the Way of the Turtle

WHAT NEXT?!!!!
Monday, December 24, 2012

Actually, I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question, because the incident that prompted it is pretty horrible.

Apparently very early this morning volunteer firefighters in Webster (just east of Rochester) responded to a house fire and found themselves being shot at. Two are dead, two more are in the hospital, and seven houses were destroyed in the blaze that resulted while the scene was being secured by police.

Current information is that the man who lived in the house set an ambush for the first responders to the fire, traded gunfire with the police when they arrived, and finally shot himself. He had a pretty serious criminal record (17 years in prison for murdering his grandmother back in 1980) but had apparently stayed out of trouble after being released in 1998.

First teachers and elementary school children, now firefighters who had gotten out of bed early in the morning to (they thought) help someone in their community. Ann is a volunteer firefighter and EMT - she could be the one being shot by some whackjob like this bastard.

I understand that the people who do stuff like this have serious mental problems, but do they have to share their pain and misery with others when they decide to end their lives?

JMH