A 60-year-old gunman engaged in a shooting rampage in his Serbian village early this morning, killing 13 people before killing himself. His son, his wife, and a two-year-old child were among those murdered by the man, identified as Ljubisa Bogdanovic. This is the first mass murder in Serbia in six years; in the last, a man killed nine people in a village in eastern Serbia.
I used to fantasize about leaving the front door open for hours so that my roommate's obese cat who shed incessantly would muster enough energy to escape. And I often thought, "It would be much easier to make her life miserable if she had a fish that I could just flush down the toilet." That's a lie, but it's exactly what 47-year-old Brooklyn man, Jose Santiago allegedly did.
Brunswick, Georgia police arrested 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins and a 14-year-old boy, whose name is being withheld due to his age, yesterday in connection with the shooting death of Sherry West's 13-month-old son.
Hours before Gov. John Hickenlooper, surrounded by family members of victims of shootings in Aurora and Littleton, signed a package of contentious gun control bills, Colorado's top prison official was shot and killed in front of his home. Tom Clements, 58, had been appointed executive director of Colorado Prisons in January 2011, and had won praise from officials and activists for his commitment to reform; Tuesday night at around 8:30, he answered his front door and was killed by an unknown gunman. Police have no suspects, but prisons have been placed on a partial lock-down and security has been increased at the state capitol and the governor's mansion. In an emotional press conference, Hickenlooper called Clements' murder "an act of intimidation." Hours later, the governor signed a series of new laws requiring background checks for private gun sales and banning magazines with more than 15 rounds, the end result of a long and emotional process. "I started crying," Tom Mauser—whose son was killed at Columbine High in 1999—told The New York Times. [Denver Post | Denver CBS | NYT]
Ever since 22-year-old Lawrence Reed, pictured at left, was found driving—and subsequently crashing—33-year-old Marco McMillian's SUV on a highway in Tennessee last week, news outlets have been trying to piece together exactly how the two men knew each other. McMillian, an openly gay candidate for mayor in Clarksdale, Mississippi, was found dead near the Mississippi River after Reed pointed police to his body, prompting many to immediately presume McMillian's death was a hate crime (a black gay man being murdered by bigots in Mississippi wouldn't be much of a stretch). Yet as more details emerge, McMillian's killing seems to be less about a targeted hate attack and more about a relationship that soured.
Oscar Pistorius, the South African sprinter who last year became the first-ever double amputee to run in the Olympic games, was arrested and charged with murder in Pretoria today after allegedly shooting and killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
After two gay men were found strangled in Queens within one week of each other, a City Council member is warning members of the LGBT community that a killer may be targeting them.
Early this morning, veteran Kaufman, Tex. County prosecutor Mark E. Hasse, pictured above, was walking across an employee parking lot near the courthouse there like he probably has countless of times. But today was different: at least one gunman hopped out of a Ford Taurus and murdered him in broad daylight before speeding off. Witnesses described a scene that seemed ripped straight from a million generic Hollywood films: the assailants were wearing masks, vests and all-black clothing.
Murder is routine in the city of Chicago, which experienced over 500 homicides last year (the number ranges from 506 to 516, depending on your source). It's so routine that the city became a sort of far-off black cloud lingering in the background of the year's massacres in Aurora and Newtown, a reminder — if you remembered — that gun violence takes lives in grotesque numbers every single day.
