Tag Archives: guns

Here Is the Audio of the 911 Call Just Minutes Before the Colorado Gun Rampage

by JettGuay830729 Posted on November 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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More MoJo coverage of the Colorado Springs rampage


Did Colorado’s Open Carry Law Delay Police Response to a Mass Shooter?


Police Did Not Treat 911 Call About Colorado Gunman as “Highest Priority”


Open Carry Gun Laws Make It Harder to Protect the Public, Police Chiefs Say

The Colorado Springs Police Department on Wednesday released the audio from two 911 calls placed last Saturday morning just prior to and during a deadly gun rampage. The first call came just 10 minutes before a man shot three people to death and was subsequently killed in a shootout with police. The Colorado Springs PD released the audio and a detailed statement following several stories by Mother Jones and other news outlets focusing on whether Colorado’s open carry law may have played a role in how the police responded.

In the first call, placed at 8:45 a.m. on October 31, resident Naomi Bettis told a dispatcher that she saw a man, later identified as 33-year-old Noah Harpham, walking around a building with a broken window across the street from her house. She said that he was carrying a black rifle and gasoline cans, and she described him as suspicious and “scary” at several points during the six-minute-long call. At one point she told the dispatcher that the man was going in and out of an upstairs apartment in the building. “It may be the guy that lives upstairs because he ran right up there, but he still shouldn’t be holding a gun,” Bettis said.

“Well it is an open carry state, so he can have a weapon with him or walking around with it,” the dispatcher responded. “But of course having those gas cans, it does seem pretty suspicious so we’re going to keep the call going for that.” Bettis clearly sounded agitated during parts of the call: “I went out there to get in my Jeep,” she said, “and I’m scared to death.” When asked by the dispatcher whether anyone’s life was in imminent danger, however, she answered no. “I just hope that this is, you know, not as bad as it is,” Bettis said. Listen to the full call here:

Bettis later told the Washington Post that she was put off by the dispatcher’s comments regarding the state’s open carry law, as if the dispatcher “didn’t believe me.” On Tuesday, Lt. Catherine Buckley of the Colorado Springs PD told Mother Jones that Bettis’ first 911 call wasn’t treated as “the highest priority call for service.” In its statement released Wednesday, the department said the call was originally treated as a “priority 3” call, which “represents in-progress incidents involving property.” One minute into the call, the incident was upgraded to a “priority 2” call, and changed to a possible burglary in progress, according to the statement. The department’s priority scale has six levels, with “priority 1” being the most urgent.

At the time of the first call, all officers in the area were on other calls, according to the department’s statement. Then, one officer who became available during the call was instead dispatched to a disturbance in progress at a senior residential facility: “The call for service near Bettis was the same priority level as the disturbance; however, the disturbance at the senior center represented a threat to human life, while Bettis’ call (a possible burglary-in-progress) was at the time considered a threat to property.”

“He’s laying on the street dead”
After the initial six-minute exchange with the dispatcher, Bettis was told to call back if the situation changed. Ten minutes later, she did. “I just called a few minutes ago, and the guy came back out,” she said, now sounding frantic and her voice shaking. “He fired the gun at somebody and he’s laying on the street dead.” Listen to the full call here: Warning: Some may find the following audio disturbing.

At that point, according to the statement from the Colorado Springs PD, all available police units and an ambulance were dispatched. Less than 10 minutes after that Harpham’s three victims had been shot and he was killed by gunfire from police.

“Upon review of the 911 audio from the initial call for service the (dispatcher) responded in accordance with both the Colorado Springs Police Department policy and national protocols,” the department said in its statement.

The department also released a 2011 training document with respect to how it handles the open carry issue:

“The mere act of openly carrying a gun in a non-threatening manner is not automatically to be considered suspicious behavior. Therefore, if we get a call from a citizen about a person who has a firearm in plain sight and they are not acting in a suspicious manner, they have not brandished it, discharged it, or violated any of the previous conditions; CSPD will not respond.”

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Here Is the Audio of the 911 Call Just Minutes Before the Colorado Gun Rampage

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Did Colorado’s Open Carry Law Delay Police Response to a Mass Shooter?

by BurtonWarkentin Posted on November 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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Details are continuing to emerge about a gun rampage that took place in the streets of Colorado Springs on Saturday morning, in which 33-year-old Noah Harpham shot three people to death before police killed him in a shootout. On Monday, a troubling detail came to light in a Denver Post report suggesting that police may have had a chance to intervene before the slaughter began—but that a police dispatcher may have reacted without urgency to a 911 call about Harpham because of Colorado’s open carry law:

Witnesses watched in horror as Harpham picked his victims off. One of them, the bicyclist, pleaded for his life before being killed.

“I heard the (young man) say, ‘Don’t shoot me! Don’t shoot me!’ ” Naomi Bettis, a neighbor who witnessed the killing, said Monday.

Bettis said she recognized the gunman as her neighbor—whom she didn’t know by name—and that before the initial slaying she saw him roaming outside with a rifle. She called 911 to report the man, but a dispatcher explained that Colorado has an open carry law that allows public handling of firearms.

“He did have a distraught look on his face,” Bettis said. “It looked like he had a rough couple days or so.”

It’s unclear how much time lapsed between Bettis’ 911 call and when the rampage began, but according to The Gazette the initial police response didn’t come until after the carnage was in progress:

The first reports of a shooting came about 8:45 a.m. as Colorado Springs police were called to the 200 block of Prospect Street after multiple calls about gunshots, El Paso County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby and Colorado Springs police spokeswoman Lt. Catherine Buckley said. Authorities said the shooter was killed after opening fire on police officers.

By then, Harpham had killed the bicyclist, 35-year-old Andrew Alan Myers, and two women at a nearby location, 42-year-old Jennifer Michelle Vasquez, and 34-year-old Christina Rose Baccus-Gallela. (Similarly, the Denver Post reported: “Officers were first called on reports of a ‘possible shooting’ at 230 North Prospect Street—a townhouse-like building—where they found the bicyclist dead and a fire burning, the dispatch archives show.”)

Proponents of open carry laws argue that the ability for citizens to take firearms with them in public isn’t just a right but makes communities safer. We don’t yet know, but the law allowing guns to be carried on display in Colorado may have just done the opposite.

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Did Colorado’s Open Carry Law Delay Police Response to a Mass Shooter?

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What a New Poll About Mass Shootings in America Gets Dangerously Wrong

by MandyLienhop Posted on October 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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A Washington Post-ABC News poll on gun violence published Monday included a stark finding: “By a more than 2-to-1 margin, more people say mass shootings reflect problems identifying and treating people with mental health problems rather than inadequate gun control laws.” Sixty-three percent of respondents blamed a deficient mental health care system as the prime reason for America’s incessant gun massacres, while 23 percent pointed to weak gun regulations.

What’s most troubling about these results and the question that prompted them is that they perpetuate a dangerous stigmatization. The vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent. I wrote about this in my recent Mother Jones cover story on threat assessment, a growing strategy for stopping mass shooters that relies on collaboration between mental health and law enforcement experts:

We know that many mass shooters are young white men with acute mental health issues. The problem is, such broad traits do little to help threat assessment teams identify who will actually attack. Legions of young men love violent movies or first-person shooter games, get angry about school, jobs, or relationships, and suffer from mental health afflictions. The number who seek to commit mass murder is tiny. Decades of research have shown that the link between mental disorders and violent behavior is small and not useful for predicting violent acts. (People with severe mental disorders are in fact far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.)

Then there is the role of guns. As a top forensic psychologist described it to me at a recent summit of more than 700 threat assessment professionals in Southern California, “One of the first things you focus on with this process is access to weapons.” Guns obviously are no more a sole cause of mass shootings than schizophrenia or suicidal depression are. But their role in such crimes is self-evident:

Can they be prevented from striking?

Possession of a firearm, of course, is not a meaningful predictor of targeted violence. But at the conference in Disneyland, virtually everyone I spoke with agreed that guns make these crimes a lot easier to commit—and a lot more lethal. “There are so many firearms out there, you just assume everybody has one,” Scalora says. “It’s safer to assume that than the opposite.” The presence of more than 300 million guns in the United States—and the lack of political will to regulate their sale or use more effectively—is a stark reality with which threat assessment experts must contend, and why many believe their approach may be the best hope for combating what has become a painfully normal American problem.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll furthered a misleading stereotype about a broad population of Americans by presenting a false choice between mental health and gun policy. The chart above shows that only 10 percent of respondents recognized that solving mass shootings is more complicated than checking one box or the other. Any solution deeply involves both, and a whole lot more.

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What a New Poll About Mass Shootings in America Gets Dangerously Wrong

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Bobby Jindal Lashes Out at Father of Oregon Shooter: "He’s the Problem Here"

by ValentiKoss Posted on October 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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If, after last week’s shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, you held the gunman responsible, Bobby Jindal thinks you’ve missed the mark.

On Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Jindal published a self-described “sermon” on his campaign website, addressing what he believes are the root causes of mass shootings. These causes include, but are not limited to, “cultural decay,” violent video games, absent fathers, and the general devaluing of human life.

“It’s the old computer axiom—garbage in, garbage out,” Jindal wrote. “We fill our culture with garbage, and we reap the result.”

Jindal also lashed out at the shooter’s father, who has called for gun control in the wake of his son’s rampage. “He’s a complete failure as a father, he should be embarrassed to even show his face in public,” Jindal wrote. “He’s the problem here.

Jindal’s response to this instance of gun violence is similar to his reaction to a shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, in which three people (including the gunman) were killed. Shortly after that happened, Jindal offered condolences to the families, resisted discussing gun control reform in lieu of praying for the victims’ families, and even criticized President Barack Obama for “trying to score cheap political points.” However, after the shooting at an army recruiting station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, just days later, the Louisiana governor reacted quite differently. Jindal was quick to politicize the issue by pinning the shooting on radical Islamic terrorism, a problem that he alleges the White House has largely ignored.

“This shooting underscores the grave reality of the threat posed to us by Radical Islamic terrorism every single day,” Jindal said in an official statement after the Chattanooga shooting. “It’s time for the White House to wake up and tell the truth…and that truth is that Radical Islam is at war with us, and we must start by being honest about that.”

In the spirit of honesty, it should also be noted that Jindal’s own state has the second-highest rate of deaths by firearm per 100,000 people, second only to Alaska.

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Bobby Jindal Lashes Out at Father of Oregon Shooter: "He’s the Problem Here"

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After Yesterday’s Shooting, More Americans Are Googling "Gun Control"

by ClaribeVPSZ Posted on October 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the wake of mass shootings, many of Americans turn—where else?—to the internet to look for answers. Google data reflects these searches in the wake of major shootings. Using Google Trends data, the Google News Lab put together a series of maps that show whether people in each state were more likely to search for the phrase “gun control” or “gun shop” in the 24 hours following the shootings in Charleston, South Carolina, in June; Moneta, Virginia, in August; and yesterday’s shooting in Oregon.

Over the course of 2015, the majority of searches in most states have been for “gun shop”:

In the day after the Charleston shooting, the map looked much the same:

After the Virginia shooting, the map almost completely flipped:

So far, in the day after the Oregon shooting, the map is almost completely tilted toward searches for “gun control”:

You can see this data another way here:

See the full interactive map below:

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After Yesterday’s Shooting, More Americans Are Googling "Gun Control"

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Oregon Sheriff Handling Massacre Fought the White House on Gun Control After Newtown

by BorisCanty99 Posted on October 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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As the sheriff in Douglas County, Oregon, John Hanlin was front and center following Thursday’s shooting at Umpqua Community College, which left at least 13 people dead and 20 others wounded.

Two years ago, Hanlin was one of hundreds of sheriffs around the country to vow to stand against new gun control legislation. In a January 15, 2013, letter to Vice President Joe Biden, he wrote, “Gun control is NOT the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings.”

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Oregon Sheriff Handling Massacre Fought the White House on Gun Control After Newtown

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An Overwhelming Majority of Americans Still Support Universal Background Checks

by SangHartnett Posted on October 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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Following today’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that President Obama wants to see “sensible steps” to prevent gun violence, including expanding background checks to all gun purchases. While Congress has repeatedly punted on that proposal, a large majority of Americans say they are on board with it. According to a poll taken just last week by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, 93 percent of registered voters said they would support universal background checks for all gun buyers—even as nearly half said they oppose stricter gun control laws.

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An Overwhelming Majority of Americans Still Support Universal Background Checks

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One Important Suicide Fact That Nobody Is Talking About

by FaithZoxbuqajj Posted on September 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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We hear about gun violence in blips: The latest mass shooting or grizzly homicide brings national attention and calls to action, and then the issue falls under the radar. It’s easy to forget that two-thirds of gun deaths aren’t high-profile homicides, but suicides—happening quietly, at a rate of one every 25 minutes.

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence

A new report by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun safety advocacy group, delivers sobering stats based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and academic journal articles—perhaps the most eye-opening being that keeping a firearm at home increases the risk of suicide by three times. A whopping 82 percent of teens who commit suicide with a gun are using a family member’s firearm.

Guns are a particularly effective means of suicide precisely because they are so lethal: Of those who attempt suicide by firearm, nine in 10 succeed. By contrast, only one in 50 overdose attempts result in death. The lethality is compounded by impulsivity: The majority of suicide attempts occur less than an hour after the decision is made to commit suicide.

One common argument of the gun lobby is that suicidal individuals will find a way to take their lives—if they don’t die by gun, they’ll do it by some other means. But the reality is that 90 percent of those who fail in a suicide attempt do not end up dying by suicide. With guns, though, not many get a second chance.

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence

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One Important Suicide Fact That Nobody Is Talking About

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Here Are 3 Gun Control Proposals That Republicans Actually Support

by KandiMRYfxeypn Posted on August 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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It turns out there are some gun control proposals that Republicans and Democrats actually agree on. According to new findings from the Pew Research Center, fully 85 percent of Americans—including 88 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of Republicans—believe people should have to pass a background check before purchasing guns in private sales or at gun shows. Currently, only licensed gun dealers are required to perform background checks. A majority of Americans (79 percent) also back laws to prevent the mentally ill from purchasing guns.

There is a greater divide between the parties on other gun issues. Seventy percent of respondents support the creation of a federal database to track all gun sales, including 85 percent of Democrats but just 55 percent of Republicans. A more narrow majority (57 percent) would like to ban assault-style weapons. That proposal draws support from 70 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of Republicans.

The survey found even sharper partisan disagreement on other questions:

Seventy-three percent of Democrats say it’s more important to control gun ownership, while 71 percent of Republicans say it’s more important to protect gun rights.
Republicans are almost twice as likely to see gun ownership as an effective form of protection rather than a way to jeopardize safety.

The study also examines demographics such race, gender, and education level:

Proposals for a federal gun database draw more support from African-Americans (82 percent) and Hispanics (76 percent) than from whites (66 percent). Fifty-six percent of African-Americans say gun ownership is a safety hazard.
Sixty-five percent of women favor banning assault-style weapons, compared with 48 percent of men.
Sixty percent of men say guns help protect people, compared with 49 percent of women.
Those with post-graduate degrees are more likely to favor a ban on assault weapons (72 percent) than those with a high school diploma or less education (48 percent). Those with post-graduate degrees are also more likely to say gun ownership does more to endanger than increase safety (57 percent).
College graduates are almost evenly divided; 48 percent say guns endanger people, while 46 percent say they protect people.
Those with a high school diploma or less say gun ownership does more to protect people (59 percent).

For more information, check out these interactive charts from the Pew Research Center.

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Here Are 3 Gun Control Proposals That Republicans Actually Support

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One City Tried Something Radical to Stop Gun Violence. This Report Suggests It’s Working.

by MckinleGain Posted on July 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last year I told you about a radical new approach to reducing gun violence in Richmond, California, a city that had suffered for years under the toll of one of the nation’s highest homicide rates. The city threw money and police at the problem, but the rate of fatal (and non-fatal) shootings remained. The human toll was staggering. In 2007, the low point, there were 45 homicides involving a firearm in the city of 106,000. Finally, it decided to try something entirely new:

Richmond hired consultants to come up with ideas, and in turn, the consultants approached Devone Boggan. It was obvious that heavy-handed tactics like police sweeps weren’t the solution. More than anything, Boggan, who’d been working to keep teen offenders out of prison, was struck by the pettiness of it all. The things that could get someone shot in Richmond were as trivial as stepping out to buy a bag of chips at the wrong time or in the wrong place. Boggan wondered: What if we identified the most likely perpetrators and paid them to stay out of trouble?

In late 2007, Boggan launched the Office of Neighborhood Safety, an experimental public-private partnership that’s introduced the “Richmond model” for rolling back street violence. It has done it with a mix of data mining and mentoring, and by crossing lines that other anti-crime initiatives have only tiptoed around. Four times a year, the program’s street team sifts through police records and its own intelligence to determine, with actuarial detachment, the 50 people in Richmond most likely to shoot someone and to be shot themselves. ONS tracks them and approaches the most lethal (and vulnerable) on the list, offering them a spot in a program that includes a stipend to turn their lives around. While ONS is city-funded and has the blessing of the chief of police, it resolutely does not share information with the cops. “It’s the only agency where you’re required to have a criminal background to be an employee,” Boggan jokes.

It was a crazy idea. But since ONS was established, the city’s murder rate has plunged steadily. In 2013, it dropped to 15 homicides per 100,000 residents—a 33 year low. In 2014, it dropped again. Boggan and his staff maintained that their program was responsible for a lot of that drop-off by keeping the highest-risk young men alive—and out of prison. Now they have a study to back them up.

Read our 2014 story on Richmond’s ambitious plan to bring down its homicide rate. Photograph by Brian L. Frank

On Monday, researchers from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a non-profit, published a process evaluation of ONS, studying its impact seven years in. The conclusion was positive: “While a number of factors including policy changes, policing efforts, an improving economic climate, and an overall decline in crime may have helped to facilitate this shift, many individuals interviewed for this evaluation cite the work of the ONS, which began in late 2007, as a strong contributing factor in a collaborative effort to decrease violence in Richmond.”

As evidence, the study cites the life-changing effect on fellows. Ninety-four percent of fellows are still alive. And perhaps just as remarkable, 79 percent have not been arrested or charged with gun-related offenses during that time period.

“While replication of the Fellowship itself may be more arduous because of the dynamic leadership associated with the current model, the framework of the Fellowship could be used to improve outcomes for communities across the country,” the study’s authors wrote. “The steps taken to craft programming developed with clients in mind, and being responsive to their needs and the needs of the community, can serve as a model.”

Read the full report here.

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One City Tried Something Radical to Stop Gun Violence. This Report Suggests It’s Working.

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