Another A-Hole With An AR-15 Shoots Up An Oregon Supermarket
Thank you, Second Amendment!
Sunday, a gunman opened fire inside a Safeway supermarket in Bend, Oregon. Armed with a shotgun and an AR-15, he murdered two people, 84-year-old Glenn Edward Bennett and 64-year-old Safeway employee Donald Ray Surrett. He shot at least two other people, who fortunately survived, before he ended his rampage with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Responding officers found two Molotov cocktails in his car, along with a sawed-off shotgun.
The gunman reportedly subjected the world to an unhinged, Taxi Driver -style 56-page manifesto that he probably thought distinguished him somehow but it’s actually tediously textbook: He blames his homicidal impulses on the government, technology, COVID-19 lockdowns that fully ended almost a year ago, and of course women, because misogyny is the standard gateway drug to violence. Like a message from Donald Trump, the manifesto was rambling, self-obsessed, and oddly punctuated.
From The Daily Beast:
“I can’t wait to just send a Bullet into someone’s Brain,” Miller wrote in the first entry, on July 29. “This is going to be the Bloodiest and Most Gruesome Massacre in the History of Massacres! I want Blood, Guts, Brain Matter, and Pieces of Skull & Flesh to Paint the Walls and Floors. Then I wanna End my Life Here in the Most Violent Way Possible. By Eating the Barrel of My Shotgun then Blowing my Head Off & Evacuating my Brain with Buckshot.”
The 20-year-old gunman had planned to murder students and faculty at his former school, Mountain View High, but he literally couldn’t wait until the first day of classes on Sept. 8 for his attempted mass shooting. The sick bastard wrote, “The Rage has become uncontrollable and It can’t wait 2 More Weeks. Tomorrow. Sunday. August 28th 2022. Doomsday.”
Akela Haverlandt, 21, lived near the gunman and attended high school with him. Predictably, she describes him as a disturbing freak show that most normal people avoided.
“He would get in tons and tons of fights at school,” Haverlandt told The Daily Beast on Monday. “I think he had this sort of rage. I mean, he was just super aggressive.” [...]
“People thought he was weird, or rude, or just creepy toward the girls,” she said. “... He would always message me and my friends saying, like, you’re so pretty… Kind of like a weird type of harassment situation. And he would message us and bother the shit out of us.”
The closest thing the gunman had to a friend was Keenan Harpole, who was arrested and charged in April with fatally shooting fellow Portland State University student Amara Marluke. She was 19. PSU President Stephen Percy said in a statement, “Amara was an artist and an activist and a vibrant member of our community. Her death is mourned by all of us. I am profoundly affected by the sheer tragedy of this loss. My heart breaks for Amara’s family and for everyone who knew her. I offer my deepest sympathies. We will work together as a campus community to heal.”
We are failing to keep death machines out of the hands of violent, entitled assholes. When Haverland read the gunman’s manifesto, it chilled her so completely she couldn’t sleep. However, it didn’t surprise her.
“To read [it] was super crazy, but also like, ‘Wow, makes sense,’” she continued. “I wouldn’t think of anybody else in my grade or in that school that ... would do that. He was so recognized for being violent, and constantly fighting with kids, and just causing problems.”
Supermarkets have become a target for mass shootings, and while clueless Republicans might recommend sealing all the doors during business hours, that’s not an effective solution. Families out shopping feared that their children might die in front of them. Nowhere public is safe as long as we provide reliably easy access to guns.
PREVIOUSLY:
Racist Kills Ten People In Hopes Of Convincing Nation To Not ‘Replace’ Him
Another Well-Regulated Asshole With AR-15 We Won’t Ban Kills 10 In Boulder, Colorado
The killer whined in his manifesto that “Despite numerous attempts at being Social and trying to make new Friendships they have all turned futile. I created this Tragedy. But Society created Me.”
"Because I’m not like the typical Mass Shooter,” [he] insisted. “I’m different I’m not doing this for ‘Fame’ or to ‘Get Revenge’. I simply just want to DIE and leave a Lasting Impression and VIOLENT mark on this World on my way out."
This piece of human garbage was obviously so desperate for attention, even in death, that I refuse to identify him by name. We should remember his victims, especially Donald Ray Surrett, who police believe potentially saved lives when he confronted the gunman at the cost of his own.
[ The Daily Beast ]
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