Tag: mass shooting
Sandy Hook dad wins suit against massacre deniers
A parent of a slain student won a civil lawsuit against two deniers of a 2012 mass shooting who published a book called “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook.”
Lenny Pozner had sued James Fetzer and Mike Palecek for defamation in November, documents show. The suit focused on claims, both in the book and in Fetzer’s blog, that Pozner had circulated a false birth certificate for his son Noah, one of the 20 children and six adults killed in the elementary school massacre.
Judge Frank D. Remington of the Dane County Circuit Court in Wisconsin signed an order on Tuesday finding that the statements published by the two men were in fact defamatory. Fetzer lives in Wisconsin.
The judge granted Pozner’s motion for summary judgment, allowing the case to proceed to a trial by jury to determine the damages.
Pozner’s attorney, Jake Zimmerman, told CNN his client is seeking $1 million in damages. The jury selection is set to start in mid-October. “The damages go beyond Mr. Pozner’s feelings being hurt, there are real-world implications,” Zimmerman told CNN, saying the real damage is that people who read these defamatory claims have taken against his client.
In 2016, a Tampa woman was indicted on four counts of making threats against Pozner. According to a federal indictment, the woman called him and said, “You gonna die, death is coming you real soon,” as well as “death is coming to you real soon and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
She pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting threats and was sentenced to five months in federal prison in 2017. Zimmerman told CNN that part of the woman’s probation terms is that she isn’t allowed to visit websites like Fetzer’s. In a phone call with CNN, Fetzer, who represented himself in court, said that the judge’s decision was “completely inappropriate” and “a violation of proper legal protocol.”
“This case is a sham, just as fabricated as the documents involved here. I stand for the truth,” Fetzer said. “I’m out for the truth and to protect the American people from scams.”
Mike Palecek, who was also self-represented, did not respond to a request for comment.Wrongs Without Wremedies LLC, which publishes Moon Rock Books including “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook,” was named in the initial complaint but settled. An attorney for the company told CNN it had no comment.
Article via CNN
Manchester mass shooting being investigated as ‘attempted murder’
Police in Manchester, England, are still searching for a suspect in a mass shooting they are investigating as “attempted murder.”
The incident unfolded in the Moss Side, an inner-city area, around 2:25 a.m. Sunday. An estimated 10 people, ranging in age from 12 to their 50s, were wounded – mostly with pellet-wounds to their legs, indicative of a shotgun discharged at close range, according to police.
Four people remained hospitalized while eight others have since been discharged.
The wounded were part of a crowd celebrating after the end of a two-day Manchester carnival in Alexandra Park commemorating the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the “Windrush generation” – a group from the Caribbean who came to England to fill a labor shortage on a passenger liner called the Empire Windrush.
Footage posted online in the immediate aftermath of the attack showed alarm and confusion as the crowd rapidly dispersed.
Officials have not yet identified a motive for the attack and the investigation was ongoing.
“However, we’ve got to be clear, it would be obvious to any particular person that discharging a firearm in a large crowd like this is completely reckless,” the chief superintendent of the Greater Manchester Police, Wasim Chaudhry, said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.
Greater Manchester’s deputy mayor for crime praised the police for their “swift action” as well as the “local people who have responded quickly to say this doesn’t reflect the Moss Side of 2018.”
Read more via: Manchester mass shooting being investigated as ‘attempted murder’
Texas governor scraps shotgun giveaway after school shooting
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has scrapped plans to give away a “Texas-made shotgun“ after a gunman used a shotgun in a Friday rampage that left 10 dead in a high school near Houston.
A spokesman for Abbott, a Republican, said Monday the campaign contest is still active, but the winner will now receive a $250 gift card.
The webpage for the contest has been changed from one featuring the governor holding a shotgun to one without any pictures, now advertising the gift card. The change was made over the weekend, the Abbott spokesman said.
Abbott’s reelection campaign launched the shotgun giveaway contest on May 1, prior to the high school murders in Santa Fe, Texas. The contest quickly caught the eyes of Texas gun control activists, who pressed Abbott over the weekend.
“I find this giveaway deeply disturbing for a number of reasons, chiefly among them the fact that Friday’s shooting at Santa Fe HS was carried out with a shotgun,” Jack Kappelman, a student organizer of Austin’s March For Our Lives affiliate, wrote in an email to POLITICO. Kappelman is a senior at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, a high school in Austin.
The contest also drew the attention of potential gubernatorial challengers, including Andrew White, who is running in the Democratic primary. White posted a picture on Twitter of an Abbott campaign door hanger that advertised the contest with a picture of a shotgun.
“If nominated on May 22, I won’t have to give away shotguns to get people to vote for me. Can you believe this?“ White wrote.
Abbott has promised “swift” action following last week’s school shooting, including a Tuesday roundtable to discuss next steps.
Article via: Texas governor scraps shotgun giveaway after school shooting
‘It’s just horrifying’: Seven killed in Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in 22 years
An Australian community is reeling from the deadliest mass shooting the country has seen in more than 20 years, after seven people, including four children, were discovered dead on a rural property near Margaret River.
Authorities in Western Australia responded early Friday morning to a home in Osmington, not far from Perth, where the four children and three adults were found dead from gunshot wounds, according to local news reports.
The shooting has rattled Australia, where lawmakers passed some of the world’s most restrictive gun-control laws after a 1996 massacre in Tasmania.
“ ‘Shocking’ is about the only word,” resident Felicity Haynes told 9 News Australia. “I just feel sick to the stomach. That couldn’t happen here.”
Western Australia police commissioner Chris Dawson said at a news conference that officers responded to the scene about 5:15 a.m. and discovered the seven bodies. Two adults were outside, and five other victims were inside the home in Osmington, a small town nestled in Western Australia’s southwest corner.
Read more via: Australia Mass Shooting
Teen shot in arm at Highland High School in Palmdale, California; suspect in custody
A 14-year-old boy is in custody on suspicion of shooting a teen in the arm at a Southern California high school Friday morning, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
Students barricaded themselves in classroom, mom says
A Parkland student shielded others with his body — and is the last to leave the hospital alive
A Parkland student shielded others with his body — and is the last to leave the hospital alive
Anthony’s attorney, Alex Arreaza, said Wednesday that the teen was released over the weekend and that, although he is thinner and weak, Anthony is in “good spirits.”
Arreaza told The Washington Post that one bullet had “clipped” the teen’s liver and three others had hit his legs. He said that because of the teen’s injuries, doctors had to remove part of one of his lungs.
Arreaza said that Anthony cannot speak for long periods of time without becoming winded and that the teen will need physical therapy and possible treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. But, he said, the teen is “happy he’s home.”
“He’s a little shellshocked right now,” Arreaza said. “But his spirits changed completely once he got home. The most noticeable thing is that he was smiling a lot more.”
Arreaza said it’s unclear at this time whether the teen will return to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He said last month that the teen’s family intends to sue Broward County, Broward County Public Schools and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for failing to protect the students.
Hundreds of Anthony’s fellow students returned to school earlier this week from spring break and were confronted with a new normal: added security, identification badges and clear plastic book bags.
In a memo to parents, school principal Ty Thompson likened the new security procedures to “when you enter a sporting event, concert, or even Disney World,” according to the Associated Press.
“As a first step, we are looking to see if we can get the kids through these entrances in a timely manner,” the principal wrote. “It is very difficult to balance both convenience/privacy with safety/security; if there is more of one, the other often suffers, but I will do my best to balance the two.”
Carly Novell, a senior and editor of the school newspaper, posted a photo of a clear backpack Monday on Twitter, joking, “But how satisfying would it be to put glue all over this backpack and peel it off.”
“On the real though, I want my privacy and my comfort. I don’t have that in school. I barely even have my education in school anymore,” she said in a subsequent tweet, pushing back against the new security protocol.
Sheri Kuperman, a parent who has three children at the school, told the Sun-Sentinel that she has no problem with the security but that she is not convinced it will make her children and others any safer.
“We go through metal detectors when we go the airport,” she said, according to the newspaper. “I don’t know if it’s going to stop anything or not.”
After the recent shooting, Anthony was asked on the “Today” show whether he knew he was a hero — and the teen shook his head.
“He’s a hero in my book,” his attorney said, adding that Anthony is “the real deal.”
Ammo seller to Las Vegas killer arrested on federal charge
Douglas Haig, an Arizona man who says he sold tracer ammunition to the gunman in October’s Las Vegas massacre, was arrested Friday on a charge of conspiring to manufacture and sell another type of ammunition — armor-piercing bullets — in violation of federal law.
At least 20 people killed in shooting at Texas church
At least 20 people have been killed in a church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, according to Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt.