Portland mall shooting - Updated X 2

Details still coming in, but at about 1530 PST, some male walked into the Clackamas Town Center mall, a large shopping mall located about 5 miles south of Portland, and opened fire with some sort of autoloading rifle. He hit 3 persons with 16-40 rounds, might have reloaded, roamed the mall for several minutes at least, then killed himself.

There was massive LE response to the mall, but law enforcement did not take the shooter under fire.

To my knowledge, Clackamas Town Center is NOT a gun-free zone. Clackamas County has a large number of CCW permitees.

Open Carry, or the lack thereof, might or might not be a factor. No civilian took the shooter under fire.

The masked shooter appeared to be a brick short of a full hod. As he walked, he yelled out, repeatedly, "I am the shooter", as if, with mask and rifle, dressed in camo top to bottom wasn't enough to convey that impression.

No information is available on the identity of victims, other than the living one was driven by ambulance to Oregon Health & Sciences University Hospital (with an ER 4 blocks away???). Notification of next-of-kin is underway for the dead victims.

The Sheriff is about to give a press conference,so I'll listen and report back.

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Reporting back, nothing new, other than reports of the shots fired range up to 40. Some vignettes:

• Some nurses and a physician shopping at the mall acted as battlefield medics
• 4 SWAT teams responded, and located the shooter "in record time". Okayyyy, what is that record, and was it possible that the shooter was already dead, and shoppers pointed out his dead ass to the SWATies?
• The Sheriff has closed the mall, Portland's largest at 1.4 million square feet, for a second day tomorrow. Who pays for THAT loss of business?
• Rumor, spread by a reporter at the Sheriff's press conference, is that the shooter was just fired from employment at the food court, where most if not all of the shooting took place (Rumor apparently not true).
• Rumor: mall officials put the population inside the mall at about 10,000 at the time of the shooting. If true, that makes this the biggie of mall shootings as far as people at direct risk goes.
• Observation: the cops doing the most good in there were the "Paul Blarts", the mall cops, who did the right thing and either sealed shops up with customers inside, or directed customers to the exits.
• The shooter has been "tentatively" identified, but the Sheriff is not releasing his name, or the names of the victims, at this time.
• The EffBeeEye and the FBATFE are assisting in the investigation. That probably guarantees more delay in the final report.
• No information on the shooter's weapon is available. The local station I watched, KATU, called the weapon "an automatic rifle" once, and "a semi-automatic rifle" once. Another station, the local FOX affiliate KPTV, called the weapon an "assault rifle". The Sheriff's people made no characterization of the shooter's weapon.

More details tomorrow.

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UPDATE: 121212 1030 PST: Just watched the morning newser by Sheriff Roberts, carried live on Fox News nationally. He ID'd the victims and the shooter. The shooter is a 22-year old nobody, who stole an AR15 rifle from a friend and used it in the mall. Shooter lived in a bad part of town called "felony flats", or "squirrel heights", the City calls it the "Brentwood-Darlington Neighborhood". The live victim is a 16 year old who, despite several rounds in her, managed to un-ass the scene and find rescue on her own. One tough girl! The Sheriff hinted that the toll was low partly because the shooter had malfunctions with the weapon. At least one witness reported the shooter aimed at him at short range and fired, missing completely, apparently confirming that the shooter was not proficient at all with the weapon's sights or instinctive aiming either.

Wrapping up, the best news here is that it will be very hard for the anti-gun filk to gin up the usual blood-dances, because this AR has been confirmed to be a stolen gun. The City of Portland has a mandatory lock-up ordinance for guns kept in residences, but it is limited to guns that children have access to. I would expect that Ceasefire Oregon (no link to the enemy) would now press Hizzoner to extend the ordinance to all weapons, even though we don't know at this point that the gun theft involved here was within Portland proper. Seems to me that this law was at least partially dealt with in Heller, wasn't it? Also, with the effective rate of fires presented by the shooter, a single-shot Cricket rifle could have been the weapon, certainly a military boltie like an Enfield.

Now for the teachable moment. Take the Tucson shooting, the Aurora shooting and this one. What do they all have in common? Whacko shooters who don't know how to run their weapons, thereby presenting opportunities for an armed bystander to fire on and neutralize them. This is especially the lesson here, with 10K shoppers and employees, plus unknown numbers of mall cops, ALL of whom were either unarmed or afraid to use their weapons.

I know what I would have done had I been there. I would have decided it was a good day to risk death, and I would have gone towards the shooter and initiated combat. I wasn't there, but I will forever wonder who WAS there who might have offered combat and didn't?

 

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[Patriot Padre]

After much meditation and thought, for me, it all came down to this point found in God's Holy Word.... My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thank you, Padre. Coming from a Man of God who saved MY bacon in combat one dangerous night, this means a lot.