguyen turned to the firefighters who were in court Wednesday and apologized, saying she takes full responsibility for her actions, and said it was a decision that would haunt her forever.

 

[Steely Dan]

http://rochester.twcnews.com/conten...ush-apologizes-to-firefighters-at-sentencing/

:yesss: