Holy Shit!

Gunman kills at least 8 at Omaha Mall.

OMAHA, Neb. - A man with a rifle opened fire at a busy shopping mall Wednesday, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

Shoppers and employees ran screaming through the mall and barricaded themselves in dressing rooms after hearing gunfire. The gunman was found dead on the third floor of the Von Maur department store in the Westroads Mall, in a prosperous neighborhood on the city's west side.

{...}Sgt. Teresa Negron said the gunman killed eight people, then apparently killed himself. His name was not immediately released, and authorities gave no motive for the attack and did not know whether he said anything during the rampage.{...}

Holy Shit, my devoted Cake Eater Readers. HOLY SHIT!

A gunman shot up Westroads? Good God. I'm just stunned.

And I cannot even begin to tell you how pissed off I am at the mainstream media right now. I was practicing a little radio silence earlier, to get some work done, and I missed this story as it broke. But there hasn't been ONE GODDAMNED WORD about this on either Brit Hume's or Wolf Blitzer's respective programs. But there's been plenty about Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton moment. Never mind that the AP has, as part of its "slideshow", no less than four maps showing just where Omaha resides in flyover land. Because, apparently, everyone in New York needed a little geography lesson. I just want to know what happened, people. Give me some freakin' video!

I don't know how many times I've been to Westroads. Thousands, probably. But not as many times as I've been to The Center or Crossroads---my mother's chosen malls. She hates Westroads; it's "too big and too far out." Westroads was the mall when I was growing up. And it had an entire store devoted to "Hello Kitty" merchandise...it was cool. I haven't been there in years---I don't go to Omaha to shop---but damn. I feel as if a big chunk of my childhood has been attacked.

The family that still lives there is ok. My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families.

UPDATE: It appears as if one of my sister-in-laws was caught up in the melee at Westroads yesterday. Apparently, she'd just entered Younkers (or Yoinkers in Cake Eater Lingo, because I hate that department store), with my four-year-old nephew in tow, when someone came flying by her and told her to get out because someone was shooting in the mall. She turned to leave, but apparently, the nephew didn't want to have anything to do with leaving and was not cooperative, dragging his feet the entire way. Fortunately, the sister-in-law is bigger than the four-year-old (not by much though! she's tiny!) and won the argument with brute force. They got out and are fine, if not a little shook-up.

Posted by Kathy at December 5, 2007 05:23 PM | TrackBack