Ciancia Named Suspect in LAX Killing of TSA Agent; Cianan Is Name of JFK Suspect

Ciancia allegedly has "strong anti-government views," reported NBC's Pete Williams. This assessment was determined by the "anti-goverment materials" in his possession when he was captured. The AP noted Ciancia, who was dressed in military-style fatigues, carried a handwritten note that said he "wanted to kill TSA and pigs." Source.

Minutes after a TSA agent was allegedly shoot and killed at LAX at Terminal 3, an "expert" - a former FBI agent - on CNN was telling the television viewing audience this incident was a "lone-wolf" attack. How can anyone say such things so early when they didn't even know if the shooter was alive or dead? Was TSA or not?

Another seemingly random event has happened. Another suspect in custody. Or another suspect dead. Another group of people injured in a shooting and, at least, one person has been killed. Reports in the beginning were so confusing.

Earlier reports that a suspect was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, November 1, 2013, are incorrect. This supposedly occurred after a shooting at a Terminal 3 checkpoint left a TSA employee injured, one killed, and has produced "mutiple victims."

"Suspect is now in custody. Multiple victims," LAX officials said in a tweet.

One update end stated, "Law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times that the gunman was a Transportation Security Administration employee at LAX. The gunman was killed by authorities after he opened fire Friday morning. He allegedly shot and killed a fellow TSA employee."

LAPD Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger says the suspect, who was armed with a semi-automatic rifle, was apparently injured in an exchange of gunfire.

CNN reports that the gunman approached a checkpoint at the terminal and opened fire. Airport officials said the incident began at 9:30 a.m. PT.

Finally, late on Friday, the suspect in the shooting at Los Angeles International Airport was identified as Paul Anthony Ciancia, a 23-year-old from Los Angeles, the FBI said.

Ciancia is an Italian word that means, literally, "gossip" or "tittle tattle."

He allegedly used an AR-15.

Investigators found materials and information on the suspect expressing anti-federal government sentiment and anger at the Transportation Security Administration, a federal law enforcement official said. A TSA officer was killed in the shooting.

The suspected gunman was detained after being shot in the chest multiple times, according to an intelligence source briefed by Los Angeles police.

Airport attackers' name game?

So, what are synchromystic chances of this happening?

The alleged November 1st LAX shooter's name is Paul Anthony Ciancia.

The alleged October 26th JFK gunman's name is Keenan Draughon, with Keenan being another form of Cianán.

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Hollywood synchs at LAX, during shooting:

Mythbusters stars Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci were in the Virgin lounge of Terminal 3 when the shooting began. Belleci sent a photo and messages out about the mayhem.

James Franco, Chris Harrison & Fox Sports Analyst Bill Reiter used Twitter to relay information from inside Los Angeles International Airport moments after Friday's shooting. Source.

Actress Tatum O'Neal was in Terminal 4.

Mad Men was filming at Terminal 4, as shooting began in Terminal 3. Source.

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Leek is Keel Backwards: Mothman's Name Game and More Revealed

Richard Hatem, known for Grimm today and The Mothman Prophecies screenwriter, is directly responsible for bringing the story of the winged weirdie to theaters in 2002.

John A. Keel's book, The Mothman Prophecies, was first published in 1975. 

It is hard to believe today, but people forgot about the book. Then on October 1, 1991 ­ IllumiNet Press published the first reprint of The Mothman Prophecies in decades. It is this edition that screenwriter Richard Hatem "discovered" in an old book store, and decided to get someone interested in producing a movie from the book.

This happened in the spring of 1997. Struck by insomnia one night, Richard Hatem drifted into a Pasadena bookstore. A used copy of The Mothman Prophecies almost literally fell from a shelf into his hands, as if guided to him by a "library angel," as they are called. Hatem soon was engaged in reading Keel's book through the night. The next day, he contacted John Keel, and immediately began work on the screenplay that Lakeshore Entertainment bought in 1998.

The movie, steered by Richard Pellington, then known for his conspiracy thriller, Arlington Road, directed The Mothman Prophecies and it hit theaters in 2002.

For Halloween in 2013, Huff Post published a list of recommended Halloween horror movies, and included The Mothman Prophecies among their top 13.

The movie is a creepy one to re-view again, and I recommend everyone do so.

Watch for some of these strange errors and name game puns. For instance, the clock radio in character John Klein's motel room reads: 6:14. It's a biblical reference to John Chapter 6 verse 14, which reads, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."

Continuity and geographic errors usually happen in movies. It is just curious to notice which ones pop up in this film.

In the film, you can see an obvious Pittsburgh landmark (the Masonic Temple, home of the Pitt Alumni Association) appearing in the background of scenes supposedly set in Washington, DC, and Chicago.

The Richard Gere character passes a sign for Maine Avenue as he leaves Washington, driving from Memorial Bridge to Interstate 95. Maine Avenue is in the opposite direction and there are no signs for Maine Avenue on any of the roads he could have taken to get to I-95.

During the Christmas tree lighting festivities, the door of the fire truck reads "Saxonburg" (a town near Kittanning in Pennsylvania where the scene was filmed) not Point Pleasant (where it is set).

On Klein's drive from Point Pleasant to Chicago, a glimpse of an exit sign for "New Kensington" can be seen. There is no "New Kensington" between West Virginia and Illinois, but there is one near Pittsburgh, where the movie was shot.

Released to theatres in 2002, “The Mothman Prophecies” follows John Klein, played by Richard Gere, as he leaves his Washington newspaper job to investigate sightings of winged creatures, referred to as “Mothman,” in a small West Virginia town. The film claims to be based on actual events that occurred in Point Pleasant, W.Va., between November 1966 and December 1967. Loren Coleman, founder and director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine, was a consultant during the production of “The Mothman Prophecies.” According to Coleman, the film, which is based on the 1975 book of the same name by parapsychologist John Keel, is a fictionalized narrative of actual events. “‘The Mothman Prophecies’ is based in reality, but the film is [director] Mark Pellington’s docudrama/fictionalized narrative motion picture of the events,” Coleman told HuffPost. “The characters … were created from parts of the personality and experiences of … Keel. Even the character names are formed via movie scriptwriters as puns, for example [Alexander] Leek [is] Keel backwards.”

Keel and me. Photo by Patrick Huyghe.

John Keel thoroughly enjoyed the film, and was touched to see his name on the screen. He never thought that would happen to him, he told his friends (like me). He also enjoyed the little bit of money he earned from the studio, although this late in his life, it didn't change his lifestyle. He was having major health issues with his eyes, and I was asked on board to help him out with the promotional publicity. John and I appear as the "Mothman experts" in Search for the Mothman, the documentary bundled with the deluxe versions of the film. But, of course, John was the man. It will always be his film, to me.

The writers had fun with the script, and the film is a series of in-jokes. For example, John Alva Keel was born Alva John Kiehle, and the first “John Keel” character in the movie is named “John Klein.” Alan Bates’ character has a similar name game.

In 2002, I wrote a discussion, “The Mothman Prophecies: ‘Gordon Smallwood’ and Some Strange Happenings,” of the name game in the film for a science fiction site.

Here are some excerpts:

In the new motion picture, The Mothman Prophecies ( based on the book of the same name by John Keel), chemical plant worker “Gordon Smallwood” (Will Patton), is deeply upset by late-night visits, he thinks, from reporter “John Klein” (Richard Gere). ”Smallwood” also believes that an entity named Indrid Cold is communicating with him, and this is slowly driving him, well, to turn a phrase, batty. ”Gordon Smallwood” is loosely based on contactee Woody Derenberger, who reported encounters with an Indrid Cold in West Virginia during the period of the Mothman sightings there in 1966-1967. This is all rather obvious, and the “Smallwood” and Woody link is not hard to see.
Right after the movie’s opening, Jerome “Jerry” Clark, author ofThe UFO Book, posted the following on an online UFO group: ”I wonder how many of you who’ve seen the movie caught the deep-inside-the-ufological-beltway use of the name ‘Gordon Smallwood’ for the Will Patton character?”
No one answered, but many were interested in learning what the in-joke was all about.
Jerry Clark explained: ”Gordon Smallwood is a pseudonym Gray Barker [the late West Virginia ufologist, and friend of John A. Keel] used for Quebec ufologist Laimon Mitris, who allegedly was visited by a man in black. See chapter 13 of They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. Barker writes, ’I would like to know someone by the name of Gordon Smallwood. The name in itself sounds honest and reputable. If there are any Gordon Smallwoods reading this book, let them rest assured the name used here is an invention. But let them write to me for I would like to know people with such a name.‘”
The Mothman Prophecies movie has many layers of meanings and a few inside jokes: from the Fortean number game turning up in the night visits related by “Gordon Smallwood”, the selection of names (e.g. Leek = Keel), and even on-camera appearances. Notice the imposing figure of the bartender at the Marriott who helps the Richard Gere character with the television channels. That’s director Mark Pellington in his Alfred Hitchcock-like cameo.

Pellington was also the voice of Indrid Cold during the phone call.

Mark Pellington, furthermore, occasionally added his voice under the dialogue of characters who spoke on the phone with John Klein, throughout The Mothman Prophecies. Pellington said the intention was to create the illusion that Indrid Cold could be any one of those people, and that the entire situation and all the people might actually be in Klein's head.


On October 28, 2013, the film’s head writer, Richard Hatem, posted a tweet saying, “Thanks Loren – I knew guys like you would get the jokes.”

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A Name Does Not A Wise Man Make

The TWA Flight Center, Idlewild, was designed by Eero Saarinen.

New York City's largest airport, once known as Idlewild (for a former golf course), has been called John F. Kennedy International Airport since 1964.

At John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday morning, October 26, 2013, a 23-year-old man carrying two handguns, two defaced rifles and high-capacity magazines was arrested.

The man approached a United Airlines counter around 7:45 a.m. and told an attendant that he had two cases containing firearms that he wanted to check for his flight. His cases contained two 9-millimeter pistols, two magazines capable of holding 15 rounds of 9-millimeter ammunition, and two .22-caliber rifles. One of the rifles had a round in the chamber, and both were missing serial numbers. The two rifles had been painted, one purple and one silver, and the young man also had a shotgun with him.

Keenan Draughon, of Clarksville, Tennessee, had the weapons in his luggage, according to Port Authority Police, who said that one of the rifles was loaded.

Draughon, who was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, was traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Keenan (Cianán) is a male Irish name which means "ancient, distant." Keenan is an Anglicization of the Irish name Cianán which is a diminutive of Cian. The Ó Cianáin clan (Keenan) were the traditional historians to the McGuire clan.

The ancient pre-10th century Gaelic name O' Cianain meaning "The descendant of the faithful one" or something similar. It may not have been entirely coincidence that the clan was famous throughout the Medieval Period for producing both high-ranking members of the church, and early historians, in several cases the same thing.

Draughon is a version of Drohan, an Irish name, a reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Druacháin, "descendant of Druachán," a byname representing a diminutive of druach, "wise man."

Was Keenan Draughon a masterful ancient wise man, in this situation in the old lands of Idlewild?

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Black Thursday 2013: CVS Hostages, Vortex Injuries, and Millington Shooting

"Black Thursday," October 24, 1929, was the start of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 at the New York Stock Exchange. 

October 24, 2008, was "Bloody Friday," which saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.

It has been an active week, in general. On October 24, 2013, it was a "Bloody Thursday" of the usual violent kind of late.

The CVS is located at 6750 Wilkinson Blvd, Belmont, North Carolina.

A hostage situation developed for many hours during a robbery attempt in North Carolina. Police identified the suspect in that armed robbery-hostage situation at CVS in Belmont, N.C., as Edward Scott Russ, 46, according to NBC News.

Police in Belmont [NC] say a gunman who was holed up inside a CVS Pharmacy has come out and surrendered to investigators.
Edward Scott Russ, 46, of Gastonia, took the three employees inside the store hostage.
Russ was charged with first degree kidnapping, two counts of second degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, communicating threats, two counts of assault on a law enforcement officer with a firearm and two counts of attempted first degree murder, according to Belmont police.
The incident began around 2 a.m. at the CVS Pharmacy on the 6700 block of Wilkinson Boulevard, according to Belmont police.
Police say Russ walked into the store with a SKS scope mounted rifle in an attempt to commit an armed robbery.
Two officers arrived on scene and the gunman opened fire.
10 agencies are on scene with SWAT teams and negotiators who are talking to the man on the phone.
The three employees who were being held as hostages were released by Russ around 6 a.m.
Investigators monitored Russ using the live surveillance footage from the pharmacy cameras inside the drug store.
A two block radius around the store was cordoned off by police during the standoff.
...Russ' mother after the standoff...said it is very out of character for her son to do something like this and she just doesn't know what happened.
CVS Pharmacy released a statement in response to the incident:
"We are pleased to confirm that none of our employees were harmed during the incident in Belmont and we want to thank law enforcement in Charlotte and Belmont for their quick response and resolution. WBTV Source.

Elsewhere in North Carolina, there was an accident at the state fair.

Five people were injured during an accident at the North Carolina State Fair [at Raleigh, NC] Thursday night [October 24, 2013] and two have since been released from the hospital, according to officials.
Two of the five injured sustained serious injuries after an incident on the Vortex ride behind the Expo Center, officials said.
Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said the victims are between the ages of 14 and 39. Harrison confirmed some of the victims are family members. One of the injured was a ride operator, Harrison said.
Harrison asked for any cellphone video of the accident to be given to authorities.
"The ride had stopped and they were fixing to offload when it started off again. That is preliminary report," Harrison said.
An EMS source told WNCN five passengers were ejected while attempting to exit the ride. The EMS source said all five were initially unconscious but three regained consciousness.
One of the injured suffered serious head injuries. Another victim had injuries similar to a concussion, according the EMS source.
Brian Long, public affairs director with the State Fair, said the ride is located between gates 4 and 5 on the lower midway.
Long said an ambulance was on scene within a minute of the first call just after 9 p.m. Long said all five victims were transported to WakeMed by 9:37 p.m.
"This has shaken all of us," Long said. "We definitely have these folks in our thoughts and prayers."
The N.C. Department of Labor will inspect the ride and the Sheriff's Office will investigate the incident, Long said.
...
Witness Caleb Norris told WNCN he heard a crashing sound just after exiting the Vortex ride. Norris said he turned around and saw two people lying face down.
Norris also said he saw the ride operator fall to his knees and start crying.
The Vortex ride was manufactured by Technical Park International of Italy. Fair officials said this is the first time this Vortex ride has been at the N.C. State Fair.
There are two Vortex rides on the Fairgrounds while the other Vortex, located on the new Midway, has been on site for many years and is manufactured by Fabbri of Italy, the State Fair confirmed. Brian Long, the spokesman for the State Department of Agriculture, said the two Vortex rides are completely different although they have the same name. WNCN Source.

Earlier, in Tennessee, violence had visited a military base.

A member of the National Guard opened fire at an armory outside a U.S. Navy base in [Millington] Tennessee, wounding two soldiers before being subdued and disarmed by other soldiers, officials said Thursday.
Millington Police Chief Rita Stanback said the shooter was apprehended Thursday by other National Guard members, and that he did not have the small handgun used in the shooting in his possession by the time officers arrived. Stanback said two National Guard members were shot, one in the foot and one in the leg.
...
The Tennessee National Guard late Thursday identified those shot as Maj. William J. Crawford and Sgt. Maj. Ricky R. McKenzie. The shooter’s name has not been released.
In a news release, Guard spokesman Randy Harris said the two were shot while disarming the gunman.
Haston said all three of the men were recruiters. He said the shooter was a sergeant first class who had been in the Guard about six or seven years and that the victims were his superiors. He said the recruiters who were shot were based in Jackson, Tenn.
...the shooting happened inside an armory building just outside Naval Support Activity Mid-South. There are more than 7,500 military, civilian and contract personnel working on the base, according to the facility’s official website. The facility is home to human resources operations and serves as headquarters to the Navy Personnel Command, Navy Recruiting Command, the Navy Manpower Analysis Center and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Finance Center. Washington Post source.

The shooter was named on Friday.

Amos Patton seen in this 2013 file photo from a local school event, has been identified as the alleged shooter in Thursday's shooting at the Tennessee Army National Guard Armory in Millington.

FBI officials searched the Cordova home of the suspected National Guard Armory shooter later in the evening. Neighbors say the home belongs to Sergeant First Class Amos Patton.

Patton served as a recruiter for the Army National Guard for nearly 20 years. Before the shooting, Patton's bosses had come to town to talk with him about administrative policies and procedures.
According to an Action News 5 reliable source, Patton went to his car in the midst of his meeting and retrieved a computer bag and waist pack. He then asked to go to the restroom, but the commanders insisted the computer bag remain with them. No one noticed the waist pack when Patton wheeled around and took a semi-automatic 380 pistol out, according to our source. WMCTV Source.

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Rage School in the News

A day after I talked about the first modern era school shooting in 1996 - which ended in students and a math teacher killed - and which was inspired by Stephen King's Rage - today that same school is the center of a violent school incident.

(CNN) -- A Washington state middle school boy was arrested Wednesday and faces an attempted murder charge, after he brought 400 rounds of ammunition, multiple knives and a handgun to his school, police said.

The 11-year-old was booked into a juvenile detention facility after the incident that caused the lockdown of Frontier Middle School, Vancouver Police said.

The school, in Vancouver, Washington, was locked down for about two hours. Parents received letters alerting them of the situation, said Kris Fay, a spokeswoman for the Evergreen School District.

There were no injuries. Police did not say who was allegedly being targeted.

Note the spokeswoman is named Fay. (For significance, see "The Fayette Factor.")

The earlier Frontier Middle School shooting was a school shooting that occurred on February 2, 1996 at Frontier Middle School in Moses Lake, Washington, United States. The gunman, 14-year-old Barry Dale Loukaitis (born February 26, 1981), killed his algebra teacher and two students, and held his classmates hostage for ten minutes before a gym coach subdued Loukaitis. He is currently serving two life sentences and an additional 205 years in prison.

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They Are Killing Math Teachers

Two math teachers have been killed in two days, in school violence incidents in Nevada and Massachusetts. The killing of math teachers initially surfaced at the beginning of the modern era of school shootings.

More on that history in a moment, but first, some details on today's event.

Investigators search the woods behind the high school in Danvers

The 14-year-old boy who was arraigned (October 23, 2013) Wednesday afternoon on a murder charge in the death of a Massachusetts teacher was named in court as Philip Chism. He is being held without opportunity for bail in the death of Colleen Ritzer, a teacher at Danvers High School in Danvers, Massachusetts.

WCVB-TV reports that after the gruesome killing Chism (pictured) walked to the nearest movie theater and watched Blue Jasmine, a movie about a middle-aged woman's mental breakdown.

The 14-year-old boy was being held on suspicion of murder Wednesday after the body of a female teacher was found in woods near the high school in Danvers, Massachusetts. All seven schools in the suburban Boston town were closed as a result of the investigation. The report of Colleen Ritzer's death comes two days after a student with a gun killed a teacher in Sparks, Nevada.

Authorities found Ritzer's body behind Danvers High School after the 24-year-old failed to return home after classes Tuesday, the Essex County District Attorney's Office said. Searchers found blood in a second-floor bathroom, District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett told reporters at a news conference. He did not release the cause of her death. The boy, who also had been reported missing Tuesday afternoon, was arrested early Wednesday after being found walking down a street, Blodgett said.

There are no other suspects, he said. He was arraigned Wednesday afternoon in Salem, Massachusetts, on a murder charge and was ordered held without bail. Blodgett did not say whether the boy is a student at the school and said he could not release the boy's name or his connection to Ritzer because he is a juvenile. "This is a terrible tragedy for Colleen Ritzer and the entire Danvers community," Blodgett said. Ritzer graduated from Assumption College in 2011, the school said on Twitter. She in was pursuing a master's degree in school counseling at Salem State University, that school said in a prepared statement.

"As a dedicated teacher, Colleen wanted to work with and help children with special needs," an e-mail from the university read. "She believed children have much to offer and often do not realize how special they are as individuals.

In her application to Salem State she said she was dedicated to 'helping students in times of need.' " Ritzer's aunt, Shirley Martellucci, said the family was in shock. "We're holding up as best we can," she said. Ritzer, who lived with her parents, was in her second year teaching at the school and was working on her master's degree, Martellucci said. She had never had any trouble with students, she said. "She always wanted to be a teacher, all her life," Martellucci said.

"It's just unbelievable that someone would take her life at such a young age." Ritzer's students were similarly dismayed.

Freshman Spencer Wade described Ritzer as "one of the best math teachers I've ever had."

As noted in great detail in The Copycat Effect, the "modern era" of school shootings began in the USA on February 2, 1996, in Moses Lake, Washington.

The new pattern that was shown in that shooting was of a male student (not an outsider) entering the school and killing his classmates and teachers. In the Moses Lake event, Barry Loukaitis, 14, in this Columbine precusor, dressed all in black, including a long coat (apparently more of a Western duster than a trenchcoat), held his algebra class hostage, killed two students, wounded another severely, and killed his algebra teacher, Leona Caires.

Loukaitis then turned to the class and said "This sure beats algebra, doesn't it?"

The quotation was nearly a direct one taken from a Stephen King book, Rage, about a school shooting of an algebra teacher that Loukaitis allegedly used as the model for his attack. The first novel by Stephen Kingpublished under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1977. King withdrew the book from publication three years later, after Columbine.

Loukaitis had planned the shootings carefully, getting ideas, he said, from the Stephen King book Rage (1977). In it, a troubled high school boy takes a gun to fictional Placerville High School, kills his algebra teacher “Mrs. Underwood,” another school adult “Mr. Vance,” and takes the algebra class hostage. Police would find a collection of Stephen King's books in Loukaitis' bedroom, including his well-worn copy of Rage.

The Rage scenario had been played out before in real life. At Valley High School, Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 19, 1982, after algebra teacher Clarence Piggot refused to cancel a public speaking assignment; 17-year-old Patrick Lizotte gunned him down. Patrick also wounded two other 17-year-old students during his rampage. He left the school and was killed nearby during a shootout with the police. On January 18, 1993, Scott Pennington, 17, took his senior English class captive at East Carter High School, in Grayson, Kentucky. He killed his teacher and a custodian. Pennington would tell investigators later that he only read Rage after the shooting. In 1997, Rage would be linked to another shooting. A copy of Rage was found in the locker of Michael Carneal, a high school shooter in West Paducah, Kentucky.

Stephen King discussed the role of Rage after the Loukaitis shootings and eventually King apologized for writing the book, saying he penned it during a troubling period in his life. He said he wished it never had been published. Finally in 1999, he told his publisher to pull it from publication and took it out-of-print. He told the Today Show’s Katie Couric: “I took a look at Rage and said to myself, if this book is acting as any sort of accelerate, if it’s having any effect on any of these kids at all, I don’t want anything to do with it, regardless of what may be the moral and legal rights and wrongs. Even talking about it makes me nervous.”

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Teacher and Gunman Die in Sparks School Shootings

Michael Landsberry is a victim of the Sparks Middle School shooting.

This morning, Monday, October 21, 2013, two shootings in Nevada and one in Detroit have started off this week's news cycle.

Police said the first shots in the Sparks, Nevada, shooting were fired from a semiautomatic handgun at 7:16 a.m. (9:16 a.m. ET), just before classes got underway.

The school shooting in Sparks, left two students wounded, and the gunman dead from his own suicide. One teacher was also killed.

A family member of a [math] teacher killed in a shooting on the campus of Sparks Middle School in northern Nevada identified him as 45-year-old Michael Landsberry.
Landsberry was one of two people who died after gunfire rang out on the campus about 7:15 a.m. Monday, shortly before began. A student, who police said was the likely shooter, also died, while two other boys students were critically injured.
One was out of surgery and the other was doing well, according to police.
...
Police said the shooting happened on the school's campus, but outside the school building itself.

Michael Landsberry served two tours in Afghanistan with the Nevada National Guard and was well known in the school community.

According to Landsberry's sister-in-law, the teacher was a military veteran.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval said he was saddened to learn of the horrific shooting.
...
Sen. Harry Reid, D-NV, said he sends his condolences to the victims' families.
"No words of condolence could possible ease the pain, but I hope it is some small comfort that Nevada mourns with them," Reid said in a statement.
Rep. Dina Titus, D-District 1, called Monday a harrowing day for the state.
"My thoughts are with the victims' families and all those affected by this morning's tragic shooting at Sparks Middle School," Titus said in a statement.
Sen. Dean Heller, R-NV, also extended his condolences.
"Today's events at Sparks Middle School are unsettling and concerning," Heller said in a statement.
The school enrolls about 700 students in 7th and 8th grades. Source.

Yes, the name Reid popped up again.

The meaning of the name Landsberry is worthy of examining:

Recorded in various spellings including: Landsbury, Lansbery, Lansberry, Langsbury, and Lansbury, this is an English surname of conjectural origins. It appears to originate from a place called 'Lang byrig' or similar, Olde English pre 7th century words meaning 'the long fort', however no such place, or any similar spelling, is to be found in any of the known gazetters of the British Isles. This is not in itself wholly unusual. An estimated five thousand surnames of Britain are believed to derive from 'lost' medieval sites, of which the only reminder of the place in the 20th century is the surname itself. This is often, as with this one, in a wide variety of spellings, itself a further indication of a 'lost' site. As to why places disappeared is a subject of a separate study by the Historical Monuments Commission of England and Wales. This survey indicates that changes in agricultural practice in the 17th century are the usual reasons, but the plagues of medieval times, and even civil war in a few instances, have played their part. In this case examples of the surname recordings have been taken from the surviving registers of the diocese of Greater London. These include William Lansberry at St Olaves church, Southwark, on September 27th 1657, John William Landsbury at St Johns Hackney, on June 3rd 1787, Thomas Lansbury, who married Mary Parsons at the famous church of St Mary-le-Bone, on March 13th 1810, and Elizabeth Langsbury, who married Daniel Kite at St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, on June 11th 1821. Source.

(See this other earlier source.)

In 2006, a boy using his father’s .38-caliber pistol opened fire at another Reno-area middle school and wounded a boy and girl, both 14, a local newspaper said. A gym teacher was honored later for ending the episode by telling the boy to drop the gun and bear-hugging him. James Scott Newman, 14 at the time of that shooting, pleaded guilty to battery with a deadly weapon and got house arrest until he completed 200 hours of community service.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Nevada on the same day as the Sparks shooting,

Police say one person is dead and two others are injured in a shooting in a Las Vegas Strip nightclub inside Bally's casino.
Las Vegas police Lt. Jay Roberts said a suspect is in custody. The victims were taken to University Medical Center.
Roberts says the shooting happened before 6 a.m. Monday at Drai's, an after-hours club. Source.

And there was also a shooting in Detroit:

Police say two women are dead and a man is in custody after a shooting at a Detroit senior center.
The shooting happened Sunday evening after police say the 65-year-old suspect had an argument with his girlfriend that ended their relationship. They say the man went to his apartment at the Pablo Davis Elder Living Center, got a rifle and started looking for two residents he blamed for the breakup.
Police spokeswoman Kelly Miner says the man shot the first woman, who was in her 50s, as she sat on a bench outside the apartment building. Miner says he then went inside and shot the second woman, who was in her 60s.

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