Man opens fire with machine gun at university; two injured

The Associated Press ^ | 5/9/03 5:10 PM | By M.R. KROPKO

[demlosers]

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A man opened fire with a machine gun Friday at the business school at Case Western Reserve University. At least two people were reported injured.

Witnesses said the gunman was firing indiscriminantly.

School spokeswoman Marcie Hersh said the lone gunman was still in the Peter B. Lewis Building, which had been locked down. One person had been shot outside and was taken to a hospital. The other wounded person remained inside the building, she said.

LeKisha Spencer, 28, who works in a first-floor cafeteria said, she heard a bang and a saw a man walking inside the building toward the front.

"He had a machine gun, book bag, camouflage shirt, military green hat, white pants and a bookbag," she said. "I didn't see his face.

"He was just walking, aiming his guns and firing.

"I just went to the phone and dialed 911. I heard another bang."

She ran from the building.

"When I ran out the door, I still heard shots."

Squad cars surrounded the block, and officers had guns trained on the building, said William Day, a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music who was passing by.

Bonnie Copes, an administrative assistant, said she heard several gunshots beginning around 4 p.m.

Copes, 50, was locked in a department office inside the building and unable to leave. She continued to hear gunshots.

"Rounds and rounds and rounds," she said.

The $62 million Peter B. Lewis Building opened in the fall and was designed by Frank Gehry, the internationally renowned architect who also created the titanium-covered Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain.

Case Western is at University Circle, a park-like setting of cultural, medical and educational institutions on the eastern edge of downtown. The school has 9,500 students.

The Lewis building is about five stories high. Instead of walls on the south side, it has a curving roof, made of 20,000 stainless-steel shingles, that seemingly tumbles to the ground.

Lewis, an art collector and the billionaire chairman of Progressive Insurance, gave Case $37 million toward construction of the building, which opened in the fall.

[TLBSHOW]

key word here is (MAN)

[wardaddy]

Any bets it was not a "machine gun"?

[xm177e2]

Any bets it was not a "machine gun"?

My first thoughts upon reading the headline.

[Gunslingr3]

Any bets it was not a "machine gun"?

But you'll ruin a great headline thinking like that! It's time to renew the Assault Weapon Ban, dontcha know.

[mhking]

Live strean (WKYC-TV Cleveland): http://www.cleveland.com/ra/livewkyc-emg.ram

[mabelkitty]

But if the students carried guns, this guy would be in the morgue already.

[Pharmboy]

There is a price we pay for the Bill of Rights. Part of it is the Klan speaking out for what they believe and marching down Main Street USA when they get the permits. Another price we pay for the Second Amendment is crap like this.

Freedom isn't free, though tragic, at times, as it is here. It is always better than non-freedom.

[wardaddy]

SSSShhhhh...folks still think W did not really say that...only his lying spokespeople.

[activationproducts]

It makes my head hurt to think of how many urban idiots don't know the difference between semi and fully automatic fire.

Stories like this make you wonder what percentage of journalists have no experience with firearms. It is probably huge.

[Deguello]

The LEO's number one priority is Officer Safety, the public is secondary and this only for the public as a whole (the community) and not any one group (the university).

[Eric Esot]

Like how the article goes from some dude shooting people to an architecture lesson about Frank McGahee.

[ChuckMartelRox]

Keep an eye on the AP stories over the next while, because they'll be campaigning hard for the AWB renewal.

[wardaddy]

Here in Nashville yesterday, I listened to our local AM conservative talk radio dude on the way home and he did not know what the difference between an assault weapon in reality as contrasted with what the "law" claims is an assualt weapon.

He had to ask callers to explain it and plenty of them did not know either.

Sad.

[cabbieguy]

How much does anyone want to bet this idiot doesn't have a conceal carry permit.
How much does anyone want to bet the idiot anti-gun lobby will use this tragedy to lash out at pro-gun legislation.

[Eric Esot]

"He had a machine gun, book bag, camouflage shirt, military green hat, white pants and a bookbag,"

I wonder if he had a bag of books.

[cabbieguy]

The more I watch this story unfold on FOX News the more I wish the architect of that building just happened to walk into the line of fire.

[Frohickey]

I bet it wasn't a machine gun.

[sigarms]

"WHITE MALE WITH EVIL BLACK RIFLE GOES ON SHOOTING SPREE WITH MILITARY-STYLE ASSAULT RIFLE"

[Sender]

It will quickly evolve from a "machine gun" into an "AK-47" and then after the news cycle is spent, way back on page 29 it will be described by an officer as an SKS carbine. That's my 2-cent bet.