It wasn’t his fault, or his hands on the gun(s), it was that dang “child custody dispute” arising, say responding deputies.  It was half the (unnamed) ex-girlfriend’s fault, for not forking over the 3-month old when told to.  

And although 2 of her male relatives got shot, stepping in to protect, it is the poor, accused, walking wounded MAN (he attempted suicide after shooting, fleeing, being chased by police, including in a helicopter (??), and shooting himself) who grabs the headlines.

Here’s another “GIVE ME THE KID — or ELSE!”  that took a slightly different turn.  This time the shooter (Dad) wounded some others immediately (as opposed to just threatening to cut the mother’s throat, being jailed for this– for “about 16 months” plus “several months”–then when getting out of jail, calling 911, ambushing and murdering a responding sheriff in cold blood, drawing PLENTY of responding law enforcement fire, resulting in his own death, at age I think 27.)  

The knife-wielding, sheriff-punching/murdering man was married, the handgun/rifle-toting younger man was not.  Then again, the knife-wielding sheriff (or was it police?)-punching man later, in his ambush DID have a rifle, and after shooting the sheriff in the back, then grabbed the wounded officer’s own handgun and shot him again.

Perhaps the reason we have a fatherhood crisis is that when young and self-centered men don’t get their way in a custody exchange, they go start incidents that involve violence, and sometimes escalate to suicide.  

The infant daughter ONE was fighting over was about 1-1/2 months, the other infant daughter the OTHER was shooting relatives who intervened over was only 3 months old.  One father is dead already, the other one may die.  Clearly the PRIMARY social crisis both daughters will be growing up with is not early childhood trauma or any other “adverse childhood event”, growing up with, is not violence but fatherlessness, although the latter little girl had at least a grandpa and an uncle who protected her Mama, which indicates bravery & commitment.  

On the other hand, at age 3 months and 1-1/2 years they are already contributing to society — in the nature of newspaper fodder.  Later, if either mother requires any government assistance whatsoever, they will also be contributing to future social science studies by being low income,  possbly participating in a “female-headed household,”  and if mothers don’t learn from these incidents and pick a better man next time, another run through the system.  

“Man accused of attacking Valinda family may die from self-inflicted wounds.“

After reading article, please tell me why the headline doesn’t say upfront:  “Poor, accused (POLICE-FLEEING) MAN  may die from an owie (After shooting 2 other men, he shot himself).”

OR, it could come out and tell the truth, & mention a few other participants:

Publish under:  “Family” section, subheading “Fathers giving orders” (excuse me, I meant)  “Fathers can be nurturers too….”

Script:

“Girl, give me our infant — or I’ll shoot!  Your relatives, and then, when confronted on this, myself,” says Chino man, and does so, too.

Posted: 09/29/2009 10:14:39 PM PDT

By James Wagner, Staff Writer

VALINDA – A Chino man who deputies say shot his estranged girlfriend’s relatives and then attempted suicide Monday night remained in critical condition Tuesday and could die.

 

Photo Gallery: Valinda Shootings  (I’ll spare us….)

“We’re not too sure if he’s gonna make it,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Dwight Miley.

The alleged shooter, 21-year-old Bryan Ornelas, was taken to Citrus Valley Medical Center – Queen of the Valley Campus in West Covina on Monday night after the shootings.

A child custody dispute led Ornelas to shoot two members of his ex-girlfriend’s family, deputies said….

That’s a lie!  Can we start fining deputies for saying it and REPORTERS for writing, editors for publishing it, if there’s no disclaimer?  On this basis, she should have clawed out someone’s eyes or shot HIS family, if the dispute led to it.  I’ve been in a custody dispute for years, and I haven’t shot anyone.  How are law enforcement going to enforce if they keep putting this message out to the public — a custody dispute led him to do it. . . . . 

We have laws in this country.  One of them is against shooting people.  “The devil made me do it,” “God made me do it,”,” “unemployment made me do it,” “distress over the breakup of my marriage made me do it,” and “we had a custody dispute, which made me shoot someone,” are NOT legally valid excuses, and I would SO appreciate not having to read them in articles nationwide, year after year.

Then again, I’ve been in family law hearings, and you should hear the excuses for child-stealing and failure to work, and a few more.  These were received with straight faces by the personnel (and being in court, I didn’t gag til I read the transcript afterwards).  

If there is going to be a BIT of self-restraint in this country, ALL the ______ made me do it’s need to be flushed out of the headlines.  It’s ceased being amusing.  SELF-defense (not “ego-defense” or “pride-defense” or “my sense of masculinity-defense”) I believe in some circumstances MAY be acceptable reasons, although I have heard that women suffering long-term severe battering and abuse with no potential exit still go to death row, which is why movements to get justice for them have begun.  They typically get longer than men when sentenced.  

So a casual “A child custody dispute led Ornelas to shoot ANYONE is irrational and inappropriate.”

DEFINE “child custody dispute.”  As in, “I have the child in my arms (or house), therefore I have ‘custody’ “?  Or, there was a COURT order?  

If there was an order, it was either joint, or sole legal and joint or sole physical, and likely child support was involved as well.  If there was a COURT order, then it SHOULD specify visitation (of course, many of these are so  vague as to be unworkable, even when DV has been an issue, which we don’t know if it had, here.)

If there was a COURT order specific enough, then it may have been a child custody “dispute” but one party was wishing to comply and the other to deny its order.  So it is relevant.

Although I realize reporters can’t always find out (or reliably cite) who started the incident, in this field, a very heated field emotionally (and with lots — millions, nationwide — of $$ riding on it, highly entrenched interests — maybe not to the Ornelas/Rizo family, but nationwide), I find the over-use of domestic disputes “arising,” as if out of nowhere, and without cause, to be misleading.  Such things “arise” or “emerge” like the sun “rises” (or appears to).  There is generaly a reason for the season, or the emotions.  In the field of child CUSTODY, if there is something in the courts, than any dispute with that is a dispute with the courts, and not a private family matter.

 

Officers said  Ornelas shot himself in the head after a short pursuit.Ornelas and his ex-girlfriend have a three-month-old girl who was with her before the shooting, Miley said.

They are, or are not, living together?  Not shown – did she take off with the little girl after her relatives intervened?  (PROTECTIVE mother, eh?)  Apparently the little girl missed seeing someone shot, which was good, eh? But I’m sure the fatherhood folk will get her back with her Dad, if he survives.  After all, if not, he might shoot someone else.  Or, simply be an uninvolved Dad, not pay child support, and burden the state with welfare, if she can’t figure something else out for a livelihood.

The shooting occurred at 6:45 p.m. Monday in the 16200 block of Benwick Street in the unincorporated county area of Valinda.

Ornelas wanted to see the child but his ex-girlfriend didn’t want to give the baby to him, Miley said. Then a dispute arose.

Whose words is Miley reporting?  Why doesn’t he mention, “according to..” as he wasn’t actually there to see?  In courts, hearsay is hearsay.  Miley didn’t witness the dispute, so someone reported it to him.  

Apparently this WAS the dispute, and a common (and dangerous, sometimes) one it is, indeed.

AKA, baby as property.  Custody order was, or was not, in place?  I have an idea.  AT THE HOSPITALS, unmarried Moms are assigned sole custody which continues even during marriage til further notice or ABSOLUTE proof of neglect or abuse.  If a Dad is on the scene, participating, and proved this with DNA, let’s return to the days of “shotgun marriages” as it appears that the alternative is shotgun (or knife, or ball bat) “give me the kids.”

LOOK, LET’s CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES ON CHILDBIRTH & PARENTHOOD!

 It takes less than a half hour or so to start a baby, and around 9 months to finish the process.   MOTHERS, PHYSICALLY, ARE INNATELY MORE BONDED TO THEIR CHIDLREN BECAUSE THOSE KIDS ARE INSIDE THEM BEFORE BIRTH.  THEIR BODIES CHANGE REMARKABLY DURING PREGNANCY, AFFECTING MANY TIMES OTHER SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS (NOT ALWAYS, BUT USUALLY).  LABOR IS INDEED “LABOR.”  HAVING SEX IS, SUPPOSEDLY, MUTUALLY FUN, BUT LABOR TAKES HOURS (USUALLY) AND CAN INVOLVE HAVING PARTS OF A WOMAN’S BODY CUT (CAESARIAN) OR SNIPPED (EPISIOTOMY), SOMETIMES BY AN OVEREAGER MALE DOCTOR. (I thankfully avoided this, primarily by avoiding the hospital til right before birth, for one daughter, who was born very healthy).  Afterwards, if women nurse (“breast is best,” remember?  See my post, Australian authorities and Canadian trying to balance this with couples which split up so early).  It’s a radical readjustment of relationships, and I think a great one.  Therefore, to avoid shootings, abuse, threats to cut and 911 calls, kidnappings, and potential infanticide around exchanges, I have a simpler way (??).

UNMARRIED MOTHERS  — not their grandmas and not their boyfriends and not their aunts — GET CUSTODY UNLESS THEY ARE ON DRUGS or involved in gangs, etc.  As such, THEY are responsible unless rape (including statutory) or incest was a factor, and even then, she has the majority sayso because it’s HER BODY, and authorities go after the (____holes).   If stupidity on the woman’s part {{such as picking up, getting pregnant by, and then marrying an ex-Porn king on a rebound marriage at a bar, as happened earlier this year, resulting in her being beat to deathwith a ball bat on the baby’s 1st birthday, and the baby (GIRL) being, briefly, abducted}}was a factor, they still get custody and must learn to take care of their children somehow, and let’s give them the support.  If a young man, or middle-aged man, in this day and time is stupid or callous enough not to use a condom, when he’s uncommitted to the young (or older) woman, then he’s just not mature enough to handle children and can go practice first on small animals and at a job.

UNMARRIED MOTHERS WHO LATER MARRY — EITHER THE FATHER, OR SOMEONE ELSE — AUTOMATICALLY RETAIN CUSTODY.  IF THEY SCREW UP CRIMINALLY, THROW THE HEAVY HAND OF THE LAW AT THEM.  WITH THE MONEY SAVED FROM SOME OF THESE OTHER SELF-DEFEATING AND MUTUALLY-CONTRADICTORY GRANTS PROGRAMS, THIS COULD THEN BE POSSIBLE.  IT MIGHT EVEN HELP REDUCE THE NATIONAL DEBT.  PUT THE RESPONSIBILITY BACK ON THE INDIVIDUALS, AND THEIR IMMEDIATE ASSOCIATES.  BUT DURING MARRIAGE, AND IN LIGHT OF HOW FREQUENT DIVORCE IS, MOTHERS RETAIN SOLE LEGAL CUSTODY OF THEIR CHILDREN.  THE ALTERNATIVE (WHICH WE ARE NOW “IN”) IS INVESTING HEAVILY IN TRYING TO “BRIBE” MEN TO BECOME MORE RESPONSIBLE — AND IT AIN’T REALLY WORKING WITH THOSE FROM THE BRYAN ORNELAS’es to the JEFFREY LEVINGS (THROWING FUEL ON THE FIRE, the ends justify the means)– and we (yes, I said “we.”  Taxpayer funds are used through HHS programs driving the courts) AND THE “BRIBE” USED IS TWO-FFOLD:

1.  Money, in the form of at a minimum reduced child support payments.  The Bible, at a minimum (I cannot speak for th eKoran or any other writinges) says clearly that the love of money is the ROOT of all evil.  Any version of paying a man to “love” his own offspring is promoting this.  It also is disturbingly close to human trafficking, when child support is reduced in exchange for pushing or enabling men to spend more time with their kids than the existing laws otherwise would enable them.  

2. Children themselves.  This is why sites like “Courageouskids.net” have become necessary, and why some adult children SUE the participants in their traumatic childhood once they turn 18.  This is not the majority of divorcing families, but it IS a social problem.  And ONE case of child molestation or any form of abuse or neglect during exchange with a newly-enfranchised father is too much.  ONE is too much!  As to foster care, it’s not much better.  But I believe the children would be better off with a STABLE relationship with their mother, and particularly when such a mother has already separated because of violence to her by the Dad.  Or, violence to her children by the Dad.  

I am witness -and by far not the only one — that THE destabilizing effect in my post-separation life was the family law system, as tweaked by both the father (and friends) and — I learned, belatedly — a system of grants designed to tweak it in favor of noncustodial “parents,” but oddly enough, many, many of those programs have the word “fatherhood” in theiir titles, and even more in their texts, while the word “mothers” barely appears in:  Family Violence Prevention Fund (unless under a special category) and on whitehouse.gov.

I had restraining order on, and a healthy, solvent, contributing-t0-the community, kids actively involved in the community lifestyle.  This was attested to by social workers, parents of kids I taught, and colleagues, and by how the children were doing also.  The ONLY way to make all that evidence disappear was to haul me into family law, defending custody of the girls, fighting to assert joint legal, and in a venue famous (I later learned) for suppressing evidence in favor of psychobabble bearing no (and citing no) evidence, and from there repeatedly upending my own life, as mother leaving violence and trying to economically re-invent myself, and with sole physical custdoy of two daughters.  

WITH RESTRAINING ORDER OFF, AND “THE SKY’S THE LIMIT” AS TO INTERFERENCES WITH MY ABILITY TO WORK AND LIFE ON A WEEKLY AND MID-WEEKLY BASIS, YEAR ROUND, NO VACATION BREAKS AND NO SUMMER BREAKS (any and all contact was cause for arguing, debate, threat, and more and more involving law enforcement to adjudicate — and THEY refused to enforce clear orders, repeatedly, which is their job !! Even up to a custody order!) our daughters, have had the “crime pays — if you’re male” and the double standard passed on.  They learned firsthand the dangers of reporting abuse and leaving it.  They have learned it’s better to stuff it, internalize and blame themselves, or externalize and find someone to hate (better to join in with the gang rather than go against it).  Apart from, and to some extents DURING the initial restraining order, the only true peace we had was while it was on, and the caretaking parent could actually function as a normal human being and they could, by association feel fairly normal with their peers and in the activities at which they were prospering.

We are at a turning point as a society (always, but especially now, it seems).  Either women are full-status citizens or they are second-class citizens.  Now, women, including young women, have had a taste at full-status; the horse is out of the barn, “who let the dogs out?”

While we have not used that responsibly gender-wide, I think I could make a pretty good case that men haven’t either (see Holocaust, wars, weapons of mass destruction) etc.  And a woman who has a fighting chance off being treated like a human being without ALL of society, including relatives, religious institution(s), law (and its inforecment) and such in her society, MIGHT just fight rather than crumple.  We have internet and books, and courageous people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali have already spoken out, just as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X did on racism.  Phyllis Chesler exists and has published, and I’m only naming a very few obviously.  

Now, either it can be guerilla warfare, plus some other forms of male on female terrorism in order to try to chase a bunch cats (ever done that?), or the males — including those in the mainstream media — can start to adjust.  When people separate, there are going to be custody disputes.  Either we could go back — and I do mean REgress — to some fundamentalist religions that endorse honor killings, genital mutilation, forced marriages, and whipping, stoning, or otherwise punishing women for showing signs of life, and a piece of skin, and raise generations of haters and women who cannot even trust in each other (polygamy is by definition something of a supply & demand artificially enforced situation) OR we can go the other direction, and stop men from trying to turn back the clock and “just deal” with women as BOTh citizens AND occasionally mothers.  To fully deal with this, the educational system (I’m talking scheduling more than content) needs to be loosened up and homeschooling de-stigmatized, allowing family members to actually get to know each other, and not feel like oddballs in the community because they are actively participating in it daytimes.  Don’t give me the Philipp Garridos for an example — he was under failed sex offender supervision.  For every such incident, there is at least an equal one that takes place IN schools, including shootings, sexual assaults and “worse,” dumbing down and slowing down.  Or failing to fully support those who need more help.  

One of the worst things I know — and I DO know it — is where males incite their associated females to hurt other women.  I’ve seen it (and been targeted, while with children in the home).  If there is no solidarity on basis of gender, and no fair legal protection, and faith communities are so economically codependent with their own males (plus the volunteer services of the wives and kids that come with them, AND at times the distressed single women or single mothers that come for social/emotional nurturing too, having no families of their own) they cannot confrton domestic violence and child abuse, or even confront a member on crimianl charges of any sort against family members — that’s terrible.  

This young woman’s relatives stood in for her, and took bullets.

Sorry to digress, but I am thinking this morning, about how ridiculous it is to read incident aftter incident, when I already know what resources are being poured — a tsunami, virtually – into agencies that are supposedlyo fixing the situation.  Maybe we ought to just let go of the paradigm of “fixing” families at all.  If they’re broken, let them be broken, but when anyone breaks a law, bring consequences, and bring it WITHOUT respect of gender, or where the pay is coming from.  (Yeah, in which utopia….)

Authorities aren’t sure how the shooting unfolded but according to family members, the girlfriend’s father, Jesus Rizo, and brother, also named Jesus Rizo, intervened in the dispute.

Now THAT is brave.  Or foolhardy.  But I might have too, being there.  

The ex-girlfriend’s 58-year-old father was shot in the forearm and her 16-year-old brother was wounded in the upper arm, authorities said.  {{IN OTHER WORDS, they’re not actually saying this young man Ornelas did it?  They “were shot” and “were wounded” (passive tense}}

Everyone else, including the infant, had an age, what was Mom’s?

The incident continued to a home in the 1600 block of Mullender Avenue, where authorities chased Ornelas.

Witnesses and authorities said Ornelas sped down the street in a car, ran to the back of the house, entered it and put a gun to his throat.

 

IN the house, shot in the head, or BEHIND the house, shot in the throat.  Only the EMTS know for sure.

Sounds like a combination of witnesses.  Someone saw him speeding down the street in a car.  Unless they were faster than him, someone ELSE saw him behind the house, and he did indeed shoot himself, with the same gun that shot the relatives.  Maybe details will come out, but probably not before some other young man or disgruntled ex tries to nab another young child somewhere in these United States, and pulls off another police-report-producing incident involving threats or weaponry.  

It was there that Ornelas attempted suicide, deputies said.

Staff Writer Ruby Gonzales contributed to this story.

james.wagner@sgvn.com

(626) 962-8811 ext. 2236

 

ANOTHER COMMENT:     NAMED people in this story:  4 males:  Sgt. Miley, Bryan Ornelas, Jesus Rizo & Jesus Rizo — all male.  We also have all of their ages except the Sgt’s.   

UNNAMED people in this story:  the only 2 females (not county Staff Writer Ruby Gonzales, who contributed) ”  the infant girl and her mother, who  was named, in order “ex-girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, girlfriend, and ex-girlfriend.”  Neither her age nor name is not in there, or where she was during the shooting, although that the child wasn’t there seems clear.  She exists only as a man’s ex (a guntoting suicidal, orders-giving, retaliatory one, it seems).  NOTHING is said of her emotions or fears or reasons for declining to hand over a 3-month old baby.  (3 months, FYI, is pretty young.  That is a dependent child.  She was the mom….).  No reasons is given that she was not interviewed (as in, “could not be reached for comment” or “declined to comment.”    The story is only in the violence.  The headline emphasizes the man’s pain and suffering, and “self-inflicted wounds” — the word “wound” is a term used in warfare — the “wounded.”  This obscures the man’s violence.  Although someone (probably him) clearly DID shoot, because there are 2 relatives in the hospital; I tend to doubt it was the mother who fired the gun — the headline emphasizes that he was “Accused” of “attacking” family is very misleading.  He DID attack (shoot) and was chased for police by hit, to which he responded in an “adult” manner by fleeing.

I wonder, where was the girl’s MOTHER.  If an older female relative had been on the scene, might she have been able to talk down the young man?  She wa snot his “property” (i.e., sexually intimate) and she was not another male challenging the young man’s “property,” i.e., his little girl, and the order-giving status he held towards his “girlfriend.”  It seems to me that this situation might have done better with a voice of moderation around.  Then the armed officers show up (appropriately) and chase the guy.  

The account as given (he fled, and shot himself) It’s plausible.  It would fit a social pattern.  It may be true.  Point is, to the readers, it’s still hearsay, largely from the deputies.  No other witnesses are named in the article.

Now, this is the trouble with trying to find more information.  I googled “ornelas suicide” and unfortunately got this, a Mr. & Mrs. Ornelas

SANTA ANA – 3 Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide

March 20, 1993,  

A 44-year-old Santa Ana man apparently killed his wife and then himself after fatally shooting a man he incorrectly suspected of having an affair with his wife, police said Friday.

Homicide detectives believe Jose Lopez Ornelas shot Albert Lujan Galindo, 30, outside Galindo’s apartment on East Pine Street early Thursday morning, Santa Ana Police Sgt. Art Echternacht said.   {{note age difference — jealousy. }}

A neighbor discovered Galindo lying in a pool of blood just outside his apartment about 5:30 a.m.

Police said Ornelas then apparently drove his wife, Diane, 45, into southern San Diego, where he apparently killed her before fatally shooting himself, Echternacht said.

Police said the case is still under investigation and would not elaborate on what linked Ornelas to the Galindo slaying.

San Diego police, who are investigating the apparent murder-suicide in the Otay Mesa area, discovered Jose and Diane Ornelas slumped over in his 1988 Chevrolet pickup truck about 10 a.m. Thursday.

The truck was first sighted on the side of Otay Mesa Road near Heritage Road about 8 a.m., police said. The engine was running, the hood was up and the lights and radio were on, according to San Diego Police Lt. Greg Clark.

There was a small handgun in Jose Ornelas’ right hand, police said.

Friends and neighbors told police that Diane Ornelas and Galindo drove together to their custodial jobs at UCI Medical Center in Orange, Echternacht said, and “all indications are that they were not romantically involved at all, but the husband apparently got jealous.“

A hospital spokeswoman said Diane Ornelas and Galindo had worked at the hospital for about 10 years. Police said they do not know why Jose Ornelas may have been jealous.

AND, another Google result:

Yet another Ornelas was just going to work, in Las Vegas Area (I guess) and landed in the middle of a “strange crime spree blamed on alcohol & depressants” (2008).  It really was out there, too. . . .

Strange crime spree ends in suicide

Alcohol, anti-depressants** blamed in Sunday’s string of events

When Marcos Ornelas was walking to work Sunday, the waiter at Joe’s Crab Shack thought it was going to be another normal afternoon.

But as he got closer to the restaurant near the intersection of Flamingo Road and the 215 Beltway, he was greeted by dozens of police cars and a helicopter circling overhead.

(**as opposed to economy, despair over breakup of a marriage (or affair), jealousy, resentment at actually having been punished for previous criminal activity, or simply a custody exchange, or God, or the devil….)

More on the Bryan Ornelas case, topic of this post:  3 Hospitalized in Valinda Shooting

 

Benwick Street after “a dispute … regarding child custody,” said Sgt. Dwight Miley of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s station in Industry.

Ornelas had been arguing with his ex-girlfriend when the two men tried to intervene, and Ornelas shot each man in the arm once with a handgun, Miley said.

Given how many sheriff-described “disputes” end up with people in the hospital, and sometimes dead or dying, I object to the word “dispute.”  If it is not actually a legal term, remind me to save up my money, attend one of the joint DV-training conferencees women like me are generally not allowed as speakers, and get my two bits in.  In addition to recommending early intervention and immediate prosecution of any felony (or misdemeanor) domestic VIOLENCE (not “abuse”) incidents, officers should be fined 1% of their weekly paycheck every time they (post-shooting) say the word “dispute” in connection with the incident.  This should go into a pro bono legal fund for women fleeing family violence who are bounced into the family law arena.  This will not actually equal the federal funding to states to help noncustodial fathers, BUT it would be at least a drop in the bucket.  

The sergeant said Ornelas and the woman (aka “girlfriend” aka. “mother”) were the parents of the infant at the center of the dispute.  A Sheriff’s Department helicopter hovered overhead as Ornelas fled the home in a vehicle with patrol cars in pursuit.

 

A 16 yr old is a man…  A mother is a girl.  However the 21-year old Ornelas is behaving kind of immature here, like a baby (only armed).

Ornelas led deputies to another home in the 1600 block of Mullender Avenue, where he ran inside and shot himself with a rifle, authorities said. Ornelas had been at that home earlier in the day and was known to the residents there, Miley said.

{{which may explain the “witnesses and authorities said.”  }}

{{This young man seems to have been pretty adept with firearms (if not emotionally mature).  I would recommend that, should he survive,  — and it will come, believe me, the young mother get some weapons training, and the father be informed that she has it,  for the next court-ordered custody exchange.   After all, she may or may not qualify for federally- or state-funded supervised visitation, but even their own materials admit that women are still sometimes shot, and killed, outside such exchanges.  Her male relatives may not want to put their bodies inbetween for target practice next time.  She will be smart enough, soon enough, to realize that if a MOTHER uses a gun in an illegal manner against a father, she’s going down for more years than he is.  And the female prisons, I heard, are not so overcrowded as the male.}}    Perhaps mace, or a Taser, or pepper spray, might be a deterrent for such a father, but I don’t know offhand.  He doesn’t seem like the law-abiding, in control of his emotions.}}

ANOMALIES:

Like the incident (a month or so earlier, post) in Minnesota, I’m wondering how the man could, being chased by police, pull off a suicide so fast.  I don’t handle guns, so I don’t know, BUT the first account says gun to his throat (a rifle?) and out back, not inside.  He was carrying a handgun and rifle both?  He was being pursued by police AND helicopter, but chose the rifle, not the handgun, to commit suicide with??  If he was going to do this, why not do it at the scene?  Who actually witnessed the last shot?

I can see why people are tempted to leave answering such questions up to the professionals, or local communities.  For one, with the internet, and nationwide coverage (of sorts), incidents like these seem to arise with breakneck speed.    Are they copycats?  Are these public messages to women/mothers as a whole that, “don’t even THINK about confronting me, or this could be you”?

Even if no action is taken, it is important, I feel, to think critically about what one reads.  I am uncomfortable (extremely) when the only source cited in a news report are the deputies, especially when an incident involves blood, hospitals, or any crime scene clean-up.