This Week in the Mercury
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
News / Crime Gunman in Tualatin—Four Shot
Posted by Sean Breslin on Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 1:27 PM
The Oregonian is reporting that police have responded to a shooting in Tualatin. I'm headed out there to see what's going on.
Update, 1:32pm: The Mercury just spoke with Joe Dennis, an office worker who is barricaded inside the building across the street.
"We had somebody outside and the police said go inside and lock your office doors," says Dennis, who works right across Martinazzi Street from the shooting. He's still locked in the building right now.
"It's unsettling for most people," he says. "A lot of people are just locking themselves in their offices and just concerned that the gunman might make it into our building."
"What we're hearing is that right across the street, either somebody was shot, either the Legacy Lab or the State Farm building," he says. "I've heard rumors that there were anything from five to ten people shot, and that the gunman was killed."
"It's hard to imagine what would cause someone to do this," he says. "The first thing we thought was that maybe some kind of insurance claim might have failed and they might have gone crazy, or that perhaps something attached to the medical lab happened, but I can't imagine what that might be."
"Initially we saw a lot of police come up on the scene and block off the roads, then some tactically equipped law enforcement come up on the Legacy Building and establish the perimeter," he says. "We started to see them pull out their assault rifles and then realized that it was a little more serious."
"It's crazy, it's not fun," says Madhavan Chidanbaram, who is visiting the office from India, also locked inside the office this afternoon. "In our country we have our own problems, but people don't get guns so easily in my home country. It's not right and it's not safe."
"Initially I just saw a lot of police cars, and then a lot of emergency response vehicles, fire trucks, ambulances, a lot of officers on foot carrying shields, wearing vests, going into the strip mall. It looked like there was going to be a lot of activity," says Natalie Ruiz, another co-worker of Dennis's. "A news crew has finally arrived, now."
"We locked the doors, there were some people outside smoking and they were told to come back in the office and lock the doors," she says. "It was a little bit frightening. We didn't know whether to just come back inside and get on with our work, or how serious it was."
Update, 1:37 The O is reporting two dead, two injured. One shooting victim ran across the street to a Subway, covered in blood, according to our office-workers.
Update, 2:07 Tualatin Police Chief Kent Barker says the shooting happened at 11:45am, when a single male entered the Legacy Medical Lab with a rifle, shot and killed one person and wounded two others. The suspect was found dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No identities are being released yet. Local schools and businesses were locked down for a brief period but all the security has been lifted. There'll be another press conference at 4 o'clock.
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I sued a company in Tualatin when I was 17, (and won. They refused to honor the warranty on a computer, so I'd pretty much bought a $3000 paperweight.) My mother had to threaten a company in that city a few years later with a lawsuit when she took her sewing machine in for maintenance, and they said it was broken and weren't willing to return it and told her she should buy a new one. (They were most likely trying to steal it, there was nothing wrong with it when she got it back, (fortunately,) they just don't make sewing machines like that anymore so the thing is quite valuable.) It isn't like we are sue happy, it was both the only time for either of us. And then something happened to my dad there, (I don't remember what exactly, it wasn't that important in the big scheme of things,) and that was the final straw for the city. No one in my family has been back since, (more importantly: I've been at my desk all day and I've got witnesses to prove it. That and I'm not dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound.)
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That's not a leap of logic, it's an ocean-sized gap...
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And if you feel like shooting someone when you get annoyed, you should be locked away for life.
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@Stu: I didn't say that I was going to shoot anyone. But people shoot petty criminals all the time. Someone breaks into your house and you shoot them? That happens all the time, and no jury would convict you for it either.
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All I expect is (as with religion!) that people realize and respect that there are opposing opinions out there.
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I'd love to see her post the same sentiment in a thread about someone who was killed in a crosswalk or on a bike, because then people might start to think she's an asshole.
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