Quick thought on Virginia Tech news coverage

[travelinman]

Group Plans To Picket Va. Tech Funerals (Phelps' Phreaks)
CBS News ^ | April 18, 2007 | David Miller

The families of those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre may not be able to grieve in peace at the funerals of those they lost. An anti-gay religious group known for protesting at the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq is planning on appearing at services for those killed on Monday as well.

The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which is not affiliated with any national Baptist organization, announced plans to protest at victims? funerals only hours after 32 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. They also may protest at other events on the Virginia Tech campus.

The organization, founded and led by Fred Phelps, believes the United States has condemned itself to destruction by accepting homosexuality and other ?sins of the flesh.? Phelps? daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians.

?The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,? Phelps-Roper said. ?You don?t need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell.?

Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech student responsible for the killings who took his own life after the shootings, was sent by God to punish those he killed, and America as a whole, for moral decline, said Phelps-Roper, while adding that she believes Cho is also in hell for violating God?s commandment to not kill.

?He is in hell,? Phelps-Roper said. ?But he was also fulfilling the word of God.?

Because of its virulent anti-gay message and condemnation of Catholics, Jews and other groups, the WBC has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League.

Curtis Dahn, the president of Virginia Tech?s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Alliance, said he reacted with immediate disgust upon hearing of the WBC's plans. ?Thirty-three people are dead and they?re using people?s deaths and people?s grief to further their own agenda and it?s just disgusting,? he said.

Dahn was friends with Ryan Clark, a resident assistant in Ambler Johnson Hall, who was among the first people killed on Monday. He said he is working with other university leaders and officials to form a response to the WBC. Ideally, he said, the funerals will be nothing more than a chance for family and friends to mourn in peace.

?Part of it is that I don?t want the families to be affected by this at all,? he said. ?I don?t even want the funerals? locations to be public knowledge. I don?t want a protest, I don?t want a counter-protest. I want people to be able to grieve and have what they want, not be made into public displays and mockeries.?

Dahn and others may have the law on their side. In 2006, in response to protests at the funerals of dead U.S. soldiers, Virginia enacted a law that added funerals and memorial services to the state?s disorderly conduct statute. Other states have adopted similar measures to allow police to keep WBC protesters out of earshot.

By David Miller ? MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[Lew]

And of course, by broadcasting his letters, videos and photographs, it only gives him his last request. Which, of course, only offers hope to other would-be copycats that they, too, can have their messages broadcast to the world (and yes I realize you almost have to show them, because it is newsworthy and because people would find out anyway, but it does pave the way for repeats).

[cincygreg]

Am I the only one who finds these statements not only slightly confusing and totally a contradiction of themself but totally nuts?!?!?!?

"The organization, founded and led by Fred Phelps, believes the United States has condemned itself to destruction by accepting homosexuality and other ?sins of the flesh.? Phelps? daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians.

?The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,? Phelps-Roper said. ?You don?t need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell.?

Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech student responsible for the killings who took his own life after the shootings, was sent by God to punish those he killed, and America as a whole, for moral decline, said Phelps-Roper, while adding that she believes Cho is also in hell for violating God?s commandment to not kill.

?He is in hell,? Phelps-Roper said. ?But he was also fulfilling the word of God.?

Someone should check this Phelps guy out, sounds like he could be the next one to pull something like this.

[cincygreg]

And now this...


Updated: 7:49 p.m. PT April 29, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A man driving a dead woman?s car shot a police officer, then opened fire in a parking lot and a mall Sunday, authorities said. By the end of the day, four people, including the gunman, were dead.

The chaos ended when police shot the gunman to death outside a Target store inside Ward Parkway Center in south Kansas City, police spokesman Tony Sanders said.

The gunfire sent shoppers and employees scurrying for cover. Target employee Cassie Bradshaw, 19, of Kansas City was in a break room with two other people when they first heard shots. Then, her co-workers saw a man in his 50s with a rifle ?shooting everywhere,? she said.


?It sounded like maybe firecrackers at first but then they got louder and louder and louder, and it sounded like someone shooting a gun,? she said.

The string of violence began early Sunday afternoon, when police went to a home to check on an elderly woman relatives hadn?t seen for days. The woman was found dead and her car missing, Sanders said.

The car was spotted later in the day at a gas station by an officer, who pulled the driver over and was shot in the arm, police said. The officer, whose wound was not life-threatening, returned fire and shattered the window of the gunman?s car.

The car took off and reports began arriving about 10 to 15 minutes later of shots fired at the shopping center. The man pulled into a parking space and fired at the cars on either side of him, killing two people, authorities said. He fired more shots, wounding at least two people, then went inside the mall, Sanders said.

?Everybody was leaving the mall when the officers ran inside,? Sanders said. ?They confronted the man and after confronting him, shot and killed him.?

Police did not say how the elderly woman died, or if the gunman was a suspect in her death. But they did say they believed the events were connected.

The mall, one of the city?s busiest shopping centers, was shut down and officers went through each store to see if anyone else might have been involved, Sanders said. The gunman and victims? names were not immediately released, and conditions of the wounded were not available.

[Lew]

The Kanasas City shooting didn't really go far in the media. I wonder if that's because its death toll pales in comparison to Va Tech. Sort of like, well, "only" 3 people died (or 4). Nothing like the 32 in Virginia.

[cincygreg]

Apparently he got turned down for a job as a security guard, so he went on a killing spree.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 01, 2007 12:10 PM: Message edited by: cincygreg ]</font>

[Lew]

Well, I mean, at least he had a reason.....

[cincygreg]

Um, well, uh, I guess he could have considered it a reason to be mad but I'm not so sure that qualies as something that justifies a homicdal rampage