Chief Warren Addresses Westroads Shooting

KPTM Fox 42 ^ | 6 December, 2007 | unknown (KPTM)

[marktwain]

Omaha (KPTM) - Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren says that today's shooting was "done by one shooter, and one shooter only".

In a Wednesday night press conference, Chief Warren said that the first shooting victim was found shot to death on the second floor of Von Maur. Several victims were found shot to death in the customer service area of Von Maur on the third floor.

The shooter, 19 year-old Robert Hawkins, was found in the store with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Warren says Hawkins was found with a SKS Assault rifle.

Among the dead are 5 unidentified females, 3 unidentified males, and the suspect.

Police do not know which of the victims were store employees or customers.

Warren says the shooting does appear to random and without provocation.

Police were able to recover Hawkins' vehicle, a green Jeep Cherokee at the mall, which they searched.

They were able to ID the suspect at the scene because of a suicide note that was recovered and turned over to police.

[marktwain]

This article is worth looking at because it clearly shows pictures of the rifle used, which appears to be an ordinary SKS with a 10 shot fixed magazine.

There is no way that this rifle fits any definition of a so called "assault rifle". It was not included in any of the definitions in the "assault rifle ban", and would not be because it only has a fixed 10 round magazine.

The SKS is functionaly the same as many hunting rifles, and millions of them are owned and used for hunting in the US. The SKS is a perfectly good deer rifle for most of the country.

[marktwain]

I forgot to include this to the banglist. Could someone please add that feature or tell me how to do so, please?

[rellimpank]

—go up to “Click on keyword”—

[holymoly]

It was not included in any of the definitions in the "assault rifle ban"

Don't confuse "assault rifle", from the German "Sturmgewehr", with "assault weapon", a pejorative propaganda term used by anti-gun zealots.

The 1994 ban dealt with certain semi-automatic "assault weapons", with certain cosmetic features, such as bayonet lugs, flash suppressors, etc.

As you point out, the SKS Carbine is semi-automatic only, and as such, does not meet the definition of an "assault rifle":

"Military firearm that is chambered for ammunition of reduced size or propellant charge and that has the capacity to switch between semiautomatic and fully automatic fire."
   - Encyclopedia Britannica

For those unfamiliar with the history of military firearms, the term "assault rifle", and it's definition, comes from German "Sturmgewehr 44", the first "assault rifle.

Issued late in World War II, the Stg 44 was a selective-fire weapon, chambered for a shortened 8mm cartridge.

Sturmgewher 44

[Verginius Rufus]

A more recent article from the same website has the funeral arrangements for five of the victims: Gary Sharf, Angella Schuster, Dianne Trent, John McDonald, and Janet Jorgensen. Sharf's services are Methodist; the other four are at Catholic churches (3 different parishes).

I don't live in Omaha and didn't know any of them, but I'd rather think of them as real people with names rather than as statistics. Altogether five of the victims were women and three were men.

[mvpel]

[archy]

This article is worth looking at because it clearly shows pictures of the rifle used, which appears to be an ordinary SKS with a 10 shot fixed magazine.

No. It shows a picture of a SKS/ CKC Siminov carbine, at that time believed to be the weapon used by Hawkins.

In fact, the photo of him during his killing spree shows him to be using an AK, belong to and stolen from his stepfather.

Hawkins' stepfather, owner of rifle, was in Thailand Wednesday

BY LYNN SAFRANEK AND KARYN SPENCER

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS

While Robert Hawkins was killing Von Maur employees and shoppers with his stepfather's AK-47, the stepfather was vacationing thousands of miles away in Thailand, according to the stepfather's family and people familiar with the shooting investigation.

Although Hawkins' mother, Maribel "Molly" Rodriguez, was divorced from Mark Dotson, she and Hawkins had access to Dotson's Bellevue home while he was away, said Eric Dotson, Mark's brother.

Hawkins, 19, apparently took the rifle from a closet and put it in his car while his mother was gone for a while, Eric Dotson said.

On Wednesday, Hawkins used that rifle to kill five women and three men at the Westroads Mall store, then turned the gun on himself.

Investigators recovered the AK-47, which they initially had identified as an SKS assault rifle.

It is unknown where Hawkins got the gun's ammunition — two magazines with the capacity to fire multiple rounds.

Police Chief Thomas Warren estimated that Hawkins fired "in excess of 30 rounds" of the 7.62 mm ammunition while inside Von Maur.

The AK-47 is a semiautomatic assault weapon that generally is used by the military or collected by gun enthusiasts.

It is not accurate for long-range shooting, which makes the gun impractical as a hunting rifle. The automatic version is popular for military use because it is dependable and easy to manufacture.

AK-47s typically aren't sold by large retailers. For 10 years, manufacturing some assault weapons, including AK-47s, was illegal under a federal ban. The ban expired in 2004.

Mark Dotson is retired from the Air Force. He and Rodriguez were married from 1992 to 1997 but remained friends after their divorce. As recently as May, Rodriguez listed Dotson's address as hers.

Rodriguez contacted Mark Dotson when she realized that the rifle was missing, Dotson's brother said in a phone interview from Columbia, S.C. Dotson sent her an e-mail telling her to relax.

As the Dotson family heard news coverage of the mall massacre, Dotson's brothers suspected that the rifle belonged to him when they heard an assault rifle had been used. Several relatives are gun collectors.

"It's like a bad dream," Eric Dotson said.

Mark Dotson has cut his trip short and is returning to Bellevue.

During a tense press conference on Thursday, Mayor Mike Fahey said Omaha police are beefing up security at area malls, including providing extra patrols, in light of Wednesday's killings.

Meanwhile, investigators will continue the grisly job of processing the crime scene at Von Maur — an area Warren described as "very massive."

Fahey and Gov. Dave Heineman offered their condolences to the victims.

Flags in Nebraska should be flown at half-staff until Sunday, Heineman said.

Fahey said Wednesday's shooting marked one of the darkest days in his six years as Omaha's mayor.

"This was an ugly act of cowardice," he said.

Before a throng of national and local news media, Warren identified the dead and injured and provided more details about the shooting.

Eight of the dead, including Hawkins, were found on Von Maur's third floor. The ninth victim was on the second floor near the escalators.

"It appeared that the shooting victims were randomly selected," Warren said.

Warren said Hawkins had conversations earlier Wednesday with his mother and ex-girlfriend. He also sent the ex-girlfriend text messages on her cell phone.

A woman who answered the door at the 17-year-old girl's Papillion-area home on Thursday declined to comment.

At 1:42 p.m. Wednesday, 911 operators received the first call about shots fired at Von Maur, Warren said. The first Omaha police officers were dispatched two minutes later and arrived at 1:48 p.m. Warren said the two minutes were used to verify the address and callers' information, which is normal procedure.

Meanwhile, more people inside Von Maur were calling 911 to report multiple shots being fired inside the store.

The officers first established a perimeter on the main level of the mall and placed the mall on lockdown. After clearing the hallways, the chief said, they began searching the first floor of Von Maur.

Officers discovered the body of the first shooting victim on the store's second floor, then found several more on the third floor, near the customer service area. Hawkins' body also was found there.

At a Thursday afternoon press conference in Lincoln, Scot Adams, behavioral health director for HHS, said the state has gotten offers of help and support from other states that have experienced mass shootings. Calls have come from Utah, Pennsylvania and Colorado.

State and local mental health professionals had a response plan ready and put it into action Wednesday, he said.

World-Herald staff writers C. David Kotok and Martha Stoddard contributed to this report.