Wonkette
A nut in a World War II Nazi military uniform aims his bayonet-tipped rifle at Seattle cops and is shot dead. A distraught guy fires a gun in the air from his garage and three Los Angeles police cut him down. An angry old Colorado ski bum plots an epic four-pronged terror attack on the rich people of Aspen, but he shoots himself in his Jeep Cherokee before detonating the four bombs. Across the country, wrecked Americans chose to go completely insane on New Year’s. Welcome to 2009. It’s going to be awful.
Maybe it’s just that there’s no “real” national news on January 1, or maybe America is collectively leaping off the foreclosed skyscraper of destiny, but the amount of full-on crazy suicidal behavior over this New Year’s holiday is enough to make calm people hide in their basements with a sack full of assault rifles.
And the number of cops ready and willing to shoot and kill anything acting a bit weird is a very grim reminder that the Militarized L.A. Cop is now a national menace.
This is your brand-new America:
- “The New Year was scarcely two hours old when Seattle police were forced to shoot a man wearing a World War II German military uniform in the University Park District.” [Seattle P-I]
- “Three officers were believed to have fired shots at the 41-year-old man, whose name has not been released, said Lt. John Romero. The shooting is the city’s first homicide of 2009.” [SF Gate]
- “The threats prompted police to clear nearly all of downtown Aspen — 16 blocks that otherwise would have been filled with tens of thousands of New Year’s revelers …. The profanity-laced note, which appeared to match those Blanning left at banks, said ‘Aspen will pay a horrible price in blood’ if his demands were not met.” [Associated Press]
- “A 22-year-old man died Thursday after being shot on an Oakland train station platform by a transit agency police officer.” [Mercury News]
- “Attorneys for Robert Tolan, 23, said he was a victim of racial profiling by Bellaire police and did nothing to justify being shot as his parents watched outside their home.” [Chron.com]
- “An exchange of words, a fight, two men getting shot, police countering a threat with deadly force. In quick succession those events led to 29-year-old Chucky Lee Jackson, of Grand Rapids, laying dead outside a downtown strip club less than two hours into 2009.” [MLive.com]
- “The Boulder County coroner’s office says the man who shot and killed a general manager at Eldora Mountain Resort killed himself after getting into a shootout with a deputy.” [KRDO 13]
- “Also Wednesday, investigators said Bonestroo killed his cat before driving to the ski area with a gun. Boulder County investigators discovered the dead cat while searching Bonestroo’s Nederland apartment to look for a motive behind his behavior.” [Fox News]
- “A confrontation over a horse appears to have triggered a fatal shooting by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy in Kentucky. The victim has been named as Brenda Pollitt, 55, of Nicholas County.” [Horsetalk]
I can’t help wondering if this is that different from New Years Eve in previous years. It might be Seasonal Crazy.
Also, I’m still waiting for all those Wall Street suicides. Where are they, eh? I’ve stopped holding my breath.
By the end of the year, police all across the country will be shooting at each other, as there will be no one else left to shoot.
And the nutjob in Aspen only wanted SIXTY THOUSAND Dollars. I mean, what? Not a millions, not even a hundred thousand, but sixty?
Anus horribilis.
and sorry, but pet peeve:
“…led to 29-year-old Chucky Lee Jackson, of Grand Rapids, laying dead outside a downtown strip club less than two hours into 2009.”
Unless Chucky Lee was a chicken who still functioned port-mortem, I don’t think he was laying anywhere.
Yeah, apocalypse! Maybe the end times will come before we’re all hobos.
I think the guy in the Nazi uniform in Seattle was outraged that his play about the life of the Fuehrer had been greeted as a musical comedy.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Some people just seriously need to get laid.
My rates are reasonable.
Doglessliberal: Was it Dr. Evil?
And none appear to be postal employees. I guess those re-education programs are working out.
Don’t forget the army recruiters.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98913061
Doglessliberal: Chuckly Lee not getting laid nowhere no more
The cat will be missed.
And “Lt. John Romero?”
“Welcome to 2009. It’s going to be awful.”
Optimist.
Thank goodness we don’t have any meaningful gun control in this country, because how else is everyone going to defend themselves against these over-zealous (ha ha) peace officers?
Doglessliberal: Grammar nerds forevah! Between you and I…
2009: the year of the riot.
you heard it here first, folks!
Waiting for the 20th when Cheney barricades himself in his office and starts a firefight with the new administration.
2goats: and if he is, that will be the subject of another news story when they arrest the morgue attendant.
chascates: I am more afraid that he will leave quietly, and then, from his lair, activate the devices he has had implanted in several White House staffers and other new Administration employees.
V572625694: woop! grammar bitching time… My personal pet peeve is “Feel badly.” Unless you feel in a manner that demonstrates your ineptness at feeling, then you feel BAD.
For example, Dick Cheney didn’t FEEL BAD about shooting his lawyer in the face because he FEELS BADLY; as in, he sucks at feeling.
daisy chain: Then there’s “hopefully.”
Mother at breakfast: “Why are you wearing that Band-Aid, Ward?
Father: “I cut my nose while I was shaving this morning, June.”
The Beaver, hopefully: “Off?”
daisy chain: I don’t think he even feels. I think he has sort of a lizard-level emotional response to things.
But I am with you on the adverb abuse.
God damnit 2009, why you gotta go all 2008 on us already?
Naked Bunny with a Whip: Hear Hear - Drugs help too.
“The young man’s MySpace page says he majored in Scandinavian studies and minored in German culture and literature at the UW. He belonged to German World War II re-enactment group, said his lucky charm was “Mister Bayonet” and that his goal to achieve this year was “don’t die.”"
Apparently, this kid wasn’t an “Acheiver”…
I know Daikatana was a flop, but damn. How far John Romero has fallen.
Well in the Seattle policemens’ defense, the dude did do covers of Britney Spears songs on his accordion at parties.
When the police tell you to drop your weapon, you drop it. If you don’t, any subsequent events are entirely on you, dumbass.
Well, Brenda had it coming…
The Church of Realism: yeah, he didn’t like the Nazis- he just like to dress like one on his off-time from college and Red Mill Burgers. I guess I need to be grateful that my son’s problems do not involve guns, drugs or dressing like anyone else. If he gets laid off from his job, it won’t be for weird shit and he won’t be killing any animals either.
In Baltimore: Two homicides so far in 2009, as of Jan. 2!
In D.C., Maryland area: A drunk guy from Lanham, P.G. County, Md., drives his car at excessive speeds early in the day on Jan. 2 (NOT early on Jan. 1, mind you) on a major highway, on a revoked driver’s license, and then leads police on a chase when they try and pull him over! Driver’s arrested on several charges.
In Maryland, supposedly one of the richest states in the country: State government workers have to start 2009 with a FURLOUGH day on Jan. 2.
A disproportionate number of those were in Colorado. Odd.
“He wasn’t a Nazi,” Taylor said. “He was just fascinated with the past. … He liked to dress up and have fun.”
KKK and aryans are also fascinated with the past and like to dress up and have fun (burning crosses, yay!).
Somehow and some way the NRA and GOP will be able to spin this as a tragic case of too few American’s being armed. I have faith in this.
By the way, police officers shoot to kill when someone waves a weapon at them and refuses to drop that weapon, and that includes anything from a knife to a baseball bat to a car to a drill to a machete to a gun. Police officers, by law and regulation and written legislation, shoot to kill when their lives are in danger–that is accepted, known, standard policy. And it’s correct policy. You shoot to kill. So don’t wave a damn weapon at a police officer! Most police shootings, by the way, are inevitably decided in favor of the officer.
Fox News shows viewer comments on Obama being the ‘magic negro.’
Last year, after the goopers calling Obama ‘uppity’,etc, I said that conservatives would be calling Obama a n*gger around this time. I was close.
DONT LOOK. Everything is fine. Don’t panic. There is nothing to see here.
Sshhhhhh.
Wow. I live in downtown Seattle and I didn’t hear that story. That’s a testament to how drunk I got. In fairness anybody dressed up like a Nazi is asking for a bullet. just sayin’.
Fun fact: Keith Moon enjoyed donning an SS uniform and marching around his yard when his next door neighbor was Steve McQueen.
HuskyMescan: If only they would just dress up as crosses. Then we could burn two birds with one stone…or something like that.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants or some such.
daisy chain: That’s what my girlfriend told me when I tried for 2nd base.
thefrontpage: since most people know this, you do wonder how many of these types of things are suicide by cop.
I’m sure the matching serial numbers and unblemished cartouche and original brass stock roundel on Apt Pupil’s highly-collectible bolt-action Kar98k was more than a match for John Laws’s modern high-cap semi-auto, especially in close-quarters action…
Soldat was obviously prepared for a bayonet charge, in homage of the 6th Fallschirmjägerregiment’s defense of the Brécourt Manor</a. Battery at Normandy.
All they had to say to Gerd von Rundstedt Jr. was Legen Sie ihr verdammt gewehr, Sie stinkende schweinhundnazi nieder! and he would have graciously obliged their request!
>
Aieee!
daisy chain: I’m not partial to grammar nazis but that was funny.
“He [lying on the ground] was then shot once by Bellaire police Sgt. Jeff Cotton. At least two other shots missed.” For this we pay taxes?
I’m not bothered by events like this. Its a natural progression/regression of the human race. A culling of the herd. You can’t stop it. More food, air and water for the rest of us. Like Bob Knight said about rape, “lay back and enjoy it.”
Take that, New Years!
rocktonsammy: Dogless Liberal would like you to stay after class to go over the use of lay/lie.
L Urchin: I am closing to giving up.
One could choose to see it as culling the herd. This may actually be a good thing.
V572625694: I’m as big a grammar / usage nerd as anyone here, I hope, but “hopefully” just doesn’t bother me at all. I fell in love with the American Heritage Dictionary largely because of the 2nd Edition’s usage note: “The usage of hopefully to mean ‘it is to be hoped,’ as in hopefully we’ll get there before dark, is grammatically justified by analogy to the similar uses of happily and mercifully. However, this usage is by now such a bugbear to traditionalists that it is best avoided on grounds of civility, if not logic.” Sadly, that snarky tone is absent from subsequent editions of the AHD, although they make the same point.
Too bad he didn’t blow up a bunch of shitty Aspen boutiques and other yuppie apre-ski crap.
apres-ski. not apre-ski, you moran.
DoktorZoom: I’m all, “Like, dictionaries are supposed to be prescriptive, man” and AHD goes, “Whatever! Ya know?”
Webster’s 2nd rules. IMHO. Also.
“An angry old Colorado ski bum plots an epic four-pronged terror attack on the rich people of Aspen, but he shoots himself in his Jeep Cherokee before detonating the four bombs.”
That can’t be right. Hunter S. Thompson shot himself back in 2005.
I heard that the Customs Service has been told by Cheney to immediately escort the AWOL Obama family once they clear immigration in Chicago - from their overseas trip to exotic Luo homeland of Hawai’i - immediately to the U.S. Capitol building where plainclothes police will shoot them dead, thus solving 90% of America’s problems.
(The 10% will be solved when Governors Blagojevich and Paterson, backed by new Senator Burris, unanimously anoint Cheney for his third term as the Precedent.)
L Urchin: Lay is what you do to your best friend’s girlfriend/sister/mother and lie is what you do later.
DoktorZoom: Fuck the American Heritage Dictionary.
And screw Strunk & White.
Fowler’s Modern English Usage 4-EVER!
[Although The Big F would disown one for putting it that way.
Bloody Pommy.]
Buncha stiffs you are. Swan’s Practical English Usage knows how to hang out with the cool kids.
Well, fuck them Nazis.
The Church of Realism: I’ll reach out to an aryan pinhead for just this once and give him my lighter.
InsertSnarkyReferenceLater: Yes, but what will we be rioting over?
I can’t blame the costumed Nazi guy. What with all the Nazi movies out in the theater this season, he probably thought it was high time he came out of the closet.
Actually, the running and shooting of the guy in a Nazi Uniform in the U-District is an old tradition, dating back to when the Yeslers use to shoot at Nazis in the alleyways back in the 1880s.
two words for the new administration: massive bugsweep.
I just think it’s sad that the Nazi has overshadowed an excellent dismemberment-by-highway out near Boeing Field just an hour later. Last I heard they were still looking for the head.
Doglessliberal: Why go out by cop, when you can go out by bacon?
“In Maryland, supposedly one of the richest states in the country”
say what now? i live in maryland, and we’re all destitute. just like the rest of y’all.
HuskyMescan: Thank you. Play ‘The Parting Glass’ by the Wailin’ Jennies at my memorial service.
On the contrary Ken, these sacrifices might lend some gitty-up to this year’s tomoato and soybean crops.
You know what else is nutty? I read on ABC News yesterday that a 3-legged dog dug up a dead baby. At first I was like, “Oh man, that’s grusome!” and then I wondered, “How does a 3-legged dog learn to dig?” That one article was an entire X-Files episode.
HuskyMescan: who the hell weaves bacon??
HuskyMescan: I am speechless. And also surprised that Domino’s has not started offering this as a pizza topping, with extra cheese on top, yet.
Chuckie Jesus gets the good nook from a tall drink of Irish whiskey, which makes her world 1000% happier than Chucky Lee’s.
If it helps, my IRA seems to love 2009. Hopefully it isn’t just a short-term infatuation.
Doglessliberal: KFC will be the first and pre-mix it with mashed potatoes in a bowl.
finallyhappy: Dead people since you die after you eat it.
Oh, Kentucky. A horse-related shooting. That’s darn near adorable for a murder.
My favorite story of the New Year so far is Charles Barkley’s excuse for speeding drunkenly in Arizona: going to get a great BJ.
Also, I’ve not seen the word “wrecked” used to identify a state of incoherent drug/alcohol use in along time, Ken. . . .
V572625694: There is only one dictionary and that is Oxford.
sanantonerose:
“What do you got?”
Killed his CAT! Surely, such a heinous crime justifies the use of deadly force!
Meow . . . uh, Happy New Year, one and all.
Lionel Hutz Esq.: Sometimes when I was bored, I’d go hang out across the street and wait for the nazi kids to start fights with the glam and goth kids that always used to hang out in front of the post office there on The Ave.
Big Time Brewing Co is right close by, so if no action, one could always go in for an IPA. I miss my old neighborhood.
thefrontpage: Shoot to kill? That is the only way that is taught in any police academy anywhere. They just miss a lot.
That old ski bum probably thought $60,000 would make him a mogul…
S. Cullen Bonz: Ouch! That one makes my right knee (dislocated ca. 1988, in a mogul field named “WaWa”) hurt.
Just “University District”. The ol’ “U” District. (Not “University Park”). Interesting how the PI article is careful not to say “Nazi”. Just “German WWII” uniform. The heart of the U district is University Way, which is called “The Ave” (not “The Way” for whatever reason).
It was 14th Avenue before it was University Way. How did I know this? Three guesses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ave
schvitzatura: He was defending his last can of hobo beans. Fairly soon, we must all do the same.
Beans Or Nothingness.
Ok, ok.. one Halloween, I dressed up as Transvestite Hitler. My best friend was dressed as Yoda Nazi. But we never pointed our dildos to cops.
Darehead: Your Frenchie talk will not impress. By calling for a cease fire, le pouf Sarkozy has allied himself with the civilian-killing terrorist. — Les NeoCons du Bush
http://harmonicminor.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/gaza_child.jpg
Not to be outdone my embarrassing state (FL) would like to submit their own story. The perp is critical and did not die so I guess our cops don’t have such good aim…
http://www.nbc6.net/news/18398501/detail.html?rss=ami&psp=news
An officer was attempting to conduct a traffic stop when the vehicle refused to stop,” Aida Fina-Milian of the Miami-Dade Police Department said. “The officer attempting to stop the vehicle, gave verbal commands. The vehicle did not stop and did come forward, accelerating and striking the officer and the officer discharged his weapon.”
Lascauxcaveman: Nothing says you are in the U-District like a 18 year old in a NAZI uniform holding out their Starbucks cup for change.
And I agree on the Big Time, I’ve wasted many a lunch in their. One of the great brew pubs, and their jukebox is usually well loaded.
I say stock up on ammo, beer and porn, it’s going to be a long year…
Ahhhhh, there’s nothing better to start your day than weaved bacon.
And Happy New Year from Minnesota!
POLICE: Mother left infant on Mpls. porch
The cry of an eight-month-old girl, who was left outside in the bitter cold, is what may have saved her life.
Minneapolis Police said the child was left outside Wednesday night, when temperatures were about 15 degrees.
Her 23-year-old mother dropped the girl off at her father’s home and just left her on the porch, according to officials.
“She just left. No one answered door, so she just left,” said a neighbor.
The child’s father told police he only discovered the infant when he heard her crying.
Police believe the girl was outside for about 15 minutes and was not hurt, but the mother may face child abuse charges.
thefrontpage: State workers love freakin’ furloughs! Gimme more of that shit.
I live in CA and the only dude with money is the Der Gropenator!
i would like to offer that my city, new orleans, started the year off with two homicides and one fatal police shooting! take that, philly!