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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Update on Portland Mall Shooting

Posted by on Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 11:02 AM

"Many people will be affected by this terrible act of violence every day for the rest of their lives."

Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts seemed to get a little hoarse as he spoke to reporters this morning about the details of yesterday's terrible shooting at Clackamas Town Center.

We now know the names of the victims who died yesterday:

Cindy Ann Yuille was a 54-year-old resident of NE Portland. Steven Mathew Forsyth was 45-year-old who lived in West Linn. Shooter Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, killed them both yesterday as he fired shots seemingly at random from a stolen AR-15 semi-automatic rifle around the food court at the mall.

Teenager Kristina Shevchenko was seriously injured in the senseless attack and remains at OHSU today. There were no apparent relationships between the suspect and the victims.

"This was a sole person acting on his own," said Sheriff Roberts, dismissing rumors that the FBI had been investigating the incident as a possible terrorist attack. Sheriff Roberts laid out the details of the shooting, noting that the incident could have resulted in even more deaths. Jacob Roberts was carrying several loaded magazines, but in the food court, his gun jammed. That, along with three other key factors, likely saved lives yesterday.

"In the past hours, many people have asked me, 'Why were there so few victims?'" said Sheriff Roberts. "First of all, just to make this really clear, the two people killed and the person injured, all of us have to recognize that this was a heartbreaking incident by any standard."

The first life-saving factor Sheriff Roberts pointed to was the speedy arrival of police. The 911 calls of a shooter came in at 3:29 and the first officers arrived on the scene within one minute, says Roberts, launching into their "active shooter protocol" immediately rather than waiting for a SWAT team. Luckily, the police had happened to train for an active shooter protocol in a test-run at Clackamas Town Center last year.

Secondly, Clackamas Town Center had a lockdown procedure for this type of incident and staff followed it well, said Roberts. Finally, there were 10,000 people in the mall and they all managed to keep a level head, get themselves out of the mall, and help others. "There were many heroes," said Roberts.

 

Comments (14) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
My condolences to everyone affected by this.

Good job Clackamas County Sheriff's Department. Thank you for doing your job well.
Posted by six shooter on December 12, 2012 at 11:11 AM
Sir Vic 2
Just think, if everyone in the food court had been carrying a gun, stolen or otherwise, no one would have died!
We need more guns in malls!
Posted by Sir Vic on December 12, 2012 at 11:12 AM
3
This is why I don't wear my pumped up kicks outside the house.
Posted by DisorganizedReligion on December 12, 2012 at 11:15 AM
Theodore Gorath 4
The fucking AR-15 again. I guess that is the unstable American murderer's weapon of choice these days.

Can't say I blame them. The best gun readily available to spray indiscriminate death all over a room.
Posted by Theodore Gorath on December 12, 2012 at 11:26 AM
5
Kudos to all the mall staff & patrons who kept their cool. Major props to the officers on the scene. And deepest condolences to the individuals killed/injured and their families.

It makes me wonder if we should just assume these things will happen, and teach ourselves & our children to do whatever will save the most lives. Kind of like how we did earthquake drills. I also wonder how the NRA-types would react to K-12 classes teaching kids how to react to mass-shooting situations.
Posted by wxPDX on December 12, 2012 at 11:56 AM
Cascadian 6
The NRA isn't going to support any training that doesn't involve spending more money on guns, ammo, and donations to the Republican Party.
Posted by Cascadian on December 12, 2012 at 12:06 PM
biffp 7
@4, I couldn't believe it was an AR-15 either. The people responsible for overturning the automatic weapons ban should be held responsible.
Posted by biffp on December 12, 2012 at 12:12 PM
8
@7 Fully automatic weapons are banned, the AR-15 is a semi-automatic weapon.
Posted by The more you know on December 12, 2012 at 12:25 PM
biffp 9
I thought the automatic weapons ban had expired. I guess it's a matter of expanding it.
Posted by biffp on December 12, 2012 at 12:33 PM
biffp 10
It's not a ban:

The National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Hughes Amendment in 1986 have all placed limits on how automatic guns can be bought and sold, but did not make it illegal to possess them entirely.
Posted by biffp on December 12, 2012 at 12:38 PM
Fifty-Two-Eighty 11
An AR is not an "automatic weapon." Get your facts straight. You're just making yourself look like a fool.
Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty http://www.nra.org on December 12, 2012 at 12:45 PM
12
But, but, but, how could this AR-15 semi-automatic rifle have come to be stolen, when lawful American gun owners are so dutiful and responsible in their secure maintenance of their weapons?
Posted by d.p. on December 12, 2012 at 1:02 PM
thatsnotright 13
I blame the War on Christmas.
Posted by thatsnotright on December 12, 2012 at 1:04 PM
14
Very professional response by mall staff and local authorities ... versus what may have been the most inept mass shooter in recent history.
Posted by RonK, Seattle on December 12, 2012 at 2:29 PM

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