Clackamas - Profile of an Unpredictable Shooting

[Double Naught Spy]

http://www.opb.org/news/article/clackamas-shooter-planned-his-attack/

Jacob Roberts seems to be the type of shooter people fear amongst the most when they talk about gun free zones, gun control, mental health issues, and the like. He is the shooter that nobody could predict.

The shooting was apparently planned. Roberts didn't rant to his friends. He wasn't a "gun nut." Heck, he wasn't even a gun owner. He didn't have a conflict with fellow employees (not a workplace shooting) or anyone else involved in the shooting. He didn't have known mental health issues. He didn't have a criminal history. He wasn't known to be violent. He didn't buy a used gun at a gun show, off Craigslist, or buy a new one (so no paperwork). He stole it from a friend and this wasn't known until after the fact. In short, there were no warnings of any sort, no red flags, no concerns, no way to know, suspect, or otherwise think he would attempt to become a mass shooter. He was about as "under the radar" as a person could be in terms of drawing attention to himself about being a danger to others.

It is this type of person that often seems to cause the most fear in the general populace...being randomly shot by a stranger in a public place for no apparent reason. Instead, it is friends, coworkers, or people known to them who are the ones who are most likely to be the ones to cause them harm or murder them.

Fortunately, the shooting could have been much worse. Roberts was not an experienced shooter. He missed with most of the shots he fired despite having the benefits of plenty of ammunition and a long gun (maybe as many as 60 shots fired http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clackamas_Town_Center_shooting). The gun malfunctioned and he lost a lot of time and potential targets who ran away. It was also during this time that Nick Meli took advantage of the opportunity (smart) and apparently pointed his own gun at Roberts, but did not shoot. Roberts retreated at that point, apparently still trying to fix his malfunctioning gun, finally clearing the stoppage in a service hallway where he committed suicide instead of re-engaging people in the mall inclusive of the cops who had arrived.

On a disappointing note, the police gave credit to the shop owners and themselves with only a mention of Meli. To their credit, they did have a very quick response, but not quick enough to see actually ever see Roberts before finding him, dead.

But regardless of that, he had very limited targets, people ran. And then secondly credit goes to the Clackamas Town Center for the exceptional training and all the store owners and employees who did the right thing. They closed up the shops, they sheltered and hid people. Again making it harder for him to find people. And then to my brothers and sisters in law enforcement for their tremendous and almost immediate response who flooded that mall and in less than two minutes were in that mall and had the suspect cornered in a service corridor. so at that point he had no other targets, no place to go, we had him cornered in a service corridor where he had nothing else to do but surrender or in this case, take his own life."

This last line seems to be in error. There isn't any indication that the cops had a clear idea as to where the shooter was to surround until he killed himself. They certainly had not contained him and didn't know if he was surrounded or not. Roberts hadn't seen the cops and they hadn't seen him. If Roberts didn't have any targets, then the cops didn't either. That his only options were suicide and surrender is just plain wrong as he certainly could have fought it out with the cops as does sometimes (very rarely as well) happen.

http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2013/05/timeline_shows_shooters_moveme.html

Moving down onto the lower floor of the mall, he continued east towards JC Penney's, where he was found dead by responding law-enforcement personnel -- 22 minutes after the first 911 call.

http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2012/12/clackamas_town_center_shooting_16.html

 

[kraigwy]

Good read and corresponds to the info my daughter gave me. She was at the Mall during the incident. She had hunkered down in the office/storage room of a pet store. (and had her picture posted all over the news).

These active shooter incidents seem to be more common and hard to defend against, as YOU NEVER KNOW.

Rob Pincus, of Personal Firearm Defense, put out an excellent DVD on "Active Shooter Response.

I highly recommend it for anyone who goes to the mall or any other place where you might encounter an Active Shooter situation (which means anytime you step out your front door).

Pincus' DVD isn't for LE, its for us, the civilian who may or may not be carrying. It covers not only protecting yourself from the bandit, but from responding LE, who are looking for anyone with a gun, or some other CC holder who may be present.

Clackamas Town Center (Mall) is a perfect example. Look at the response time of the police. The Clackamas County Sheriff's office is 2 blocks from the Mall.

 

[Gaerek]

I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but this is exactly why any kind of gun control, mental health reforms, or whatever else won't prevent mass murders from happening. Luckily for the people in the mall, he didn't really know what he was doing, and obviously didn't know how to perform a malfunction drill.

The only thing that could have (and potentially did) stopped this from being much worse (other than the shooters own ineptitude) is good guys carrying guns.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but this is exactly why any kind of gun control, mental health reforms, or whatever else won't prevent mass murders from happening.

Sort of. Certainly such controls won't prevent ALL of them. That can't happen. Even if the laws are in place and the guns are gone, mass murder will still occur, but through other means. While the antis may want all such events stopped, nobody believes that all such events will be stopped. Their goal is to actually lessen them. We have a similar goal, but a very different solution.

Even if such events could be stopped, they are actually a statistically insignificant event in regards to injuries and deaths compared to violent crime and murder in general. That such events receive so much attention is, in part, media hype...which we help fuel. Keep in mind that Clackamas was NOT a mass murder event. Only three victims (not including the perp) were shot and of those, one survived. It wasn't even a mass shooting. However, because this happened at a mall during the holiday season, it made national coverage for a couple of weeks. You probably aren't even aware of most bona fide mass murders that do occur like this one that didn't make national news or certainly wasn't an issue for more than a moment. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/16/five-family-members-found-shot-dead-in-small-illinois-town/ Most mass shootings and mass murders simply don't occur in public or work places with gun free zones and the like and they don't make news as readily either.

I will have to go back when I have some time and do some extensive reading, but a significant number of shooters are stopped or slowed significantly because of malfunctions/stoppages (not just of guns running empty, which is also a stopper or slower of many). These stoppages are often common malfunctions such as stovepipes or feed issues.