Eve, Jupiter, and More Car Ramming Copycats

Update: November 5, 20014, there was another "car ramming."

The killing of a young baby sharing the name of the Biblical symbolic first woman, linked to the conflict over a pivotal location important to Jews, Christians, Roman pagans, and Muslims, may point to a future wave of contagion violence. The stalking of soldiers killed in similar situations may produce even more copycats.

The Temporal Context

Wednesday, October 22, 2014, was the date a terrorist attacked and killed a soldier at the National War Memorial. It also was the same day that an individual jumped the fence at the White House.

Thursday, October 23, 2014, two New York City police officers, at the corner of Jamaica Avenue and 160th Street, were attacked by a man with possible ties to Islamic extremism.

These events happened within the same week that the use of cars to ram and kill has the potential to become, anew, a copycat terrorist technique.

On Monday, October 20, 2014, Martin Couture-Rouleau, 25, ran over two soldiers, killing one, in a Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec supermarket parking lot. In September, ISIS had said this type of attack should be encouraged.

The October 20th incident appears to be a close copycat of the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in London on May 22, 2013. Rigby was run over by two Muslim converts (two British men of Nigerian descent) before being stabbed and hacked to death.

So, what happened on October 22, 2014? What occurred in Israel that Americans and Canadians heard little about?

The Killing of Eve

A Palestinian man, Adbel-Rahman Shaloudi, 21, rammed his car into commuters waiting at the Ammunition Hill light rail stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Wednesday, October 22. His actions killed a 3-month-old baby, Israeli police said. The U.S. State Department said the baby was "reportedly an American citizen, who was killed in this despicable attack."

The child, identified by her grandfather as Chaya Zissel Braun, was killed and several US citizens and Israelis were wounded.

Chaya means "alive, living." Chaya is related to the name Chava, who appears in the Bible as the first woman, i.e. Eve, (Genesis 3:20). Eve is an English given name for a female, derived from Eva, in turn originating with Hebrew חַוָּה (Chavah/Havah - chavah, to breathe, and chayah, to live, or to give life). The traditional meaning of Eve is "living."

Zissel means "sweet" in Yiddish. Braun is a name used by Germans and Jewish families for "brown," originally as the color of hair.

The young Chaya [Eve] was killed.

The driver of the vehicle was shot as he tried to flee and soon died, police and hospital officials said. Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld called it an apparent "intentioned event" and terror attack.

Rosenfeld tweeted: "Baby dies of injuries in hospital after this evening's terror attack in Jerusalem. Hospitals treating injured in different conditions."

Rosenfeld said in another tweet that the driver was an Arab resident of Silwan (East Jerusalem), who had served time in an Israeli prison for terrorism offenses.

A surveillance camera captured the horrific scene, which has been posted on social media. It shows a speeding car veering right, cutting across two lanes, mounting the station pavement and plowing through the people waiting at the stop.

As one Jewish news source noted:

After his daughter got medical treatment in Israel, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised the murder of baby Chaya Zissel Braun.
"Have you killed and also inherited?"
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas terrorist movement in Gaza, was full of praise for the Arab terrorist who drove into a crowd of Jewish people in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Murdered in the attack was 3-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun, who had an American citizenship, who thrown from her stroller as a car swerved into the Ammunition Hill light rail station, injuring 9.
Chaya had been born after her parents had tried for years to have a baby to no avail, the grandfather Shimshon Halperin told the Jerusalem Post, adding that her parents were in shock, having just learned of her death.
"They had just returned from the Kotel. It was the first time in her life that the girl was at the Kotel. They [her parents] took pictures, they held her up to face the Temple Mount, and they told her this is the holy place," said Halperin. 

But the heartbreaking murder didn't stop Haniyeh from calling the terrorist a "martyr" and saying: "A murder for a murder, a conflict for a conflict, and a run-over attack for a run-over attack."

He was referring to an accident earlier this week in which a Palestinian girl was killed after a car crashed into them. The Jewish driver fled the scene, saying he feared he would be lynched, but reported the accident.... [See ColLive for more.]

Battle Over the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa Mosque

One of the major reasons for the car ramming appears to have been directly tied to the conflicts between Muslims and Jews over the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement, blaming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for adding fuel to the soaring tensions in Jerusalem with recent antagonistic comments. Abbas "just a few days ago incited (Palestinians) to attack Jews in Jerusalem," Netanyahu said.

Abbas had called on Palestinians to prevent Jews "by any means" from visiting a Jerusalem holy site revered by both Muslims and Jews. He was referring to the hilltop compound sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount, where the two biblical Jewish Temples stood. It is also sacred to Muslims, who refer to it as Noble Sanctuary, the place from where they believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The site is the holiest in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, and a frequent flashpoint for Palestinian demonstrations.

The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as Har haBáyit (Hebrew: הַר הַבַּיִת) or as Har haMoria (Hebrew : הַר הַמוריה) and in Arabic as the Haram al-Sharif (Arabic: الحرم القدسي الشريف‎, al-haram al-qudsī ash-sharīf), the Noble Sanctuary, is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years. At least four religious traditions are known to have made use of the Temple Mount: Judaism, Christianity, Roman religion, and Islam. The present site is dominated by three monumental structures from the early Umayyad period: the al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of the Chain. Herodian walls with additions dating back to the late Byzantine and early Islamic periods cut through the flanks of the Mount. It can be ascended via four gates, with guard posts of Israeli police in the vicinity of each. Source.

The Dome of the Rock is located at the visual center of a platform known as the Temple Mount. It is believed, or assumed by tradition, to have been constructed on the site of the Second Jewish Temple, which was destroyed during the Roman Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The Romans built a temple to Jupiter on the site.

Yes, Jupiter.

Car Rammings On The Rise
Considering what we saw happen in London in 2013, in Quebec last Monday, and in Israel on Wednesday, it does not take a crystal ball to predict the potential increase in "car rammings."

Formerly, copycat behavior was mirrored nearly exactly. But in recent years, copycatters are learning from previous incidents, and making corrections in their behaviors. The violence is being fine-tuned, to avoid military and law enforcement prevention of the events.

For several years, Jewish individuals have been aware of a new form of violence towards them by a minority of Arabs and Palestinians. On August 8, 2011, after years of this occurring, the Jerusalem Post termed them "ramming terror attacks."

Stratfor Global Intelligence observed that "while not thus far as deadly as suicide bombing," this tactic could prove more difficult to prevent.

I use the simple term "car rammings." ISIS has called for automobiles to be used thusly, and Hamas leaders are directly reinforcing the tactic of using vehicles as weapons.

There is a recent history of such incidents, from the USA and Israel, beginning less than a decade ago. Are we in for more of this?

December 18, 2005

Ali R. Warrayat, originally from Jordan, drove his car through the front doors of the Chandler, Arizona, Home Depot, barely missing an employee. He then tried to set the paint department on fire. He had placed a Palestinian flag and a copy of the Quran in the trunk of his car.

March 3, 2006

Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, an Iranian Muslim, inspired by Allah and hatred for America, purposely drove his Jeep Cherokee into students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Nine were injured.

August 30, 2006

Omeed Aziz Popal (pictured), originally of Afghanistan, struck 18 pedestrians, killing one, in the San Francisco Bay Area with his black Honda Pilot SUV.

In Israel, on July 2, 2008, and March 5, 2009, well-publicized terrorist-driven "bulldozer rampages" occurred.

The 2008 bulldozer terror attack was followed by the September 22, 2008, "Jerusalem BMW attack" in which a Palestinian drove a BMW saloon car into a group of off-duty soldiers, injuring 19, in Jerusalem, Israel.

An article of August 29, 2011, entitled "Ramming terror attacks in recent years," summarized such incidents.

South Tel Aviv attack is 5th of its kind in past three years, including "Nakba Day" attack, "Jerusalem bulldozer attacks." Seven people were injured in south Tel Aviv early Monday morning, after a terrorist from the West Bank carjacked a taxi and rammed it into a police road block protecting a Tel Aviv nightclub, before going on a stabbing spree.
Monday's attack comes after a similar attack in May on Nakba Day when a young truck driver from the Arab town of Kafr Kasim caused terrifying destruction in south Tel Aviv after ramming his truck into several vehicles on Bar-Lev Street, in what police suspected to be a “lonewolf terror attack” that killed one man and injured 17 others.
The 20-ton Volvo truck, driven by the 22-year-old man, departed Kafr Kasim on the morning of the attack and entered Tel Aviv via Route 4, driving through the Mesubim Junction. As the driver approached the Hatikva neighborhood, he struck and ran over several cars. The truck driver continued on, smashing into a black jeep, a white Fiat car, flattening a road sign, and striking other vehicles, before suddenly swerving into the opposite lane, running over a moped – seconds after its driver leapt off – then finally smashing sideways into an Egged bus, that just dropped off its last passenger.
The attacks are also reminiscent of the so-called "Jerusalem bulldozer attacks" three years ago that started on July 2 2008 when terrorist Husam Taysir Dwayat carried out a lethal bulldozer rampage on Jaffa Road which killed three people and wounded dozens before he was killed.
Three weeks later, tractor driver Ghassan Abu Tir, a 22-year-old resident of the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Umm Tuba who was working on a construction project on a side street near the King David Hotel, pulled into King David Street and repeatedly crashed his vehicle into a No. 13 Egged bus, which managed to escape, and then rammed into five cars, one of which he overturned, before being shot dead by a motorist who happened by the scene. 15 people were wounded in the attack.
Two months later, east Jerusalem resident Kasem Mugrabi drove his BMW into a a crowd in Jerusalem's Tzahal Sqare near the Old City. 17 people were wounded, most of them soldiers, before he was shot dead by an IDF officer.

Watch out for a new upswing in copycat car rammings in 2014-2015.

Eve 

Strasbourg Goltzius 1613

Hendrik Goltzius (1558–1617)

Musée des Beaux - Arts de Strasbourg

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Third White House Fence Jumper Since 9/11/2014

A man jumped the White House fence on the evening of October 22, 2014.

American Slave?

The individual arrested is Dominic Adesanya (name origin: Nigerian), who previously attended Stevenson University, Maryland. On his LinkedIn profile, Adesanya lists his job title as "American Slave." His profile also says, “Still waiting for Nathaniel Philip Rothschild and his father; Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild-4th Baron Rothschild to let me go. Whenever that day comes…”

Apparently, Adesanya is anti-Obama, as well.

You won't hear that much about the event, as wall-to-wall media discussions on Thursday appear to be mostly about the 22 October 2014, incident in Ottawa of the '''Lone Gunman' at Canada's War Memorial & Parliament Hill."

The Canadian terrorist, Michael Abdul Zehaf-Bibeau, was born Michael Joseph Hall, on 16 October 1982 in Quebec, and grew up in Laval, north of Montreal. He was shot dead by the Canadian Parliament's usually ceremonial Sergeant-At-Arms Kevin Vickers.
(I will talk about the possible upcoming copycats of similar incidents to the Canadian attacks, later, but first more about the White House jumpers, who are definitely in a copycat phase of their own.)

Dominic Adesanya, 23, of Bel Air, Maryland, barely made it onto the lawn before he was subdued as he fought two police dogs.
"Dog got him," a Secret Service spokesman said.
According to Adesanya's father, the jumper suffers from mental problems, and has been arrested at the White House before.
This time, the unarmed Adesanya has been charged with two counts of felony assault on a police officer for attacking the K-9 dogs, four counts of resisting and unlawful entry, and one count of making threats, said Brian Leary, a Secret Service spokesman.
His father, who did not want to be named, told CNN affiliate WMAR that his son is paranoid and hears voices.
Adesanya was arrested near the White House about two months ago and charged with a misdemeanor, he said.
"He had done it before. ... He didn't get that close," the father told the affiliate. "He didn't cross the fence. He was at the gate, fussing at the people, wanting to talk to the President to tell the President about his situation."
The father said they've asked the government for help, without any success. He did not provide specifics on whom he sought help from.

Before officers moved in, Adesanya kicked a K-9 unit dog and punched another one. The two dogs -- Hurricane and Jordan -- were treated by a vet for injuries suffered in the incident.

Wednesday's incident is the third time (that we know about) in which someone has jumped the fence at the White House in since 9/11 of this year.

On September 19, 2014, Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, from Bell County, Texas, jumped the White House's North Fence, darted across the lawn and through the unlocked North Portico doors, and deeper into the White House, before officers finally tackled him. Gonzalez was armed with a small knife and had 800 rounds of ammunition in his car. Elaborate video shows the entire 9/19/14 security breach at White House. Gonzalez told the Secret Service that “he was concerned the atmosphere was collapsing and needed to get the information to the President of the United States so he could get the word out to the people,” according to the criminal complaint against him.

On September 11, 2014, Jeffrey Grossman, 26, Rensselaer, New York, wearing a Pokémon shirt & cap and carrying a Pikachu doll, climbed the fence, got onto the White House lawn, and created quite a scare. The jumper allegedly has mental disabilities, and wanted to ask President Obama about healthcare. Grossman has a Bachelor of Science degree in business from College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.

The copycat effect is in full operating mode.

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Copycat Creepy Clowns Countrywide

Clown contagion appears to be spreading across the nation.

The Wasco Clown, a California photography project by a husband-and-wife team who said they wish to remain anonymous, appears to have inspired copycats that have been photographed and videotaped in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Fishers, Indiana; and Jacksonville, Florida. Source/Video.

Huffington Post and many media outlets have posted the photos.

Also, there's been a recent rash of clowns-as-robbers incidents too.

See posting of October 10, 2014, "Wasco's Mysterious Clowns."

Phantom clowns have been making appearances for years (see this, from 2008), so it would only be natural that clowns would be used to terrorized people again. And again.

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Troutdale High School Shooting

A male teen gunman with a semi-automatic weapon (reportedly an AK-15) and one victim are both dead after shots were fired at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Multnomah County, Oregon early Tuesday, June 10, 2014.

The gunman walked into an Oregon high school and fatally shot a student.

The shooting started in a gym detached from the main school building. A 14-year-old freshman at the school, named Emilio Hoffman (pictured), was fatally shot in the boys' locker room. Physical education teacher Todd Rispler also was in the gym and was grazed by a bullet.

Authorities found the shooter, a male teenager, dead a short time after the incident began. Authorities did not say whether the gunman was killed by police or took his own life.

On Wednesday, the killer was identified as Jared Michael Padgett*. He was a 15 year old freshman, in ROTC, who liked guns. This continues the Jared/Jerad/Jared lexilink we have seen lately.

Police responded to reports that shots were fired at the school at 8:07 a.m. local time as the situation unfolded in the small town east of Portland, Oregon.

At 10 a.m. local time, Troutdale Police Department Chief Scott Anderson said at the first televised press conference to follow the incident that the shooter entered the school and fatally shot one student before being neutralized. He was found dead.

“Today is a very tragic day,” Anderson said.

Reynolds was put on lockdown immediately after shots were first fired, though some students were soon after evacuated from the building.

Troutdale had a population of roughly 16,000 as of the 2010 census, and is situated just south of the state’s border with Washington. Around 2,800 students were enrolled at the school during the 2008-2009 academic year, and the school is presently the second-largest high school in the state, according to Troutdale Mayor Doug Daoust.

Troutdale was incorporated on October 2, 1907. It was named after the country home of Captain John Harlow, a former sea captain from Maine, and a successful Portland, Oregon businessman. According to an article in the Oregonian in 1959, he named his home Troutdale because it had a "small dale near his house where it had a fish pond which he stocked with trout."

Troutdale is a quiet tourist town of 15,000 near the Columbia River, about 16 miles east of downtown Portland.

It will be recalled on June 5, 2014, a 19-year-old man was killed and two other people wounded when a gunman opened fire in a building at Seattle Pacific University.

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*Name Game:

Jared (Hebrew root YRD) means "he who descended" and "a ruling, commanding, coming down."

Michael (Hebrew) means "who is like God" (mi-who, ke-as or like, El-deity), which in Talmudic tradition is interpreted as a rhetorical question: "Who is like God?" (which expects an answer in the negative) to imply that no one is like God. In this way, Michael is reinterpreted as a symbol of humility before God.

Plaggett (French) is a diminutive variant of Page, meaning a "page, a young boy in training as a personal assistant to a knight," "an attendant."

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Loren Coleman On The Paracast

There is a new online chat with Gene Steinberg and Christopher O’Brien, 

which was conducted on May 1, 2014.

I agreed to do various interviews during what I think will become known as my quiet winter-spring of 2014. One that is out already is now on the Paracast.

Here is their site's description:

The Paracast is brought to you weekly on GCN Radio. Click here to get the exclusive GCN app for your iPhone or Android smartphone!
May 4, 2014 (DOWNLOAD!): The Paracast is a paranormal radio show that takes you on a journey to a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions. The Paracast seeks to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.
Join long-time paranormal researcher Gene Steinberg, co-host Christopher O’Brien, a seasoned field investigator, and a panel of special guest experts and experiencers, as they explore the realms of the known and unknown. Listen each week to the great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.
On this week's show: Gene and Chris welcome pioneer cryptozoologist Loren Coleman back to The Paracast with an update of ongoing research into the field, including a global call for DNA evidence. You'll hear about case histories, including recent reports, along with a dose of myth busting. According to his bio: "Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say 'the' leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries."

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I discuss a wide variety of topics including cryptozoology, Bigfoot, and new species. But the hosts of the show certainly wanted to begin with the Twilight Language, the Copycat Effect, and the Fortean end of things - and that's where we went.

Besides briefly mentioning the legacy of the Museum, I can't recall actually talking about my published works, per se, resulting in my books, now or in the future. Listener questions were intriguing, interesting, and broadbased.

This Paracast is a rather casual, all-encompassing conversation that hits a lot of the landscape of my recent intellectual life. You might want to go watch a baseball game, instead, or read a good book. Cheers.

  NOW PLAYING! May 4, 2014 — Loren Coleman

The 1983 cover of the first edition of Mysterious America.

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Tecumseh Name Game Surfaces In Mass Shootings

After the release of my 2004 Simon and Schuster book, The Copycat Effect, I was ridiculed by mainstream media for pointing to rising data that was clearly indicating a reinforcement of a probable violent future.

Today, mass shootings, school shootings, and related forms of violence are routine in America.

This weekend, mass media stories are appearing noting that in the first 14 days of 2014, there have been seven school shootings, an average of one every other day. A simplistic and perhaps slightly inaccurate summary, but the stat is remarkably close to the truth, if we restrict the timeframe to the first 14 school days of the year.

Based upon a survey of small media markets about various forms of mass shootings, it appears that the frequency of these events may be higher than that quick media statistic would lead us to believe.

Here's what I've seen in the news:

January 9:

Jackson, Madison County, Tennessee ~

A 17-year-old student was wounded Thursday in a shooting at a Jackson high school, and another student was taken into custody, police said.
The 17-year-old was shot once in the left thigh outside of Liberty Technology Magnet High School and was taken by ambulance to Jackson-Madison County General Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. The shooting occurred at the front of the school at 2:21 p.m., a few minutes after dismissal time. Officials said the suspect left campus in a car. He was taken into custody about 30 minutes after the shooting.
Police took a 16-year-old Liberty student into custody at his grandmother's house on Cotton Grove Road in east Madison County.
The names of the victim and the suspect have not been released.


January 13:

Wesley Chapel, Pasco County, Florida ~

Not a school shooting, but a movie theater shooting made the news on this Monday. Curtis Reeves, Jr., 71, a retired Tampa Police Captain was arrested and held without bail for shooting a man and his wife after an apparent argument over texting while at a Wesley Chapel, Florida, movie theater.
At the Monday afternoon showing of the film Lone Survivor, Reeves and his wife were sitting behind another couple, Chad and Nicole Oulson, watching the previews, when Reeves became agitated with Chad for texting before the movie began.
At the Wesley Chapel-January 13th screening of Lone Survivor an argument broke out between the couples, popcorn was thrown, after which Reeves reportedly left the theater, came back, took out a gun and fired at Oulson and his wife. Officials said Nicole tried to block the bullet, resulting in a gunshot wound to her hand, before Chad was struck. And killed.

January 14:

Roswell, Chaves County, New Mexico ~

Tuesday, a Berrendo Middle School student opened fire in his gym with a shotgun and critically wounded two students in Roswell, New Mexico.

The injured were a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy who were "simply sitting in their gym waiting to go to class," New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said. The shooting occurred shortly before class was to begin at Berrendo Middle School.
The Eastern New Mexico Medical Center confirmed it treated two patients, who were then air lifted to the University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, located about 175 miles from the middle school.
A spokesperson for UMC said the boy, who the governor said was 12, is out of surgery and is listed in critical condition. The girl, 13, is also being treated at the hospital and is listed in serious condition, according to the spokesperson. A school staff member suffered a minor injury and declined treatment.

The 12-year-old suspect was named as Mason Campbell.

January 15:

West Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania ~

A 17-year-old boy was arrested for bringing a loaded handgun to a West Philadelphia charter school.

St. Louis, Missouri ~
A hidden-camera TV news story on security at St. Louis schools led to a Thursday afternoon lockdown at Kirkwood High and a flurry of complaints by angry parents.
A KSDK-TV reporter visited four elementary schools and the St. Louis County high school without identifying himself as a journalist. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Kirkwood students and teachers were huddled in classrooms with the lights off for about 40 minutes Thursday after a man came into the school and asked to speak with security, then left.
The station defended its reporting in a statement broadcast Thursday night before its news report on school security lapses. The statement noted that the lockdown didn't happen until one hour after the reporter left Kirkwood High.

Elkhart, Elkhart County, Indiana ~

In Elkhart, Indiana, Shawn Walter Bair, 22, killed an employee, Krystle Dikes, and a shopper, Rachelle Godfread, at the Martin's Super Market on January 15th, Wednesday night.

Although apparently a name of German or Germanic origin, the etymology of Elkhart's name is disputed. One source claims that the origin of the city's name was the Shawnee Indian Chief Elkhart, cousin of the famous Chief Tecumseh, and the father of Princess Mishawaka, the namesake of neighboring Mishawaka, Indiana.

January 17:

Albany, Dougherty County, Georgia ~

A student was shot near Albany High School, Albany, Georgia. Albany Police said the 16 year old student was shot in the arm. Officers said the victim was walking along Tift Avenue when it happened. Investigators said the student was shot with a small caliber weapon. The victim was taken to Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, but the injuries are not expected to be life-threatening.

Logan, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania ~

Two 15-year-old students were wounded Friday afternoon in what may have been an accidental shooting inside a charter high school in Logan, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia police said. One of the victims, a girl who was shot through the arm, was treated at and released from Einstein Medical Center, just blocks away from Delaware Valley Charter High School, where the shooting occurred. The second victim, her boyfriend, was struck by the same bullet, which lodged in his shoulder, police said. He remained at the hospital Friday night. The shooting took place just before 3:30 p.m. in the gym at Delaware Valley Charter High, 5201 Old York Rd., Philadelphia.

January 19-20:

Schulenburg, Fayette County, Texas:
Miguel Mejia-Ramos returned to his Queens, New York home on Sunday, January 19, and rifled through his wife's phone and Facebook account. He found an image of her with another man. He grabbed a knife from a butcher block and stood over his sleeping wife, Deisy Garcia, 21, and two daughters 2 and 1. He stabbed all of them to death. Mejia-Ramos fled in a white van, driving south to Texas. Authorities in Fayette County, Texas, say the suspect, who goes by at least one other name, was located Monday night, January 20th, after he turned on his cellphone. Authorities were able to track his location and arrest him at a vehicle roadblock on Interstate 10 in Schulenburg, Texas. The location is about 1,700 miles from New York.

January 20:

Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania ~
A school shooting, happening near the athletic center of Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, left one student in the hospital. The shooting put the campus on lockdown Monday night. The student was shot in the side while sitting in a car. The suspect remains on the run.

January 20-22:

Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina:
A 19-year-old man wanted for questioning in Fayetteville's first two homicides of 2014 turned himself in Wednesday evening.
Family members surrounded Albert Lamont Jackson, 19, of 3521 Seawell St. in Fayetteville, as he surrendered to police. Jackson was wanted for questioning in the murders of Manuel Sampeur, 25, and Pamela Ann Coe, 40, who were both found dead inside a residence at the Cambridge Arms Apartments on Monday.
Jackson, who had active warrants for assault with a deadly weapon, simple assault and communication of threats, was transported to the Cumberland County Detention Center.
The 19-year-old was the second person wanted in connection with the double homicide. Rashawn Javonte Hill, 17, was arrested Tuesday night after firing a shotgun at police.
Authorities arrived at 3611 Pickerel St. at about 11 p.m. to speak with Hill about the killings. As Fayetteville police and Cumberland County deputies entered the home, they heard a shotgun being racked from a rear bedroom. Hill then fired a single round as authorities walked down the hallway, police said. A Fayetteville police detective fired one shot at Hill. No one was hit.
Officers immediately retreated from the home and established a perimeter to ensure Hill did not escape. Hill was taken into custody without incident after authorities convinced him to surrender.

January 21: 

West Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana ~

One student was killed in a shooting on Tuesday, January 21, 2014, on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Police said the victim was a male senior and also a teaching assistant.

Purdue University Police Chief John Cox said Cody Mark Cousins, 23, of Centerville, Ohio, and Warsaw, Indiana, was being held in the Tippecanoe County Jail in Lafayette, on a preliminary charge of murder.
Cousins is accused of shooting 21-year-old Andrew F. Boldt of West Bend, Wisconsin, in the basement of the electrical engineering building around noon.
The suspect was apprehended moments after the shooting as he ran outside and was caught by West Lafayette, Indiana, police.

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Thus ended the third Fayette incident in three days. See the Fayette Factor, noted before, here. But intriguingly, another name in the background that keeps popping up in 2014 is Tecumseh.

Fayette county, Indiana, is best known for The Battle of Tippecanoe, which was fought on November 7, 1811, between United States forces led by Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and Native American warriors associated with the Shawnee leader Tecumseh.

For more on the "Curse of Tippecanoe," see here.

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Turlock, Stanislaus County, California ~

A man was shot near Turlock, California's Wakefield Elementary School Tuesday afternoon, putting the school on temporary lockdown as police searched for a fleeing suspect. According to Turlock Police Sgt. Steven Webb, the incident occurred at approximately 4:13 p.m., when persons in a late 1990s or early 2000s Honda started to argue with three other individuals near the intersection of South Avenue and Spruce Street – just across the street from Wakefield Elementary School.

The media placed this event in their list of 2014 "school shootings," but it does not really seem to fit there.

January 22:

Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma ~

Located south of Tecumseh Road, the University of Oklahoma resumed campus operations after a shooting scare.
There was no evidence of shots fired and no injuries after university officials reported a possible shooting just before noon central time on Wednesday.
"Shooting on campus. Avoid Gould Hall. Seek immediate shelter in place," the university tweeted.
The shelter in place order was lifted shortly afterward.

Gorham, Cumberland County, Maine ~

A University of Southern Maine student allegedly caused a four-hour police standoff at one of the school’s two remaining off-campus fraternity houses in Gorham, Maine. The entire downtown area was shutdown.

Alan-Michael Santos, 23, of Winchester, Massachusetts, was arrested and held on $15,000 bail at Cumberland County Jail in Portland after his arrest late Wednesday night.
Earlier, before the standoff, one of Santos's fraternity brothers had gone in to check on him and was met with a gun. Then other students started evacuating the house, and the standoff with law enforcement began. It lasted over four hours. Police executed a search warrant Thursday morning at the Sigma Nu fraternity at 24 School Street and seized two handguns that they believe belonged to Santos. They did not recover any other guns in the building.

January 23:

Littleton, Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties, Colorado ~

Police were investigating a threat made at Columbine High School in Colorado on Thursday. A lockout was lifted for seven Jefferson County schools in Colorado after a threat was made Thursday at Columbine High School. Jefferson County Public School officials that the lockdown was lifted after about a three hour lockout. During that time, no one was allowed in or out of school buildings in the area.

January 24:

Orangeburg, Orangeburg County, South Carolina ~

A student was shot and killed Friday at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Those on campus at the 3,200-student historically black university about 40 miles south of Columbia, S.C., have been told to shelter in place. The shooting took place in a dormitory. Campus officials know who fired the shots, said Sonya Bennett, a university spokeswoman, but the name of the accused shooter has not been released. Authorities were searching for the suspect.

The victim who was killed was a SCSU football player, Brandon A. Robinson, 20.

Orangeburg's first church was erected prior to 1763 in the center of the village and was destroyed during the Revolutionary War. A subsequent church building was used as a smallpox hospital by General William Tecumseh Sherman during the Civil War. General W. Tecumseh Sherman is noted for his burning of Atlanta, utilizing the "Army of the Cumberland."

A few hours after I wrote the above, the following occurred:

January 25:

Columbia, Howard County, Maryland

On Saturday reports of an active shooter at a shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland became bulletins on the news. The shooter, Darion Marcus Aguilar of College Park, Maryland, arrived at the mall shortly after 10 a.m. on Saturday armed with a Mossburg 12-gauge shotgun and used it to kill two people at a store on the upper level of the Mall of Columbia before killing himself. Police identified the dead employees as Brianna Benlolo, 21, of College Park, Maryland, and Tyler Johnson, 25, of Ellicott City and/or Mount Airy, Maryland. Both worked at Zumiez. Both worked at Zumiez, a shop that caters to skaters, where the shootings took place. 
"We have no known relationship between the victims and our shooter," Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon said at a news conference late Sunday.The body of the suspected shooter (who reportedly took his own life) was found near a shotgun on the floor of Zumiez. A large amount of ammunition was found near the body, and leading investigators to suspect that he might be carrying explosives.

The meaning and origin of the surname Aguilar is linked to the eagle. The name is found in Latin America as Aguilar meaning "sharp-eyed" as an eagle, to Spain where Aguilar means "the eagle." Linguistically Aguilar is related to aquila, a Roman name and the Black Eagle was the devise used on the Roman Legions' banners. Aguilar thus is a habitational name from any of numerous places called Aguilar, from Latin aquilare "haunt of eagles," a derivative of aquila "eagle."

Zumiez is a leading retailer for lifestyle brands centering on action sports such as skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX, and motocross.

The name Zumiez breaks down to have this complex meaning: Z is for zest, your zeal for life. Uis for uncanny, the way you know what to do. Mis for mighty, your inner strength. Iis for intense, your zest of living. Eis for extra, those little things you do! Zis for zip, the quickness in your step!

For more on the Columbus-Columbia-Columbine linkages, see here.

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Tecumseh (March 1768 – October 5, 1813), the Shawnee leader and hero, is from the name, Tekoomsē, meaning "Shooting Star" or "Panther Across The Sky." When he was still young, his father Puckshinwa was "brutally murdered" by white frontiersmen who had crossed onto Indian land in violation of a recent treaty, at the Battle of Point Pleasant (West Virginia) during Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774. Tecumseh resolved to become a warrior like his father and to be "a fire spreading over the hill and valley, consuming the race of dark souls."

"Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart...Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and in the service of your people." ~ Tecumseh

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There were 28 school shootings in all of 2013, following the Sandy Hook shooting.

Here's the listing again:

+++++

What some positive folks said about The Copycat Effect, ten years ago:

Dr. Steven Stack, sociologist, Center for Suicide Research: "The media are still largely in a state of denial on how their coverage of death contributes to the violence and destructiveness in our society -- but Coleman's book should wake them up!"

Benjamin Radford, author of Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us: "Coleman raises troubling questions about the media's hidden role in perpetuating the very crimes and tragedies they sensationalize."

Tess Gerritsen, M.D., author of The Sinner, The Last to Die, and others: "A fascinating and frightening look at the bizarre outer limits of human behavior."

Kenn Thomas, author of Popular Alienation and Popular Paranoia: "This is urgent reading."

Publishers Weekly: "A convincing case."

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Lone Star Shooting: Wall-to-Wall Media Attention

Wall-to-wall media went wild today with the reports out of Texas of a "college shooting."

Did they go overboard?

I remain convinced my hypothesis in The Copycat Effect is a valid factor, among many, in linking this kind of media attention to fostering an environment of future shootings.

This shooting, for example, does not appear to have been a random, senseless mass shooting. This was a confrontation between two individuals who apparently got into a verbal disagreement where guns were drawn. Two people started shooting, two bystanders (one white, one black) in a hallway got wounded, and one other person collapsed with an apparent heart attack. This is not to diminish it, but the processes of these kinds of school shootings are much different than homicidal-suicidal forms of school violence.

One federal official said the Texas incident was a "gang-related" shooting (read, "African-American" in this location*) versus a random school mass-shooting (read, "Caucasian"). That hints at more than the media wanted to look at, for the comparisons to Newtown, the debate on gun control, and the horror of the incident were reinforced often today.
Police descended on the campus. Lots of law enforcers. People and police are supersensitive from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The media flew overhead, on many flybys.

In North Harris, Texas, two "people of interest" (AfricanAmericans, one with a red shirt) were seen by news helicopters as having apparently already been arrested (in handcuffs).

Now the television cable news channels are interviewing students who were only marginally involved, but most are naming all their friends with whom they ran from the area. And seem to be "enjoying" the media attention.

Aerial footage from local television stations showed police cars and ambulances parked on the Lone Star College System campus about 20 miles north of downtown Houston. Emergency personnel could be seen tending to people on stretchers, while others ran from a building led by officers.
Mark Smith, spokesman for the Harris County Emergency Corps, said four people were taken to two hospitals. He said at least two had gunshot wounds, and one appeared to have had a heart attack related to the shooting. He said one was in critical condition. Source.

At least three people were shot in a shooting at Lone Star College in north Houston, Texas some time before 12:30 PM. Witnesses on the scene say the shooting may have escalated after a heated argument, possibly over a bad grade. At least two victims were caught in the crossfire and suffered “multiple gun shot wounds,” KTRK reports, and are in serious condition. They were brought into surgery at Ben Taub General Hospital. One of the victims — who was shot in the leg — is a school employee. The other, a younger student, was found on the ground unconscious, with his eyes closed. Another person on the scene suffered a heart attack. Source.

*Gang-related: In 1996, 50 percent of gang members were juveniles (i.e., younger than 18) and 50 percent were adults (i.e., 18 and older). In 1999, these numbers were 37 percent and 63 percent, respectively. In 1999, respondents reported that 47 percent of gang members were Hispanic, 31 percent African American, 13 percent white, 7 percent Asian, and 2 percent "other" (National Youth Gang Survey Trends From 1996 to 2000, 2002).

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Ten Predictions: Ten Hits

by Loren Coleman ©2012

We live in capricious, contrary, and careless times. Moments of unpredictability, therefore, are best balanced by creating a foundation of predictability and predictions.

This week, at the end of an interview with British journalist Thomas McGrath, the last question I was asked was to name three or four "predictions" that I had made, which, as the writer characterized, might be considered "especially accurate."

Global predictions are often wrong, needless to say.

In general, I don't think of myself as foreseeing the future. Making predictions is a tricky thing to do, anyway. After all, look at a few bad predictions some people have recorded:

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876.

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

In contrast to those types of incorrect "projections," you have a televised cartoon program that screened between 1962 and 1963, which correctly forecast "futuristic technologies that exist today," as Matt Houghton wrote in his "6 Current Technologies The Jetsons Predicted."

Houghton noted in that piece, for example, the Video Chat,

The Jetsons was quite early in their predictions, as well as rather persistent. Video chat is used frequently in every episode I watched. Clearly, with webcams and Skype, as well as the iPhone 4′s new FaceTime, this has quite clearly come true. 

The way I conceptualize it, I have routinely noted some of my social science (vs technology) insights that have become transformed into "predictions," based upon my reading of "patterns."

Being a futurist, I was intrigued by this journalist's request and the resulting exercise. Developing a list to point to would be instructive, historically interesting, and helpful in illustrating what I do. So, I came up with a list of ten predictions, which I shall share completely with you.

The list may seem banal, being framed from Bigfoot to baseball, with many examples of violence in between. But they all are keyed to feelings I had that something was on the horizon that needed to be shared. There are other areas I decided to not explore, such as my writings on self-immolations, which are also predictable, and often result in great social change, as happened with the Arab Spring, see here and here. With the significance of what is going on this summer, in the wake of Aurora, I knew I wanted those kinds of events to be the core of what I examined.

So, here then is my list of ten examples of my "predictions" - in historical order, from most recent back to 1989 - which, in relative terms, have been "hits."

1. August 20, 2012; Highway 93, Montana; Randy Lee Tenley incident. - Prediction, earlier on August 20, 2012.

Apparently, I make predictions all the time, without even knowing it. Sometimes they are about shootings, red dawns, Jupiter, and other events, due to perceptions that literally come into my head and get typed out onto the screen of this computer. Let me give you a minor but intriguing illustration.

Recently, correspondent Guy Edwards (who writes a popular hominology blog, Bigfoot Lunch Club, and also enjoys my twilight language writings) pointed out my serious "masks" reference at the end of a somewhat humorous posting.

I included an image paired, on purpose, with a mismatched graphic novel quote, reproduced here:

"Congress is pushing through some new bill that's gonna outlaw masks. 

Our days are numbered. Till then it's like you always say, 

we're society's only protection." 

~ Edward Blake, Watchmen, 2009.

Edwards then left this comment at the TL site: "The Edward Blake/Watchmen quote about masks paired with the Guy Fawkes masks from V for Vendetta, another great graphic novel, is either serendipitous, a form of synchronicity or just plain clever."

To which I felt compelled to privately send him a thank you email, and let flow this reply/explanation to Edwards on Sunday, August 26, 2012, at 6:43 PM Eastern time: "Totally my creative streak. It all made sense. Harmonic and all of that. I look to it being a prediction too. I expect some kind of masked event next week, for some reason."

Guy Edwards wrote me back on Thursday, August 30, 2012: "You're getting spooky Loren. Does the Randy Lee Tenley tragedy count as a 'Masked event' you were predicting in the last email? I was hesitant to attribute the Guillie suit to your mask premonition, especially since you had used masks in a vigilante sense. But I have always felt that Next Media Animation has always been able to seemingly accidentally tap the Pop Culture Zeitgeist. Even the stuff they do that gets lost in translation seems to be non-accidental."

What was being highlighted was the incident that happened late on Sunday evening, August 26th.  Randy Lee Tenley, 44, of Kalispell, Montana, reportedly was wearing a Ghillie suit, dressed up as a Bigfoot, trying to create a popular cultural hoax, got hit, and got killed on Montana's Highway 93. Tenley was struck by two innocent teenage girls in two separate cars, who were unable to avoid Tenley. The death sent shockwaves throughout the cryptozoology and related research communities, because it was the first time that a hoax had ended so tragically. Most people had thought someone in a Bigfoot costume would first be killed in a forest faking event by being shot, not struck on a road.

The Tenley incident happened on Sunday, August 26, 2012, at about 10:30 pm Mountain time (7:30 pm Eastern). I had written this writer that same night with my "masked event prediction" at 6:43 pm Eastern (9:43 pm Mountain).

Coincidence, haphazard remark, prediction? We best know our own works, sometimes, by how others internalize them.

2. August 5, 2012; Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Sikh Temple; Wade Michael Page kills 6 + self; plus other copycats. Prediction, July 23, 2012.

I said people should watch for copycats, in the wake of Aurora. The copycats, in general, did occur. But something bigger and more specific took place.

"In The Copycat Effect, the patterns I found in suicide clusters and school shootings happened over and over again in other kinds of mass shootings. In their most basic blueprint, the copycats take place exactly one week, two weeks, one month, and one year after a massively media-discussed incident of violence. The Aurora red dawn event is the first mass media incident in recent years. Wall-to-wall coverage has occurred, and copycats will happen. The correlation is direct," I wrote on July 23, 2012.

The Sikh Temple attack happened almost exactly two weeks after Aurora, fitting a pattern I saw long ago, and wrote about in my 2003 book.

3. July 20, 2012; Aurora, Colorado, Century 16 theater; allegedly James Eagan Holmes kills 12. Prediction, July 19, 2012.

It is rather well-documented by now that I predicted the Aurora event a day before it happened, and tied it directly to the opening of The Dark Knight Rises.

On July 19th, I wrote we all should expect something dramatic and perhaps deadly linked to the release of The Dark Knight Rises. I said, more specifically:

Now that the date of the release of The Dark Knight Rises and this visual Bane is upon us, let's look at the fact the film is opening on July 20, 2012. 7.20.2012. 20.7.2012.
What are the significant memorable themes associated with past July 20ths? There are two major motifs that leap forth from history: space and assassinations. 

[Then I looked at a short history of events associated with the date.] 

***
Will any events take place on July 20, 2012, of any import?
Dates of movie releases have had strange links.
The day of neo-Nazi Breivik's massacre in Norway (July 22, 2011) was the day of the release of the film Captain America (July 22, 2011), with the first scene taking place in Norway, to the sound of Nazis' rapid fire machine gunning. A bizarre coincidence, to say the least.

I've detailed these facts here (which has the source prediction blog quotes and citations), and then put this in context, biographically.

The British journalist asked me, "what time exactly on the nineteenth did you post that Aurora prediction."

The posting was time-coded on this blog, when the final edit was published:

7/19/12 9:36 AM

Eastern Daylight Time

4. Post-July 2008; Post-The Dark Knight release; Joker copycats.

Kim De Gelder, Dendermonde Joker, 2009, Fabeltjesland ("Fairytaleland"), Belgium.

In general, I wrote about and projected that Joker copycats would occur in the wake of the release 2008's of The Dark Knight. The deadly copycats of The Joker have been rather constant from 2009 through 2012, from the Dendermonde Joker, through James Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, infamy, to the most recent minor former resident of Aurora Park, Florida.

James Holmes, "I Am The Joker," 2012, Aurora, Colorado.

"I don't believe in coincidence." 

~ Batman, Justice League, 

"Starcrossed," 2004.

5. February 14, 2008; NIU, DeKalb, Illinois, Steven Phillip Kazmierczak kills 5 + self. Prediction, February 9, 2008.

On February 9, 2008, I wrote (see here and here):
"If we have learned anything from the recent past, awareness of the shifting patterns are often instructive in predicting the near future. Look for major surprises in school shootings and similar mass rampages..."

The Valentine's Day Northern Illinois University shooting happened five days later. It is the fifth-deadliest university shooting in United States history.

6. April 16, 2007; Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia; Seung-Hui Cho kills 32 + self. Prediction, October 3, 2006.

During the fall of 2006, in emails to Canadian media, I shared some specifics pointing to the coming scope and date of the Virginia Tech massacre:

In that article, I was quoted as noting the psychological process that these shooters appear to be 'competing for the highest body count.' Sadly, we've seen that come true today [on April 16, 2007].
Also, the news item from last fall [2006] noted: 'He says that while the Pennsylvania shootings may not be the last in this cluster, the copycat crimes will likely slow down as we near winter. He says spring, and the anniversary of Columbine [April 20th], could be enough to spark another cycle of tragedy.'
Again, my prediction of a reigniting of the school shooting wildfire during this very week was revealed today [on April 16, 2007].

The Virginia Tech event is the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in U.S. history and one of the deadliest in the world.

7. September 27 (Platte Canyon High School, Bailey, Colorado), September 29 (Weston High School, Cazenovia, Wisconsin), October 6 (Old Order Amish one-room school, Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania), 2006, series. - Prediction, September 18, 2006.

In the wake of the Montreal's Dawson College shooting, I predicted there would be a wave of school shootings. My predictive email of September 18, 2006, was noted by the CTV/Canadian media, and is archived here.

8. March 21, 2005; Red Lake, Minnesota, Jeffrey Weise kills 9 + self. Prediction, March 18, 2005.

Jeff Weise

I predicted on March 18, 2005 that we all needed to watch for a school shooting of some import in 2005, from March 20th through April 20th, probably involving a Neo-Nazi, as per The Copycat Effect. 

It happened almost immediately as soon as this time frame began, on March 21, 2005, when Native, Satanist and Neo-Nazi 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather (a Sergeant with the Red Lake Police Department) and his grandfather's girlfriend. He then drove his grandfather's police vehicle to Red Lake Senior High School, where he shot and killed seven people on the school campus, consisting of five students, one teacher and an unarmed security guard, and wounded five others. In the end, Weise also killed himself with the police-issued shotgun he'd stolen from his grandfather. Red Lake is the second deadliest massacre at a U.S. high school, only behind the Columbine High School massacre.

Widespread media credit was given to me for predicting this incident. Of course, no one who read my prediction was in any position to prevent what happened at Red Lake, so the media recognition carried with it an emptiness, unless people pay attention to the next time. (See more documentation on this prediction, here, here, and here.)

9. Post-April 20, 1999; Post-Columbine copycats. Prediction, April 1999.

Working as a youth suicide and school violence prevention consultant for the State of Maine, I had been predicting (from 1996-1999) that the ramifications of the copycat effect from school shootings were being greatly underestimated. After the Littleton, Colorado shootings at Columbine High School, on April 20, 1999, I predicted there would be a wave of school incidents occurring in the wake of Columbine. One fatality did take place a week after Columbine, at the W.R. Myers High School in Taber, Alberta, and 450 copycat incidents happened across the USA in the month after the Columbine school shooting.  I have continued to document the Columbine copycats into 2012.

10. Major League Baseball player suicides, Summer 1989. Prediction, October 4, 1988.

The Copycat Effect, pages 208, 212-216:

In 1987-88, I undertook a study of baseball player suicides, which led to a
significant statistical prediction. At the time, I was a project director and
principal investigator of a three-year quarter-million dollar federal project
on suicides at the University of Southern Maine. And having had a passionate
interest in baseball all my life, I wondered if the databases that existed for
ballplayers could provide any clues, in terms of stories or statistics, which
might inform the trends and patterns in baseball players’ suicides and suicide
clustering.
…[After a decade of no Major League Baseball players dying by suicide, I saw the likelihood of that changing was going to be immediately upon us.]
At the end of the baseball season in 1988, I predicted that, as the decade ended, a major league baseball player would die by suicide. I wrote a letter dated October 4, 1988, to then commissioner Peter Ueberroth and every team owner noting that a baseball player suicide was statistically likely in 1989 or 1990, and asking that a study be undertaken to see if a retirement counseling program for ballplayers would be justified.
As Sports Illustrated detailed in the July 31, 1989 issue (pp. 7):
“Sadly, Coleman's prediction came true last week. On July 18, at his home in
Anaheim, Calif., former All-Star relief pitcher Donnie Moore drew a gun, shot and critically wounded his wife, Tonya, with whom police say he had been arguing, and then shot and killed himself. Moore, 35, had been released on June 12 by the Kansas City Royals' minor league affiliate in Omaha. Friends say that Moore was haunted by memories of the two-strike, two-out, ninth-inning home run he gave up to Dave Henderson of the Boston Red Sox while pitching for the Angels in Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series. If Moore had retired Henderson, California would have won the series four games to one. Instead, Boston won Game 5 in extra innings and then triumphed in Games 6 and 7 to advance to the World Series against the Mets.”
In 2001 ESPN Classics noted that Moore had told reporters in 1988, "I'll think about that [pitch] until the day I die."
My earlier findings showed Moore's death fit the typical pattern for baseball player suicides. Moore, like half the players who took their lives, had used a gun. He was, like more than half of baseball player suicide victims, between his late 20s and late 40s. And like 15% of the victims, he died within two years after their major league careers had ended. Moore's final big league season was 1988. But perhaps most notable of all, Moore, as with all pitchers before him in the 20th century who had killed themselves, was a right-handed pitcher. Curiously, teammates had given Moore the nickname “Lefty” because he seemed perhaps a little unpredictable, just as the mythic left-handed pitcher is said to be. One wonders if it is the left-handed pitchers’ flexible style that produces an acceptable coping mechanism for their stresses and serves as a protective factor against suicides.
While the media tend to always discuss the Moore suicide, it was only one of many in 1989. It was only after Moore’s suicide that we learned that three other Major Leaguers and one college player had killed themselves earlier that year. Dan Haycock, 19, a sophomore pitcher for Virginia's James Madison University's baseball team shot himself on February 12, 1989. He had been charged with drunk driving at 2:00 a.m. the morning of his death. His body was found near home plate with the 12-gauge shotgun he had used. He had left a note. On April 5th, the day after the Pittsburgh Pirates opening day, Carlos Bernier, an outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1953, hung himself in Puerto Rico. Mike Reinbach, 39, a Baltimore Orioles outfielder for one year in 1974, drove his car off a San Diego, in a suicide on May 20th. On May 30, 1989, Virgil Stallcup, a pitcher with the Cincinnati Reds in the late 1940s and early 1950s, shot himself.
Then within a week of the Moore suicide, a rising African-American college basketball star, Ricky Barry, 24, of the Sacramento Kings, killed himself using a gun in August 1989. How many other young African-American ball players died by suicide after the Moore death is unknown, because no one in MLB was tracking what was going on in 1989. The baseball establishment and the sports media circled their wagons, and little was heard of Donnie Moore or other suicidal players for years.
While Barry’s suicide may have been modeled on Moore’s suicide, those that preceded Moore’s suicide clearly were not. But was Donnie Moore’s death was a copycat itself? Certainly those prior suicides would have been well known within the small fraternity of baseball players.
In any case, the suicides have continued.
On May 31, 1990, almost a year exactly to the day of Stallcup’s suicide,
Charlie Shoemaker, a Kansas City second baseman in 1961-62, 1964, shot himself.

I take no joy in my predictions being true, but to ignore the patterns that are there and to not try to communicate them to those who would listen, I feel, would be the greater irresponsible act.

This way a storm comes....

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