Things I heard…
December 6th, 2007 by Syd
Omaha Mall Shooting
OMAHA, Neb. — BREAKING NEWS: A man with a rifle opened fire at a busy Omaha shopping mall Wednesday, killing eight people before taking his own life, police said. Five others were wounded, two critically.
The killer has been identified as Robert A. Hawkins, age 19 or 20, who left a suicide note stating, “I’m going out in style” and “I’m going to be famous.” The man’s vehicle was reportedly found in the parking lot. Source
Things I heard
“…Police received active shooter call and arrived six minutes later…”
“…shopping where they thought they were safe…”
“…It’s pretty confusing because you never think it would happen around here…”
“…shocked…”
“…I don’t think anybody believed it was gunshots…”
“…what would I have done if this guy would have tried to come and get us?”
[Unarmed] Security Guard: “I should have done something, but I just ran.”
Police received active shooter call and arrived six minutes later.
Another tragedy unfolded on the afternoon news: a crazy shooter with a rifle in a mall in Omaha. Eight innocent people killed and five more injured. The depressed young man behind the rifle finally shot himself, ending the carnage. The police arrived at the mall six minutes after receiving the “active shooter” call, but it was too late to stop anything. It was all over. Apparently, there was no one on the scene capable of offering any resistance to the shooter.
As the story was reported by the talking heads, I couldn’t help but notice some familiar cliché’s in their chatter.
“People were shopping in a place they thought was safe.”
I’m not sure where people have picked up this notion that there are safe places. Terrorists, psychos and criminals can go anywhere they want to. They particularly like to strike in places that people consider safe and insulated from trouble. In truth, there are no safe places.
“We never thought it would happen here…”
Why exactly? Why would one arbitrarily judge that there are no psychopaths or criminals in Nebraska? What about Charles Starkweather? That was Nebraska fifty years ago. There are dangerous people everywhere. To take the position that there are certain areas that are free of violent criminals is simply denial.
“I don’t think anyone believed it was gunshots…”
Again, we see denial at work. Spend precious seconds playing mind games with yourself, and they could be your last. Situational awareness can save your life.
A guy who was hiding in terror in a dressing room with his small child asked, “What would I do if he came in here to get us?”
Well, if you had a gun, you could shoot the bastard. Apparently, there was no one at this mall would could rapidly respond to the attack. A single trained citizen with a handgun could have stopped this thing before nine people died. Of course, if frogs had wings they wouldn’t bump their butts when they hop, and no one there was prepared to respond to the “active shooter.”
I’m sure that some of these remarks will sound callous to some. It isn’t the victims’ fault that they were shot by a madman. They and their families have my complete sympathy and prayers. My desire is to see that my friends and loved ones live long full lives that aren’t cut short by killers. I believe that the best way to put a stop to this is for people to take seriously the responsibility of self-defense and the tactics of survival. The odds are strong that we will see more of these kinds of incidents in the years to come. Why they happen is beyond me to decipher, but I do believe that there are responses we can make to this sort of madness that will deter and reduce it. Dialing 911 and waiting to be slaughtered is not it. The police arrived in six minutes from the time they received the call. That’s a pretty decent response time, but it was too late. It was already over. Only someone(s) on the scene with a firearm would have had any chance of stopping the shooter. What did police do when they answered the call? From Gabe Suarez we get this:
“And the first responders…ah yes…the ones that arrive to save the day. Here is what the media said, “By the time police arrived they weren’t sure how many shooters they were dealing with. They surrounded the mall, and once they were set up, shoppers and employees had to come out with their hands raised in the air.”
Very nice. Very nice. Thank you Mr. First responders for saving the day once again. You push for laws to take the guns out of the hands of common people and then arrive late to every single event that may have required their use. Shame on you.”
To be fair to the police, when they arrive on a scene like this, they are facing a nightmare scenario. They don’t know what’s going on, where people are, or what they bad guys have planned. They have to spend a certain amount of time to get an idea of the situation they are facing. They can’t just run in with guns blazing and shoot at anything that moves. The police cannot be expected to immediately rescue us out of a situation such as this. It is foolhardy to expect that they will.
An unarmed security guard was quoted as saying, “I should have done something, but I just ran.” No, if your employer forces you to try to provide security unarmed, you should run when someone opens up with a rifle. There is nothing you could do unless you have a penchant for martyrdom. The proprietors of these sorts of venues and many employers care about one thing – liability. Their lawyers have told them that if they allow armed security guards, armed employees or armed citizens, and if something goes wrong, they can be sued for damages. This is all they care about. They don’t care about the safety or the very lives of their customers and employees. They care only about their hypothetical liabilities that might ensue if an employee or customer were to misuse a firearm, so they ban them. I think that every time one of these shootings happens in a gun-free zone we should sue the owners of the facility for denial of our civil rights and failure to provide adequate security. We should refuse to patronize malls and stores that put up “No Firearms” signs.
Debora Maruca Kovac, Hawkins’ landlord, said she found the suicide note after getting a phone call from Hawkins about 1 p.m., just minutes before the shootings. “He basically said how sorry he was for everything,” Maruca Kovac said of the note. “He didn’t want to be a burden to people and that he was a piece of s— all of his life and that now he’d be famous.”
She said Hawkins was a friend of her sons and “reminded me of a pound puppy that nobody wanted.” He came to live with her about a year and a half ago, telling her he could not stay with his own family because of “some issues with his stepmother.”
She described Hawkins as well-behaved, although “he had a lot of emotional problems, obviously.”
Maruca Kovac told the Omaha World-Herald that Hawkins showed her an assault rifle the night before the rampage, but she wasn’t alarmed. Source
and…
She told the Omaha World-Herald that the night before the shooting, Hawkins and her sons showed her an SKS semiautomatic Russian military rifle — the same type used in the shooting. She said she thought the gun belonged to a member of Hawkins’ family. She said she didn’t think much of it — the gun looked too old to work.
Records in Sarpy and Washington counties showed Hawkins had a felony drug conviction and several misdemeanor cases filed against him, including an arrest 11 days before the shooting for having alcohol as a minor. He was due in court in two weeks.
Maruca-Kovac said Hawkins had recently broken up with a girlfriend and was fired from McDonald’s. She told the World-Herald that Hawkins said he had been fired after being accused of stealing $17 from his till at the restaurant. McDonald’s management declined to comment to the newspaper. Source
Now, I don’t know about you, but if a young man was living with me who had been rejected by his own family, lost his girlfriend, been fired from his job, had identified substance abuse problems, was facing legal charges because of those substance abuse problems, was depressed, “had a lot of emotional problems” and showed up at my house with an SKS, I might be just a little bit “alarmed.” Folks, we need to be paying more attention to troubled young people than we do. This is a hard time to be growing up in, and our young people are facing enormous stresses and pressures. Talovic at the Trolley Square Mall, Cho at Virginia Tech and Hawkins at Omaha share this profile of an obviously troubled young man who gave out ample warning signs of his distress and was largely ignored by the adults in his life. I don’t say this to deflect responsibility from the shooter. It is simply an observation that this sort of mental dysfunction appears to be on the rise and we need to be paying close attention to those who are obviously troubled.
Emotionally disturbed people with substance abuse problems shouldn’t be able to get guns, but they do. Families and friends should be actively engaged with obviously troubled young people, but they often aren’t. Police should be able to instantaneously extract us from peril, but they can’t. When the chips are down, there is only one person you can count on for the safety of your family and yourself, and that is you.
See Also:
Another Tragic Success for Gun Free Zones (Virginia Tech)
Trolley Square Mall and Concealed Carry
Media Coverage of Mall Shooting Fails to Reveal Mall’s Gun-Free-Zone Status
I am curious; if one of the people who were injured or killed in this attack had applied for and was denied a CCW (assuming they would qualify); would they or the families of the victims have grounds to sue for being denied to the right to defend themselves?
Great article - I agree 100%. If businesses that banned firearms were held accountable to be responsible for the safety of those who were disarmed, they would probably start to sing a new tune.
Nebraska had just passed the concealed carry law a few months ago but, Omaha wanted the right to be able to deny carry as the city saw fit. The police have been exonerated from the obligation of protection of the citizenry by juducial ruling. So, who’s going to protect Mr. and Mrs. citizen and their families?
With the second amendment being judged by the Superme Court next year, we can only hope that the Right to protect one’s life and property will not be taken away. People that are mentally unstable, just like criminals, cannot be denied their rights for a multitude of reasons. Everyone else, well, Government continues to show that we cannot be trusted to do anything but abdicate.
I can’t say about the city’s denial of the right to carry, but Fox News reported that the mall itself had posted the required “no self defense” posters. Wonder what I could have sued them for had I been there and had been stupid enough to comply. I also wonder how many folks would have been shouting for my blood had I been the one to stop him with a .45 slug or two?
I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and only one mall here is posted these days (Grapevine Mills Mall in Grapevine), and they’re not legally posted - signs are only at the main entrances to the mall, but not at any of the store entrances to the mall. I do not patronize that mall any more…….
Vote with your dollars!
One of the talking heads (NBC) at the end of their first report said, “The shooter at one point even shot a Teddy Bear.” I wish you could have seen the look of disgust on his face as he said that. The shooter would stop shooting people, women and childeren to shoot a toy. I know it is a cute toy but “IT IS A TOY.”
Deranged go where they will encounter no resistance - where the defenseless are forbidden to carry firearms. They kill where the law has created self-defense loopholes. Waiting for the police is akin to locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen. Prohibiting the law abiding from defending themselves and communities is sheer insanity. This madness must stop. We have to elect people who have common sense.
If I travel somewhere I think I may need to be armed (and that’s most everywhere these days) I WILL be; no matter what laws liberal idiots have passed.
“I’d rather be tried by 12, than carried by 6″ is a quote I take at face value.
The main problem with letting some bastard kill you or one of your loved ones, is that you’re dead for such a long time.
“Check-6″
“Life is a food chain. Be at the top, or be on the menu”.
I heard on a local radio station news report after this incident was announced that the security forces employed at the mall were not armed. I’m beginning to side with Jerry Kemp to thumb my nose at the ‘rule of law’ and carry concealed even though Wisconsin doesn’t allow it. We have a governor that has established a “gun free zone” across the entire state.
I would personally love to see a massive lawsuit against the “Mall” in general for failing to provide the “Victims Only” the safe haven they were promised. I cannot help but wonder also what the repercussions would be, had ANYONE pulled their concealed weapon and shot the perp. Would they be sued for it? I also am forced to wonder just how anyone that DID have a gun can live with themselves after cutting, running and hiding instead of being the person they thought they would be in a worst case scenario? We are NOT a Police State, therefore we are ALL responsible for our own and our families safety. PERIOD!
i have a lot of sympathy for the families and friends of the victims…
however,the self serveing preening of the right to carry concealed little men makes me sick. the mentality it takes to carry a gun doesnt fit every living human. i have a concealed carry permit and ferverently wish i had been in that mall or any of the other shooting sites. but i am a combat veteran and wouldnt hesitate to bust a cap on a shooter. i dont think a person with a concealed carry permit and having only the expierience of typewriter keys and double lattes can say or would do quickly enough to snuff a situation.
there is no back ground music.
Rogerwood,
While I think I know where you’re going with this, that there’s a lot of brave talk that goes around after a incident like this, brave talk that may not be matched by deeds when the balloons go up, I think it’s important to note that every day violent crimes are stopped by armed citizens who do not have the benefit of combat experience or law enforcement training.
Also, many people with CCW licenses are veterans and former LEO’s, and they aren’t all keyboard commandos.
It takes time. There is a certain amount of reaction time that all of us take when hearing gunshots in a place where you don’t expect them to be. If you expect shots in a mall, you either live in Bridgeport CT, or you’re more paranoid and hyper-alert than me. Then there’s the problem of getting a clear shot at the A-____ with the weapon. I think Rogerwood has a point. A man or woman who has heard shots fired in anger AND has a bit of tactical training would fare better in these situations than some of these CCW Yuppies. Don’t misunderstand, I think everybody should carry a gun. To put a point on it, I am in favor of a law REQUIRING every household to have firearms and all the residents over 12 conversant in their use. It’s the conversant in the use that trips up some of your CCW Y-people. They get the permit, carry the gun, and never, never go to the range. Don’t want to put any wear on the pistol. EGAD!
Another typical example blame it on the weapon.Why don’t we paid more attention to people who need help to prevent this thing happen before it is too late. I do believe there are many more time bombs like this waiting to happen.Think positive and be vigilant. Mind is a terrible thing to waste.
The liberal media opposes concealed carry and personal responsibility. Then they make the shooter famous. Talk about irresponsible!
Here is yet ANOTHER case where gun control did not work. Hey, it was illegal for that nutcase to bring that gun into that mall. He can’t do that. The law says he shouldn’t have done that. We are safe in this mall because you can’t bring a gun in here. What a bunch on non-sense. I’m getting sick and tired of pro gun control people saying more and more restrictive laws will cure the problem. Whan will these fools wake up and realize that criminals “DON’T OBEY THE LAW????” No piece of paper is ever going to stop a criminal from commiting a crime. Now, if one, just one of those victims or immediate witnesses had been armed, this story had a chance of ending differently. We’ll never know because the law-abiding folks didn’t carry a gun and were defenseless sheep waiting to be slaughtered!
THE GOVERMENT DOESN’T WANT US PACKING SO THEY CAN CONTROL THE MASSES EASIER. I FOR ONE WILL BITE BACK WHEN IT COMES TO LUNATICS!
Syd, I do agree w/you. The problem is partly due to the state of mind in Omaha and Nebr in general. My step-father was a county atty in Ne.for decades and he said the Republican party was opposed to CCW in concept and principle,and the judiciary (which he represented) was adamantly opposed to the concept. We had many extended (and unresolved) discussions regarding why I felt that there isn’t enough LE to protect 1% of the populace(the LE themselves) and why carried concealed then and now.
Nebr enjoys allowing hunting but no other use of firearms is condoned, until recently and I’m uncertain if the court challenges have been cleared yet.
Hopefully after the Arvada and Colorado Springs, Colorado and the Omaha massacres(essentially in non-carry areas) people will look at “non-carry” areas critically and avoid them.
As I am new to CCW, all of these comments are relevant because I am dealing with a lot of the issues that we all face when deciding how and when to carry. However, I firmly believe that if anyone, regardless of their view point, will read all of the articles and more provided by your Website, Sid, they will think a little different when finished. The Y-issue is there as with anything, but the articles dealing with one being prepared by proper training and taking CCW seriously should be critical to all who carry. I am committed to being ready!!
Regarding the text from Gabe Suarez. There was no surrounding the mall and ordering people out in those first few minutes - that came later. The first responders, formed up in groups of one, two, four officers, etc… and began hunting the unknown. It is true that the first officer entered six minutes later, what’s not been widely publicized is the fact that this thing was over in about a minute and a half. It is too bad that there was no one there to end the carnage when it began. I know every one of those cops who entered wished that they were. Oh, and there was background music ~ Christmas music. Talk about surreal…