Post Sandy Hook: Police investigate Penn. shooting spree

Pennsylvania State Police have identified the gunman who allegedly killed four people in rural Pennsylvania Friday. While the shooting was not connected with the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut, police are digging into the gunman's motive. 

|
Keith Srakocic/AP
Pennsylvania state trooper Jeff Pettuci talks during a news conference at the Geeseytown Fire Company about shootings along a nearby rural road that left four people dead and three Pennsylvania State troopers injured on Friday, in Geeseytown, Pa.

Investigators are searching for a possible motive in a shooting spree that left four people dead in rural Pennsylvania, including two apparent neighbors of the gunman, state police said on Saturday.

The violence erupted on Friday when a man with a pistol fatally shot three people in Frankstown Township, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh, before he was killed in a shootout with state troopers as he tried to flee in a pickup truck, authorities said.

Officials identified the gunman as Jeffrey Lee Michael, 44.

Pennsylvania State Police spokesman David McGarvey said two of the three people the gunman killed appeared to be neighbors, but gave few further details.

He said investigators "aren't aware of any dispute" between Michael and the victims, who were identified asKimberly Scott, 58, Kenneth Lynn, 60, and William Rhodes Jr., 38.

The violence in Pennsylvania unfolded as bells tolled and many Americans observed a moment of silence for the 20 children and six adults shot to death a week earlier by a gunman at an elementary school in Newtown,Connecticut.

The Newtown shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, also shot his mother to death at their home before going on his rampage, which ended with his suicide and has reignited a national debate over gun control.

In the Pennsylvania incident, the gunman in fairly rapid succession shot and killed a woman inside a church, then fatally shot two men at their respective homes - all within a short distance from each other - before trying to flee.

He opened fire at two state police patrol cars rushing to the scene as he passed them on a two-lane road and slammed head-on into a third patrol car. The gunman was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police at the crash scene, police said.

All three troopers involved in the chase were injured - one from the collision, another from bullet fragments and shattered glass, and a third who was shot in the chest but survived thanks to a bullet-proof vest. They were treated and released from a local hospital, McGarvey said.

Police have said that it did not appear that the shooting had any connection to the massacre in Connecticut

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Post Sandy Hook: Police investigate Penn. shooting spree
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1223/Post-Sandy-Hook-Police-investigate-Penn.-shooting-spree
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe