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AP Photo/Cathleen Allison
Candles left after a vigil remain at the Nevada State Veterans’ Memorial in Carson City on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011. Four people were killed Tuesday, including three Nevada National Guard members, and seven other people were injured when a gunman opened fire with an AK-47 in an IHOP restaurant.
Published Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011 | 2:51 a.m.
Updated Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011 | 4:20 p.m.
Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong holds a news conference Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011 updating details on Tuesday's shooting spree at a Carson City IHOP restaurant.
Eduardo Sencion
Shooting rampage in Carson City kills 4
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A man shot and killed four people Tuesday in an IHOP restaurant in Carson City before turning the gun on himself.
Sun archives
Beyond the Sun
Timeline of events
8:58.24 — Carson City Sheriff and Fire Communications received the first call (all 911 lines subsequently rang at full capacity)
8:58.58 — First sheriff’s units dispatched (34 seconds after first call received); request that all available units respond.
9:02:30 — Carson City Fire Department dispatches three initial units; advised to stage nearby for safety.
9:03:06 — Sheriff’s units arrive and secure scene.
9:04:35 — Carson City Fire Department requested at least two Care Flight medical helicopters.
9:06:05 — Sheriff’s officials allows CCFD to enter IHOP restaurant.
9:06.24 — Shooter down in parking lot next to blue van (later determined to be from a self-inflicted gunshot)
9:07:30 — First fire units on scene; advise of multiple victims.
9:07:48 — Fire department requested additional four to five ambulances.
9:08:28 — Fire department advised seven gunshot victims inside IHOP.
9:09:53 — All three Care Flight helicopters enroute (Reno, Gardnerville, Truckee)
9:10:39 — Fire department requests additional medical helicopter from CalStar in California.
9:28:46 — Dispatch notified that one helicopter had arrived, loaded and was heading back to Reno; second and third helicopter waiting to land; fourth helicopter canceled.
9:31:53 — First chaplain and psychologist en route.
9:52:35 — Seelinger Elementary School lockdown lifted.
10:59:09 — Phone numbers provided for victim information and family inquiries.
12:25:39 — Three patients transported by Care Flight; three patients transported by ground ambulance.
12:48:24 — IHOP president arrives at sheriff’s office; directed to scene.
Source: Nevada Department of Public Safety.
CARSON CITY -- Dozens of 911 calls made from in and around a Nevada IHOP where a deadly shooting rampage took place detail a frantic scene, as witnesses described the gunman and dispatchers tried to determine if more than one person was involved.
Callers described victims gunned down inside the Carson City restaurant on tapes released Wednesday.
"There's a shooting in the IHOP! Get there right now!" yelled caller Ralph Swagler, owner of Local's BBQ next door, as shots rang out in the background.
Second later, Swagler said: "Now he's coming back out. He's shooting people in the parking lot! He's shooting at us now!"
A female caller told the dispatcher to send several ambulances because there was a "guy shooting everyone."
Tuesday's attack by Eduardo Sencion, aka Eduardo Perez Gonzalez, left four dead and seven injured. Sencion, 32, also killed himself.
Officials released the victims' names Wednesday as the search for a motive - and a time of grieving - continued.
"This is unquestionably the most devastating attack in Carson City's history," Carson City Sheriff Kenny Furlong said. "Yesterday our town was shocked to the core."
The dead included three Nevada National Guard members - the same number of Nevada Guardsmen killed during a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were Sgt. 1st Class Christian Riege, 38, of Carson City; Major Heath Kelly, 35, of Reno; and Sgt. 1st Class Miranda McElhiney, 31, of Reno.
The fourth person killed was Florence Donovan-Gunderson, 67, of South Lake Tahoe. Donovan-Gunderson was married to a retired U.S. Marine Corp member.
Furlong said it remained unclear whether Sencion was targeting people in the military. But police in South Lake Tahoe, where Sencion worked, confirmed he had a previous run-in with the law involving his mental health.
Lt. David Stevenson said the department took Sencion into protective custody during a mental health commitment in April 2000. Sencion fought with officers during the incident but wasn't charged, Stevenson said.
The Lake Tahoe News first reported the incident.
Stevenson said officers have the authority under state law to take individuals into protective custody if they determine the person poses a danger to themselves or others.
He declined to release further details, citing the ongoing investigation into the shooting.
The rampage started just before 9 a.m. Tuesday, when Sencion stepped onto the pancake house parking lot from his blue minivan with a yellow "Support Our Troops" sticker on it.
He immediately shot a woman near a motorcycle before charging into the chain restaurant. Witnesses said he had unloaded a magazine when he was still less than 12 feet from his vehicle.
Inside the IHOP, Sencion marched toward a table of uniformed National Guard members before shooting each one, authorities said.
On the 911 tapes, callers describe seeing a man wearing a red shirt and black pants. Many are crying as dispatchers frantically try to gather information on where the shooter went.
A woman who was inside the IHOP described a terrifying ordeal that included rapid gunfire, screaming and shattered glass.
Kathy Chaney, 50, said she was sitting at a table with five relatives and a child she was caring for when she heard the "biggest and loudest pops that I've ever heard in my whole life."
The Dayton, Nev., woman said she put her hands to her ears and got under the table as the gunman rapidly fired dozens of shots.
The bullets shattered a glass partition that separated her family from the group of Guard members who were shot. Chaney said if it hadn't been for that partition, she and her relatives "would have all been shot in the head."
"I heard screaming. I heard glass shattering. I heard a woman moaning, and when I was on the floor I just kind of looked up," Chaney said Wednesday. "...I just saw debris flying. It was almost like in slow motion - like confetti."
She said that as she huddled beneath the table, three men who work for a cable company took charge and started yelling for those inside to leave the restaurant through an emergency exit.
She knocked over a high chair where the 2 1/2-year-old girl she was caring for was sitting, then carried her out of the restaurant while still crouching.
"As I was exiting the back of the building, I was still hearing gunfire," Chaney said.
Chaney said her daughter was three traffic lights away en route to the restaurant when the family escaped, called her and told her not to come.
"She would have been pulling up as he was exiting and I'm sure he would have shot at them," Chaney said. "God really performed a miracle, and we definitely had angels watching out for us yesterday."
Seven people were wounded in the attack. Their names were not released, but authorities said three of them were released from the Carson Tahoe hospital Wednesday.
The other four remained hospitalized, including one who was transferred to a medical center in Reno, Furlong said.
At a news conference Wednesday, Brig. Gen. William R. Burks described the slain Guard members as dedicated and active in their fields.
He said Kelly was a decorated officer and avid student of military history who was known for his dry sense of humor.
Kelly was married with two kids, and served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. He was deployed while on active duty with the Army, not as a member of the Nevada National Guard.
Kelly was a field artillery officer in the Army for seven years before joining the Guard about six years ago, according to the Nevada National Guard's quarterly magazine, Battle Born. The magazine said Kelly led about 140 soldiers at the Nevada National Guard's joint force headquarters in Carson City after being promoted to commander in August 2009.
Burks said Riege was a fitness buff and father of four who had also been in the Navy. Riege's military occupation was armor crewman, and he served in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010.
McElhiney was an administrative sergeant who had been in the Guard for 13 years. She served soldiers in the medical, dental and human resources fields.
McElhiney also had a side business making cakes and cupcakes and would always bring goodies when people got a promotion, officials said.
Burks said Guardsmen overseas are grieving the service members' loss, and were being told to maintain focus.
The shooting happened roughly two miles from the state Capitol. Lawmakers, business owners and law enforcement officials in this close-knit, government-driven city of 50,000 struggled to understand what drove Sencion to turn an AK-47 assault rifle on his hometown.
"It's unprecedented in Carson City history," said Guy Rocha, retired Nevada state archivist. "People who live in Carson City have come from other places to get away from the large urban madness. ... It finally came to Carson City.
Family members told investigators that Sencion was mentally troubled, but he did not have a criminal history. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital hours after the mass shooting.
Officials were analyzing the assault rifle to determine if it was automatic or semi-automatic. Sencion left two more guns in the van - another rifle and a pistol, authorities said. Furlong said law enforcement agencies are investigating how Sencion got the guns.
Sencion was born in Mexico and had a valid U.S. passport. He worked at his family's business in South Lake Tahoe and had no known affiliations with anyone inside the restaurant, Furlong said. He was not in the military.
Associated Press writers Michelle Rindels, Oskar Garcia, Ken Ritter and Cristina Silva in Las Vegas and Martin Griffith and Scott Sonner in Carson City contributed to this report.
"He's a gentle, kind man..." Really??? May his soul rot in hell... If someone doesn't want to be on this planet anymore, then take yourself out, but not other people! This story is all too common. Didn't used to read these kinds of horrendous acts 20-30 years ago at this frequency. And its not just here in the US it is all over the world. Very sad...prayers go out to the family and friends of those taken too soon. People need to be taught problem solving, stress reduction, whatever is needed to put "minds" in order so this kind of thing doesn't happen. Parents need to teach their kids how to cope with life!!! Put down the cell phone and become involved. Our local governments need to stop putting crazy people back on the streets! Oh yea, that would mean we have to identify the crazies first...and that starts with those closest to those people...FAMILY and FRIENDS! Wake up people and have a heart...when you KNOW your relative is a nut case, DO something about it so innocent people and their families are not forever changed by a cowardly, crazy act like this....sad indeed.
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These people died for freedom - the freedom for any wallop head (non-Muslim) to obtain weapons of mass destruction with the greatest of ease.
They died to so that ordinary citizens can carry WMD in their cars for split second 'stop and defend' actions that prevent armed takeover of America by the US Government. They died so that 'stop and defend' can be used to save little children from being kidnapped on the sidewalk by thugs and make it safe for Mothers to go shopping after 7pm.
Yes, the AK-47, a Russian killing machine has been brought to America to offer the same protection it has given other Democracies all over the world.
Guns and God are the fundamentalist backbone of civil defense mechanisms. The NRA believes we should all carry WMD around in our cars to fight back armed Government gangs that appear suddenly on street corners to instigate a dictatorship.
To the NRA, these people are freedom fighters. Unfortunately, there are mistakes to be made, like the Iraq War, but that is the cost of Liberty. WTF, right?
So, if you are born in Mexico you're not allowed in the U.S. How about if your relatives are from Mexico? That would get rid of our current Governor. Assumptions are made Sencion is an illegal alien. Also, so much for the theroy that arming more people would prevent these types of instances. One person had the chance and did not take it.
According to the National Institute for Mental Health, 26 percent of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. Some of these people will be psychotic (not in touch with reality.) As the NRA has made it politically impossible to get stronger gun control legislation passed, perhaps those of us who would prefer not to be shot by a madman (yes, all are male) can lobby to restore funding for community mental health centers. This is the safety net that JFK and others after him promised when they began to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill. Instead, these folks receive no treatment at all. It's a dangerous brew.
"Also, so much for the theory that arming more people would prevent these types of instances. One person had the chance and did not take it."
-------------------------
There it is..
Another very selfish act of violence by someone who is very disturbed. I am keeping the friends and family of those killed in my prayers.
SunJon, well said. Except for the snark and nonsense.
First, concerning WMD: <inigo_montoya> "Jou keep usink that word. I dunna thin it means what you thin it means." </inigo_montoya>
Small arms like the AK-47 do not fit any of the defintions in the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" article on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_m...
Neither the strategic, military, civilian or legal definitions.
<Bzzzzzt!>
Yesterday's article stated authoritatively in the lede that the gunman used an "AK-47 assault rifle", but later in the article stated that the rifle was being analyzed to see if it is semi-automatic or fully automatic.
Leaving aside the fact that most journalists can't tell the difference between an AK-47 and a garden rake, a smart guy like you should know that:
(1) if it's semi-automatic, it's NOT an AK-47 (there's no such thing as a semi-auto AK) and it's not an "assault rifle", since that term by definition means fully-automatic or selective-fire; and
(2) If it IS an AK 47, what the NRA does or doesn't favor is hardly relevant, since - unless Senor Secion has a valid Class III Federal Firearms License, he had to break a whole raft of federal laws to get it, since the purchase and possession of fully-automatic weapons requires an extensive (and expen$ive) background check and transfer tax.
(Bonus points: It's probably not Russian, either. The overwhelming majority of the AK-style weapons in the U.S. are (a) manufactured somewhere other than Russia and (b) semi-automatic.)
But, I'll spot you "WMD" and "AK-47" as a metaphor in one case and rhetorical excess in the other, 'cause this part ought to be easy:
Post a link, to a verifiable mainstream source - preferably the NRA itself - that documents any of the things you claim "the NRA believes".
<bzzzzzt!>
What? You were just using strawmen and unsupported assertions to vent your bigotry? Never mind, then.
It's just that, in the past, you've been so hard on other commenters who wouldn't let a few facts get in the way of the point they were trying to make. I didn't think you wanted to be guilty of the same thing, so I thought I'd help you out.
Thanks for playing.
I'm from Carson City & am actually in the airport to fly home right now. I am sad to have to enter a city where something like this could happen, but I'm glad I can be there to help others with the grieving process.
"its been established that the AK-47 used in carson city came from communist china and that the weapons ban on weapons like these ended in 2004, thanks to the NRA."
Except for the fact that there are restrictions on fully automatic weapons that have been in place since 1934 that, as has already been pointed out, would likely have required this guy to have violated numerous federal laws in order to obtain one.
Nice try, though.
AK 47's are selective fire weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_f...
A selective fire firearm has at least one semi--automatic and one automatic mode, which is activated by means of a selector which varies depending on the weapon's design. Some selective fire weapons utilize burst fire mechanisms to limit the maximum or total number of shots fired automatically in this mode. The most common limits are two or three rounds per pull of the trigger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ak_47
Here's 300 rounds in one minute http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNAohtjG1...
The founding fathers knew one gun, a musket. I doubt they ever envisioned a gun like the AK-47.
Mental health patients. Every practical solution brought forth to protect our communities from these potential, "raging bulls" is sidelined by laws of ethics, morals, and rights in a free society. It is fair to say that in order to neutralize these mentally disturbed patients from commiting acts such as the IHOP incident, authorities in our nation may have to bring our society down to a level akin to that of a police state. Not a good solution for cops having the power to identify and commit citizens to forms of mental health incarceration when the citizen hasn't done anything terribly wrong, yet.
Now, even in a structured environment such as prison, it is still an impossible task to control these ticking time bombs. As a retired prison guard of many years, I had frequent heated disputes with prison psychologists over their medicating practices of mental health inmates and decisions made to reintegrate them back into the general prison population. The psychologists contended that the type of psychotropic medications these inmate mental health patients were ordered to take, under supervision, and coupled with desensitization therapy rendered them fit to be released from the custody of mental health and back into the general prison population. As one angry psychologist informed me, "Officer, we cannot and will not warehouse mental health patients in our facility in the manner that you prison personnel stackhouse your inmates."
The problem I identified was, time is of the essence when it comes to administering psychotropic drugs to these inmate mental health patients. Inmates under these type medications, made them as gentle as a lamb. However, once those psychotropic medications wore off, the wick to the time bomb was lit. There, poses the greatest risk to a psychotic explosion. In other words, prior to the inmate being placed on psychotropics, his level and degree of violence were much less significant, although still dangerous.
I am certainly not of the education level to assure that time lapse of psychotropic drugs sends a mental health patient into a violent rage. However, my experience with mental health inmates surely lends credence to my observations that psychotropic drugs is what turns the mind into submissiveness. In relation, my observations also spell a "cold turkey" absence of these high potency mind altering drugs brings a mental health patient to stages of complete insanity.
The debate should be, whether any former or present mental health patient in our free society should be trusted in an unsupervised setting with the responsibilities and inherent consequenses associated with these high potency drugs?
TomD1228:
The typical Minuteman or militiaman in the American Revolution had a rifled musket, which was superior in both range and power to the smoothbore Brown Bess carried by British regulars. (This enabled, among other things, the 'hit and run' tactics the rebels frequently employed, since they could fire, hit their British targets and retreat before the British were within effective range.)
Are you really advocating that civilians be allowed to posess weapons superior to a modern infantryman? I didn't think so.
There is no reason why a sane, law-abiding citizen shouldn't have access to a firearm at least as good as the current Army issue. But, since Federal law prevents that, I've no problem with the sane and law-abiding owning something almost as good.
Of course, blaming the gun and banning them only works if you ban them ALL. (See the UK, Australia.) That's the real goal of those who would ban 'assault weapons': one type of gun at a time, until they're all gone.
I suspect that's just fine with you.
George Orwell would disagree: "The rifle on the wall of the farmer's cottage or the workingman's flat is a symbol of democracy. It is our job to see it stays there."