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FIRST RESPONDERS ARE IRRELEVANT
This article was written long before Katrina and the debacle of N.O.
Not a day goes by where we don't hear something about the training and deployment of First responders as if their presence somehow would change everything when evil comes to play. Calling 911 is an illusion of security that will usually deliver the false promise of safety too late. Recently, in my old neighborhood, evil did come to play. The first responders did as they are trained to do...they responded. But as is seen in almost all of these cases, the response comes too late.
Spree killer takes 3 lives in two-day county rampage
Los Angeles Daily News
Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - SIMI VALLEY -- A career criminal shattered the calm of two of the nation's safest cities in a vicious two-day crime spree during which he killed three people and seriously injured four others before committing suicide Tuesday in a Wal-Mart.
Toby Whelchel, 38, who has a rap sheet running from Florida, through Indiana and into California, apparently sought revenge against his former attorney in Thousand Oaks and then went on a rampage of carjacking and pistol-whipping and shooting innocent people.
It ended in the sporting-goods section of the discount department store where Whelchel intended to steal ammunition to carry on his spree. Cornered after panicked early-morning shoppers and sales staff had fled, he shot himself, authorities said.
Less than a half-hour earlier in a gated community just outside Simi Valley, Whelchel had pistol-whipped two children and shot their mother, Carole Nordella, as she pleaded for help in a phone call to her husband. She died later and the two children remained hospitalized with serious injuries.
"This is an act of unexplainable violence," said Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks. "It certainly wasn't the level of force necessary to steal a car, which was his intent (Tuesday morning). It was violence just for violence's sake."
The spree began in Thousand Oaks about 4 p.m. Monday as Tim and Janice Heyne returned a motorboat, borrowed for a Memorial Day weekend trip to Big Bear Lake, to the home of longtime friend Steve Mazin.
"He and Steve were A-No. 1 buddies," said Tim Heyne's brother-in-law, Mike Baumann. "They lived two blocks from each other. They played golf every week together. I don't know how much closer you could get."
As the two men and Heyne's wife, Jan, stood outside talking, Whelchel ran up the driveway -- "it appeared he was going to go up and give Steve a bearhug" -- and instead pulled a gun, firing several shots, Baumann recounted from talking with Tim Heyne.
Authorities say Mazin, an attorney, had represented Whelchel in a 1999 dispute with a towing company, but after an unspecified dispute a judge in 2002 issued a restraining order. It was set to expire this December.
Janice Heyne, 51, died at the house; Mazin, 52, died later at a hospital. Tim Heyne, who was shot in the shoulder, remained hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday night.
Neighbors, who gathered around the home after hearing gunshots, reported seeing Whelchel smiling and waving as he drove away in a pickup.
The gunman abandoned the truck at a nearby supermarket and carjacked another truck, which was found about 7:45 a.m. Tuesday at Wildwood Park, near the exclusive Santa Rosa Valley neighborhood in Thousand Oaks, said Brooks.
A half-hour later in an unincorporated area Carole Nordella, a 48-year-old mother of three, summoned her husband, Jeffrey, by cell phone because someone was trying to break into the house.
As Nordella raced home, Whelchel pistol-whipped Carole and two young children. Carole was shot in the back of the head as well, and died later at a hospital.
"It's random, one person who just went crazy," said neighbor Wes Hoagland, who noted the area is usually so peaceful many residents don't even lock the doors to their homes. Indeed in 2003 Thousand Oaks was ranked the safest city in the nation with a population over 100,000, according to annual FBI data. Simi Valley, which had been the reigning champion, was bumped to the No. 2 spot.
Jeffrey Nordella, upon arriving home, used his car to block Whelchel's escape and was joined by Deputy Scott Ramirez, a 10-year Sheriff's Department veteran. The deputy was hit twice in an exchange of gunfire with Whelchel, though Nordella escaped injury.
As authorities poured into the neighborhood, Whelchel escaped in a pool maintenance man's black pickup that was parked in the Nordellas' driveway. The maintenance man was also beaten but not hospitalized.
With deputies tracking him from the ground and a helicopter in the air, Whelchel sped away to a Wal-Mart store at Cochran Street and Madera Road.
The Wal-Mart store, just off the 118 Freeway in a quiet retail complex, had opened less than two hours before. The usually bustling retail chain enjoys a special calm around the early-morning hours.
Arlene Barnett, a six-year employee, was standing at the entrance to the door greeting customers when Whelchel ran past her.
"He looked like he knew exactly what he wanted. To be honest, he didn't look like he was worried about anyone else," she said. Witnesses said he ran into the sporting goods department and broke into a case containing ammunition.
Customers were rushed from the building as quickly as possible.
"People were panicked," said Susan McWhorter, a 39-year-old mother of four who was in the shampoo aisle when Whelchel entered the store. "They were just leaving their carts, running. I heard yelling and then employees were just saying get out, get out," she said. "It was really scary."
Whelchel, who Brooks said has a history of violent crimes including assaulting a police officer and violently resisting arrest in Indiana and Florida, was found dead inside the store from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
TIMELINE MONDAY
4 p.m.: Timothy and Janice Heyne return a motorboat to the home of longtime friend Steve Mazin. Toby Whelchel shoots the couple and Mazin. Whelchel speeds off in a white Dodge Ram pickup.
4:15 p.m.: Whelchel pulls into a Vons parking lot at the corner of Janss and Moorpark roads and hijacks a white Ford pickup.
Overnight : Authorities believe Whelchel may have stayed the night in Wildwood Park, hiding in the brush.
TIMELINE TUESDAY
7:45 a.m.: Residents of a neighborhood near Wildwood Park spot the hijacked Ford pickup and report it to police.
8:15 a.m.: On the other side of the park, Whelchel breaks into a large home in a gated community. He shoots Carol Nordella, 48, and pistol-whips two of her children (children are later treated for fractured skulls).
Deputy Scott Ramirez, 30, arrives and is shot twice by Whelchel as he flees in a hijacked black pickup.
8:20 a.m.: Patrol cars and a helicopter chase Whelchel to Simi Valley.
8:30 a.m.: Whelchel pulls into a Wal-Mart at Cochran Street and Madera Road and runs to the store's sporting goods department. Store is sealed and evacuated by police. At least one gunshot is heard within the store. Police enter the store with K-9 units and find the suspect dead with a bullet wound to the head.
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So here is our view of this. Laws denying citizens their ONLY TRUE LINE OF DEFENSE (carry of weapons) could not save any of these people. Laws putting serial numbers on bullets could not save any of these people. Federal funds for the training of first response units and SWAT teams could not save these people.
What could have saved them? If just one man had been carrying a gun with him...specially the first man, that may have been enough. How much killing and sorrow could have been prevented with a simple press of the trigger? One bullet for three innocent lives, and the destroyed lives of several others. Seems like a fair exchange to me.
Yet in California, I suspect that had any of these4 poor victims been armed and carrying in disobedience to the laws in that state, they would likely still be alive, but likely facing prosecution. Such is justice. Similarly in many areas of the nation, there are laws on the books denying these poor innocents the very right to live and defend themselves with firearms (as recognized in our Constitution).
While the evil criminal is responsible for these atrocities, equally responsible is any lawmaker that writes a law prohibiting good citizens from carry their only means of self-protection. There will likely be some fall out over this event. Rather than Wal-Mart taking ammo off the shelves, or another epidemic of "tough new laws" or more first responders, what we need to see is a class action lawsuit against the forces that denied these victims their only way to stay alive.
I wonder if anyone gets the message?
29 Sep 2006, 11:26 pm
