2 Dead, 5 Injured In Fla. Wendy's Shooting

Cops: Gunman In Jacket And Tie Opens Fire Without Speaking, Killing A Firefighter And Himself

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., March 3, 2008

(AP) A gunman in a jacket and tie wordlessly opened fire inside a Wendy's during the lunchtime rush Monday, killing a firefighter who had gone back to fetch the toy left out of his child's meal and wounding five others. He then committed suicide.

"This was not a robbery. He didn't demand anything," said Paul Miller, a Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman. "Looks like this was just another random shooting like we've seen around the United States."

The 42-year-old victim, a Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue lieutenant who was not in uniform, had met his wife and child at the restaurant during a break in training down the street, Deputy Fire-Rescue Chief Steve Delai said. The family had gotten their food and walked out, but the man returned because the free toy was missing from the kids' meal, he said.

The lieutenant was shot in the back as he stood at the counter.

"Our officer probably didn't even see him," Delai said, adding that the man's wife and child were in the parking lot when the shooting broke out.

Three of the survivors were critically wounded, but all had improved and were hospitalized in stable condition Monday evening, Miller said. They included a 43-year-old man, a 16-year-old girl, a 65-year-old man and his 62-year-old wife. One person was injured while running away.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/03/national/main3900240.shtml

В точности как я писал раньше: эстафету Колумбины подхватывают старики. О личности стрелка всё ещё известно очень мало, но уже известные любопытные подробности дают основание полагать, что мы имеем дело отнюдь не с простым обозлённым на окружающих пенсионером:

They say they are no closer to determining what set off Blake, a 60-year-old handyman from Jamaica who lived in West Palm Beach.

Court records and interviews show that Blake was once accused of kicking a live-in girlfriend who called him "demented"; that he somehow married a woman he had never met without her consent; and that he sometimes used a Social Security number that had belonged to a Wisconsin man who died three decades ago.

"We're still putting all the pieces of the puzzle together," Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.

[...]

Records show that while Blake had no criminal convictions, a girlfriend, Mary Gianninco, accused him in 2006 of kicking her in the knee and back in front of their baby. She told The Palm Beach Post on Tuesday that Blake was a "demented" yet "extremely intelligent" man who sometimes resorted to violence at home.

"I've been shaking like a leaf for the past three years," Gianninco told the newspaper. "This is a demented man; this is a sick, abusive man that should have been locked up in a cage a long time ago."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/04/wendys.shooting.ap/

По ссылке можно прочитать ещё много любопытного об этом человеке-загадке, не менее десятка лет умело дурачившем американскую систему. История Элберна Блэйка ещё ждёт настоящего исследования.