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Man kills woman, self at hospital in Tennessee

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:32 am
by Kythas
Not sure what a CHL could have done in this situation, as it seems to have unfolded and ended very quickly, but it just shows that nowhere is really safe.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/19/re ... latestnews
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A man opened fire outside a Tennessee hospital, killing a woman and himself, after taking a cab to the scene and asking it to wait. The cab driver said the man seemed angry and depressed, but police had not released any motive by early Tuesday for the rampage.

Two other women were injured in the shooting Monday outside the discharge area at Parkwest Medical Center, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said. Police said they had found no connection between any of the women shot and the man, who has not been named.

Cab driver Freddys Sakhleh told The Associated Press he picked up the gunman outside an apartment building and they made several stops on the way to the hospital, including at an ATM, where the gunman got $20. The man said little about himself, only that he was from Atlanta.

"He looked like, you know, angry, depressed. He was kind of itchy," Sakhleh said.

The man eventually got out of the cab at the hospital, handed the driver the $20 and told him to wait. He came back to the cab, pulled a gun from his waist and started firing, Sakhleh said.

"I called 911, and I said, 'Please send some people here, this man is shooting like crazy,'" Sakhleh said. He said the gunman then shot himself in the head.

Police are still trying to determine a motive, but it did not appear any of the women were related to the gunman or that there was any connection between them. The women were either former or current hospital workers, spokesman Darrell DeBusk said. Police don't think the suspect ever worked at the hospital.

Photographs of the discharge area, where vehicles can pick up patients, showed a man's body lying face down, surrounded by police. Yellow crime tape was stretched around the area and police took photographs inside of the van taxi.

The two women who survived the shooting were taken to the trauma center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Their conditions were not released. The women's families issued statements expressing thanks for prayers and support.

The family of Ariane Reagan Guerin, a 26-year-old employee at Parkwest, said they were hearing promising information about her prognosis. The family of Nancy Chancellor, 32, said she was doing well.

The women killed was Rachel Wattenbarger, 40. Her father, Ray Wattenbarger, said she had worked at the hospital for about five or six years, helping discharge the elderly. He said he would remember his daughter's smile.

Linda Cody, whose father was a patient at the hospital, had gone to smoke a cigarette when she saw the gunman's body, surrounded by blood. She quickly learned the victims had been shot in the same area where she normally smoked.

"It was scary," she said. "It kind of gives you the willies thinking that could have been me five seconds ago."

Charles Billingsley was taking his sister to a nearby doctor's office and heard the shooting, though he wasn't close enough to see the attack.

"I heard five pistol shots, back to back, and then another and then another," Billingsley said. "I just saw people running from the hospital."

Sakhleh, the cab driver, said he was lucky to be alive.

"My wife always tells me, 'Be careful, be careful.' But after tonight, I'm going to be real careful."

Re: Man kills woman, self at hospital in Tennessee

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:52 pm
by Fangs
I wonder how the cab driver "being real careful" would have helped? :headscratch

Overall a stupid, senseless crime from what it sounds like at the moment. Maybe the guy had someone close to him die at the hospital and blamed everyone there for it through some massive logical disconnect?

Re: Man kills woman, self at hospital in Tennessee

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 8:55 am
by seamusTX
The shooter in this case was a card-carrying, certified lunatic: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... QD9F72IPG0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He was apparently schizophrenic and off his meds. He thought that a surgeon at the hospital had implanted a tracking device in his body (a common delusion among schizophrenics).

The shooter did not know the victims.

The weapon that he used in the shooting had been reported stolen.

IMHO, in a case like this, at least the first victim is going to be shot regardless of who in the area is armed and in condition orange (recall the John Hinckley-Ronald Reagan assassination attempt).
"There was less than 5 seconds from the time of the first shot until the last shot," [the Knoxville Police Chief] said at a news conference Tuesday.
- Jim