Bloedbad in Alabama (VS) - 12 doden

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11 doden in Alabama
Een man heeft in de Amerikaanse staat Alabama zeker 11 mensen doodgeschoten. Er is wel enige onduidelijkheid over het exacte aantal doden.

De schutter pleegde zelfmoord na het plegen van het bloedbad. De schietpartij begon in een plaats in het zuiden van Alabama, bij de grens met Florida. In een caravan schoot de man vijf mensen dood, onder wie de vrouw van een politie-agent een drie maanden oude baby.

Achtervolging
Daarna reed hij naar een plaats twintig kilometer verderop. Onderweg vuurde hij lukraak op mensen die hij tegenkwam bij een supermarkt en een groentenboer. Daarbij vielen nog eens zes doden. Een onbekend aantal mensen raakte gewond.

De politie kon de man stoppen na een wilde achtervolging. Volgens de FBI kon een politieman uiteindelijk de wagen rammen, waardoor hij tot stilstand kwam. Vervolgens begon de man op de politie in te schieten. "Een kogel zoefde rakelings langs de schouder van een agent", aldus een woordvoerder.

Uiteindelijk kwam de schutter om het leven in een fabriekspand. De politie in Alabama weet niet wat zijn motief was.

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He cleaned his family
Detectives tried to piece together Wednesday why 12 people died in rural Alabama in a bloody, cross-county rampage that ended when the killer took his own life.

Investigators declined to comment on a motive for the shootings carried out by Michael McLendon, who lived with his mother and used to work at a local metal plant.

Samson Mayor Clay King said he had known McLendon all his life and could not say what sparked the massacre. The gunman's exact age wasn't released, but some authorities estimated he was in his late 20s.

"If you would have asked me two days ago if he was capable of this, I would have said certainly not," King said on NBC's "Today" show early Wednesday.

The bloodshed, which spread across two counties and claimed 11 victims plus the gunman, began about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when McLendon burned down the house he lived in with his mother in Kinston, Ala.

Authorities found Lisa McLendon's body and the body of McLendon's girlfriend inside, MyFOXAL.com reported.

Coffee County Sheriff Dave Sutton said McClendon put his mother on an L-shaped couch, piled things on top of her and set her on fire. He said McClendon also shot four dogs at the house.

McLendon then drove a dozen miles southeast to Samson, in Geneva County, where he gunned down nine more victims, including four members of his family.

He then drove around the town shooting out his car window, killing three more people seemingly at random, authorities said.

The rampage ended another 12 miles farther east in Geneva at the metals plant where the shooter worked until 2003. After a gun battle with police, McLendon killed himself.

The massacre left four other people injured, including a baby girl. The victims haven't all been identified.

"He cleaned his family out," Coffee County Coroner Robert Preachers said. "We don't know what triggered it."

Shocked, grieving residents hoped the answers weren't lost when the gunman committed suicide.

"Apparently something just snapped," said Wynnton Melton, mayor of Geneva, Ala., where McLendon ended his spree.

Once investigators got a look at the ammunition he was carrying, they feared the bloodshed could have been worse. "I'm convinced he went over there to kill more people. He was heavily armed," Sutton said.

The Tuesday evening shootings happened in a mostly rural area near the Florida border.

Joshua Myers, a Geneva County sheriff's deputy who lost his wife and a toddler daughter when they were shot on a porch in Samson, told reporters Wednesday that he was trying to come to terms with the tragedy.

"I don't understand why anything like this could happen," he said. "I cried so much yesterday, I don't have a tear left in me. I'm never going to be able to fully understand it."

Killed were his wife Andrea and 18-month-old daughter Corinne. His 4-month-old daughter Ella survived the porch shootings and was undergoing surgery at a Florida hospital to remove shrapnel or a bullet from her leg, Myers said. He has been told that she is stable.

"Keep my baby girl in your prayers," he pleaded. "I don't know what else to say."

Geneva County Sheriff Greg Ward said investigators have put a timeline together and are following up on tips that have come in.

"Right now, we're trying to run down all the leads," Ward told FOXNews.com. "We're filling in the blanks between Kinston and here. It's a puzzle. We're trying to put all the pieces together and figure out what set this kid off."

Geneva Police Chief Frank Lindsey was wounded by McLendon, who trapped him and his partner in their police car as he fired round after round from his automatic weapon.

Lindsey told FOX News that they encountered McLendon at a Wal-Mart in Geneva.

"He had a lot more fire power than we did," Lindsey said Wednesday. "All we had were our pistols. He fired 15, 16 rounds from an automatic weapon. ... We faced him head-on. He just looked at us right straight."

Lindsey said McLendon disabled their vehicle but then stopped shooting at them, walked away and turned the gun on himself.

Five people were killed on the porch of McLendon's relative in Samson, along with a 74-year-old relative next door, said Kirke Adams, district attorney for Geneva and Dale counties. Four of the six killed were McLendon's family members.

The two unrelated victims on the porch were Myers' wife and daughter. They lived across the street and had stopped by the home to visit. His baby girl was the only survivor from the porch.

Preachers had said McLendon's victims included his grandparents. But Adams said the 74-year-old victim might have been the gunman's great aunt.

McLendon then drove around Samson, shooting out his car window, killing three more people seemingly at random.

"He sprayed bullets through the town," Adams said.

One woman was struck down as she walked out of a gas station. Another man was driving. Another man was shot as he tried to run away.

"In a cowardly act, he shot him in the back," Adams said.

McLendon fired several shots at the Wal-Mart store in Geneva. No one was killed, but it was unclear if anyone was injured.

"There's a lot of people who had close calls," Adams said.

Samson contractor Greg McCullough said he was pumping fuel at the gas station when the gunman roared into the parking lot and slammed on his brakes.

"I first thought it was somebody playing," McCullough said. Then he saw the rifle.

McLendon opened fire, killing the woman who walked outside and wounding McCullough with bullet fragments that struck his truck and the pump. At one point the rifle appeared to jam, then McLendon fired more shots before driving off.

"I'm just in awe that something like this could take place. That someone could do such a thing. It's just shocking," McCullough said.

Police pursued McLendon to Geneva's Reliable Metal Products, where he got out of his car and fired at police with his automatic weapon, injuring Lindsey. He then walked inside and killed himself.

"He had plenty of ammo in his car and other weapons and he appeared to be going to do some damage there," Adams said.

Alabama Public Safety spokesman Kevin Cook said that McLendon resigned from his job at the plant in 2003 and it was unclear what kind of work, if any, he had been doing since. A person who answered the phone at the plant said no one could talk about the shooting.

King, the Samson mayor, said he knew the gunman and the victims.

"What I'm focusing on is people here in the town, making sure they feel comfortable," said King, who added the town of about 2,000 people had opened a crisis center at a local church. "I've lived here 44 years and never, never dreamed of this happening."

State Rep. Warren Beck, a Republican whose office is near the Wal-Mart, said his secretary heard gunfire everywhere.

"This is one of the most tragic events ever in Geneva County," he said.

Among others injured was a state trooper injured by broken glass after McLendon shot his cruiser seven times. The injured infant was taken to Wiregrass Medical Center in Geneva before being flown to another hospital, Wiregrass administrator John Rainey said.

The hospital's staff was ready to treat more injured victims, but their hopes were dashed as death reports trickled in.

"Unfortunately, we were getting the same bad reports as everyone else: Most people were untreatable," Rainey said. "It's something you'd expect in Atlanta or your bigger cities, but in a little town it puts a lot of people in stress. Our nursing staff broke down in tears hearing what was going on and realizing they weren't going to be able to help them."

One of the spots sprayed with bullets was a hardware store in Samson. Yellow tape was strung across glass windows shattered by at least five bullets. A "closed" sign was on the ground outside atop glass shards.

Tommy Boyles, a 76-year-old security guard who works at the same plant where McLendon killed himself, said he and his wife were on the street nearby.

"We could have been caught up in it just as well as anyone else," he said. "That's what scares you: to be an innocent bystander and some nut walks up with a gun."

Myers, the grieving sheriff's deputy, made an appeal Wednesday to tighten the country's laws on the ownership of automatic weapons.

"As a community, as a family, as a nation, we need to do something about this," he said.

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Gunner had "hitlist"

SAMSON, Ala. — The gunman who killed 11 people and committed suicide in a rampage across the Alabama countryside had struggled to keep a job and left behind lists of employers and co-workers he believed had wronged him, authorities said Wednesday.

The lists found in Michael McLendon's home included a metals plant that had forced him to resign years ago and where he ended up killing himself Tuesday to end the rampage, District Attorney Gary McAliley said. Also on the list were a sausage factory from which he suddenly quit last week and a poultry plant that suspended his mother, McAliley said.

The pages torn from a spiral notebook included names of co-workers who he felt had wronged him, including one who reported him for not wearing ear plugs, another who made him clean a meat grinder and a supervisor who didn't like the way he cut pork chops, McAliley said.

"We found a list of people he worked with, people who had done him wrong," said McAliley in an interview outside the charred house where the rampage began.

Rest of the Story

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Schutter Alabama beschreef moord

BIRMINGHAM - De 28-jarige man die in de zuidelijke Amerikaanse staat Alabama tien mensen doodschoot, beschreef kort voordat hij zelfmoord pleegde hoe hij zijn moeder ombracht. Hij had een slepend conflict met een aantal familieleden over een familiebijbel die hij voor zichzelf opeiste.

Dat hebben de autoriteiten in Alabama donderdag laten weten. Michael Kenneth McLendon schoot zijn moeder door het hoofd en bedekte haar lichaam daarna met dekens die waren doortrokken met een brandbare vloeistof. Vervolgens stak hij de stoffelijke resten van zijn moeder in brand.

Volgens de aanklager in Alabama was McLendon een ontevreden en depressieve eenling. Het zat hem dwars dat het hem nooit was gelukt als marinier of bij de politie aan de slag te kunnen.

McLendon vermoordde dinsdag tien mensen, onder wie een aantal familieleden.De schietpartij eindigde in een fabriekspand waar de schutter zelf had gewerkt. Daar pleegde hij zelfmoord.