America Greets 2009 By Going Insane
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 ]