2009 was a pretty shitty year. Even though it began with the historic election of President Obama discontentedness among Americans over unemployment, housing foreclosures, credit card debt, bank accounts drying up, and Muslims in the White House was at an all time high in 2009. Crazy was also at an all time high last year, which when combined with discontentedness, makes for an alarming trend in violence (and especially gun violence). Most people are still talking about the shootings at Fort Hood and decrying what a horrible tragedy it was (and it was a tragedy arguably the worst of all the events) but I think this selective memory has less to do with the fact that 13 people died and more to do with the fact that Nadal Hasan was a Muslim, which of course is our enemy and we should hate with a fiery passion because look what that “religion of peace” has wrought blah de blah de blah!
If we look back over 2009 and all the bloody incidents that occurred, however, there’s a different picture that emerges. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Scientologist, whatever the creed or race or background of all these individuals they all shared a good deal of discontent in their lives which led them to perpetrate their horrible crimes and murders. Many of them were motivated by hatred towards another type of person or by anger towards the financial crisis (and dem thar jew bankers), or were just crazy off-kilter wackos to begin with who were fulfilling their own destiny by going down in a blaze of gunfire, but in the end many of these people were too ashamed by their situation and probably ashamed about what they just did (killing lots of people) that they ultimately took their own lives after getting their anger out.
I don’t like to dwell on these kinds of incidents, I’m certainly not as morbid as most people I’ve met, but I decided to put together this collection of shootings/murder-sucides in 2009 because there actually doesn’t seem to be a place that has cataloged all this in one place. No, really! Even searching Google News for “2009 shootings” returns nothing related to the major news events that we all remember hearing about last year. It’s important to look at all these incidents as a whole, I believe, and also important to put the American circumstance in 2009 in context. People were pissed, people still are pissed, and we’re probably going to have another recession before the year is out. And add to that equation the many Americans still live in dreadful fear of many things (terrorism, religion, their bank account, police officers, Communists), so we’re not out of the woods yet (plus with the Tea Partiers calling for violent armed revolution I don’t think we’ll hear an end to it until we get a new president). So on that note, I present a chronological chart of all (or as many as I could find on Wikipedia) indicents of violent gun crime in 2009:
The Zone nightclub shootings
When: January 24th, 2009 | Where: Portland, OR | Who: Erik Salvador | Weapon: 9mm handgun
The Deceased: Martha “Tika” Paz de Noboa, Ashley Lauren Wilks, Erik Salvador
The Injured: Jouyuan Trista Chang, Susanna “Susy” De Sousa, Jalontae Howard, Gonzalo Vasquez Orozco, Anne Sophie Rialland, Ana Zambrano Soledispa, Bradley Steven Yoast
Lupoe Family murder/suicide
When: January 27th, 2009 | Where: Los Angeles, CA | Who: Ervin A. Lupoe | Weapon: handgun
The Deceased: Ervin A. Lupoe, Ana Lupoe, Lupoe’s three daughters
Meeks Family murder/suicide
When: January 29th, 2009 | Where: Whitehall, OH | Who: Mark Meeks | Weapon: handgun
The Deceased: Mark Meeks, Jennifer Dallas-Meeks, Jimmy Meeks, Abbigail Meeks
Amador Family murder/suicide
When: February 25th, 2009 | Where: Miami, FL | Who: Pablo Josue Amador | Weapon: handgun
The Deceased: Pablo Josue Amador, Maria Amador, Priscila Amador, Rosa Amador
Oakland Police Officer shootings
When: March 21st, 2009 | Where: Oakland, CA | Who: Lovelle Mixon | Weapon: SKS automatic pistol
The Deceased: Sergeant Mark Dunakin, Officer John Hege, Sergeant Ervin Romans, Sergeant Daniel Sakai
The Injured: Sergeant Pat Gonzales
Binghamton Civic Center shootings
When: April 3rd, 2009 | Where: Binghamton, NY | Who: Jiverly Antares Wong | Weapon: 9mm Beretta, .45 pistol
The Deceased: Parveen Ali, Almir Olimpio Alves, Marc Henry Bernard, Maria Sonia Bernard, Li Guo, Lan Ho, Layla Khalil, Roberta King, Jiang Ling, Hong Xiu Mao Marland, Dolores Yigal, Hai Hong Zhong, Maria Zobniw
The Injured: Shirley DeLucia, Long Huynh
Pittsburgh Police shootings
When: April 4th, 2009 | Where: Pittsburgh, PA | Who: Richard Poplawski | Weapon: WASR-1o rifle, .22 rifle, pistol
The Deceased: Officer Eric G. Kelly, Officer Stephen J. Mayhle, Officer Paul J. Sciullo, II
The Injured: Officer Timothy McManaway, Officer Brian Jones
George Tiller murder
When: May 31st, 2009 | Where: Wichita, KS | Who: Scott Roeder | Weapon: handgun
The Deceased: Dr. George Tiller
Little Rock recruiting office shootings
When: June 1st, 2009 | Where: Little Rock, AK | Who: Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad | Weapon: rifle
The Deceased: Private William Long
The Injured: Private Quinton Ezeagwula
Holocaust Memorial Museum shootings
When: June 10th, 2009 | Where: Washington, DC | Who: James Wenneker von Brunn | Weapon: .22 rifle
The Deceased: Stephen Tyrone Johns
LA Fitness shootings
When: August 4th, 2009 | Where: Collier Township, PA | Who: George Sodini | Weapon: 3 handguns
The Deceased: Heidi Overmier, Elizabeth Gannon, Jody Billingsley, George Sodini
The Injured: 9 others
Gee Family murder
When: September 21st, 2009 | Where: Beason, IL | Who: Christopher Harris | Weapon: Knife/baseball bat
The Deceased: Raymond Gee, Ruth Gee, Justina Constant, Dillon Constant and Austin Gee
Dalton Family murder/suicide
When: September 26th, 2009 | Where: Mount Airy, MD | Who: Charles L. Dalton | Weapon: 12-gauge shotgun
The Deceased: Charles L. Dalton, Jennifer Dalton, Charles Jr. Dalton, Emmaline Dalton
Maxwell Family murder/suicide
When: November 4th 2nd, 2009 | Where: Fayetteville, NC | Who: Billy Maxwell Jr | Weapon: handgun
The Deceased: Billy Maxwell Jr, Kathryn Maxwell, Connor Maxwell, Cameron Maxwell
Fort Hood shootings
When: November 5th, 2009 | Where: Fort Hood, TX | Who: Major Nadal Malik Hasan | Weapon: FN-57 handgun, .45 magnum
The Deceased: Michael Grant Cahill, Major L. Eduardo Caraveo, SS Justin Michael DeCrow, Captain John P. Gaffaney, Frederick Greene, Jason Dean Hunt, Sergeant Amy Sue Krueger, PFC Aaron Thomas Nemelka, PFC Michael S. Pearson, Captain Russell Gilbert Seager, PFC Francheska Velez, Lt. Col Juanita L. Warman, PFC Kham See Xiong
The Injured: 30 others
Orlando Gateway Center shootings
When: November 6th, 2009 | Where: Orlando, FL | Who: Jason Samuel Rodriguez | Weapon: 9mm handgun
The Deceased: Otis Beckford
The Injured: Gregory Hornbeck, Ferrell Hickson, Guy Lugenbeel, Edward Severino, Keyondra Harrison
Lakewood Police officer shootings
When: November 29th, 2009 | Where: Parkland, WA | Who: Maurice Clemmons | Weapon: semi-auto handgun
The Deceased: Sergeant Mark Renninger, Officer Ronald Owens, Officer Tina Griswold, Officer Greg Richard
I’m sure there are some incidents in 2009 that I’m forgetting to mention, but even with an abridged list one can definitely see the uptick in violence, both workplace and domestic, that occurred last year. The list above contains just seventeen, but these were the cases that made the biggest headlines and were the easiest to recall via search. I don’t even want to bother adding up the body count. Here in the conclusion of this post though I’d normally try to make some kind of argument to wrap things up, but really all I have to say here is that this kind of thing is just plain sad. Just plain sad. Let the dead’s passing not be in vain.
