In a new development in the Whangarei shooting, in which two female property inspectors were shot dead and a maintenance man injured, the police have revealed that they visited the property last month.
Quinn Patterson killed property manager Wendy Campbell, 60, and her 37-year-old daughter Natanya on Wednesday morning when they visited his home with a contractor to install smoke alarms. The contractor was also shot, but managed to escape and raise the alarm.
Northland District Commander Superintendent Russell Le Prou said police investigated a structure being built there last month, and were told it was to be used for target practice.
Police decided it was a tenancy matter, rather than one for them.
Police said the visit to the property formed part of the ongoing investigation into Patterson’s background.
There have been reports that Patterson, aged in his 50s, had multiple guns and other weapons, including grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
People using firearms in rural areas is common. There can be many legitimate and innocent reasons for using them.
I wouldn’t mind if police asked to see my firearms license just as a check.
Perhaps if there are any checks on rural properties it should include a check of whether firearms are present and whether there are firearms licenses.
Police are refusing to discuss how a convicted criminal who shot two women was able to collect firearms without a licence.
Quinn Patterson killed property manager Wendy Campbell, 60, and her 37-year-old daughter Natanya on Wednesday morning when they visited his home with a contractor to install smoke alarms. The contractor was also shot, but managed to escape and raise the alarm.
There are reports that Patterson, aged in his 50s, had multiple guns and other weapons, including grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Police have confirmed he did not have a firearms licence.
He served 18 months in prison for stabbing a police officer multiple times with a 33cm hunting knife in Hamilton in 1983.
Patterson’s only sister, Gloria, says her brother’s mental and physical health deteriorated rapidly this year and she had urged him to seek help.
Friend Leah Cameron said Quinn’s father brought his children up with a “Doomsday” mentality.
“He was fatalistic about the world, that it was not a good place. He could have been classed as being a bit of a fanatic”.
He made his children dig graves with him and he and his wife apparently wrote a book about UFOs.
Patterson liked guns despite friends saying he did not have a licence and was not a hunter. Neighbours would often hear him shooting in his backyard.
“He just shot in his back lawn by the sounds of it, you could hear it from here, you could hear it from everywhere,” Walters said.
“They were big guns. we’re talking automatics, semi-automatics, big calibres. They sounded like cannons, you could hear them going off with, like, 16 rounds.
“He was just sort of a law unto his own.”
He became paranoid and started to accumulate several weapons. A friend told Newshub he had grenades, shotguns, rifles and hand guns. He had “barricaded” himself in the property with bars on the windows.
He was becoming more and more depressed and paranoid, friends said.
He had taken several types of medication over the years, including sleeping tablets and had tried natural medication, vitamins and exercise in an attempt to get better.
There are some obvious questions that need to be asked about all this.
Fox news has been pushing quite a bit on ‘left bad, right good’ following the shooting of Republican House Whip Steve Scalise by a Bernie Sanders supporter.
.@garybsmith: "Every person in Congress, maybe every person in the Senate, should be issued a handgun. If not them, at least their staff." pic.twitter.com/3lm6lncFRC
They do have the occasional attempt on balance and conciliation:
On "Fox News Sunday," Rep. @RodneyDavis talked about using the horrific shooting in Alexandria to unite Americans of all political stripes. pic.twitter.com/0JkHorVTly
Levels of rhetoric, division and violence look likely to continue unabated, despite what should have been a wake up call for politicians on both sides of the chasm.
In the charged environment of 2017, it took only a few hours for a baseball diamond to be transformed from a peaceful practice field to a horrific crime scene and then to a vivid symbol of the tensions between the angry politics of our time and the better angels of the American people.
From President Trump to congressional leaders of both parties to ordinary citizens came calls for prayers for the victims of the shootings in Alexandria, Va., praise for the Capitol Police officers who prevented an even worse tragedy and, above all, words of reconciliation and unity.
But barely on the edges of those remarks was another round of recriminations and a renewed debate about what has brought the country to a point of such division, what is to blame for what happened on that baseball field shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday and what, if anything, can be done to lower temperatures for more than a few minutes.
Large taps of anger can’t be just turned off, even after wake up calls as serious as the shooting of a politician.
The country has been in this place before, perhaps too many times after violence that has left Americans feeling shaken and insecure. At those times, elected officials have reached across the aisle, embracing one another in friendship and unity. Ordinary citizens have rallied behind those leaders as one nation, vowing to put aside partisanship and recalling what it means to be an American.
The 911 attacks united and galvanised the country, for a while.
Trump spoke as other presidents have done in times of tragedy or terrorism, saying, “We are strongest when we are unified and when we work for the common good.”
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) called on his colleagues to set an example. “Show the world we are one House, the people’s House, united in our humanity,” he said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) implored her colleagues to make the Congressional Baseball Game an occasion “that will bring us together and not separate us further.”
But their are too many people in the US with their own entrenched agendas.
But with past as prologue, other voices and other emotions threatened to drown out the words of the nation’s leaders. Six years ago, after the shootings that left then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) badly wounded and six others dead, it was the political right that was on the defensive.
Those on the left charged that the incendiary rhetoric aimed at then-President Barack Obama and his supporters during his early years in office gave rise to a climate that made violence possible.
But the sides have changed.
On Wednesday, it was the political left that became a target from some on the right. The gunman, James T. Hodgkinson III, who was pronounced dead at a hospital after the shootout, was a longtime critic of the Republicans and a particularly harsh critic of the president. His Facebook page included angry and vulgar words aimed at Trump.
Some Republicans viewed the shootings as evidence that the president’s critics have crossed the line of decency in their opposition and fostered a climate that could produce what happened on Wednesday morning.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich and a strong supporter of Trump:
Speaking at midday on Fox News Channel, decried what he called “an increasing hostility on the left,” whether from comedians, from artists, from politicians or from ordinary citizens posting their views on social media.
“You’ve had a series of things that send signals that tell people it’s okay to hate Trump,” he said. “And now we’re supposed to rise above it?”
Some major irony there as he justifiably condemns hostility from the left against Trump, but ignores Trump’s own record of hostility against opponents and critics, notably but not only directed against Hillary Clinton – and also Trump’s deliberate efforts to stir up hatred against Clinton and promoting some fairly extreme consequences.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), whose many past statements have inflamed the debate about illegal immigration, was near the Capitol when the shootings took place.
Without referring to the shooter, he said critics of the president have created a climate of hate that threatens the country. He pointed to the massive demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere the day after Trump was inaugurated, and protests that have continued since.
Without referring to the shooter, he said critics of the president have created a climate of hate that threatens the country. He pointed to the massive demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere the day after Trump was inaugurated, and protests that have continued since.
“America has been divided, and the center of America is disappearing and the violence is appearing in the streets and it’s coming from the left,” he said.
Some of it is certainly coming from the left, but division and intolerance has also come from the right as well.
The Democratic candidate running against anti-immigrant Republican Congressman Steve King (IA) announced Saturday that she is dropping out of the race for her own safety.
In a Facebook post published Saturday night, Kim Weaver wrote, “Over the last several weeks, I have been evaluating personal circumstances along with the political climate regarding this campaign. After much deliberation, I have determined that the best decision for me is to withdraw my candidacy for the US House race in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District.”
She explained that beginning during her 2016 campaign, she has been receiving threats of physical violence and murder, and said that “recent events at my home” were forcing her to re-evaluate her decision to run against King.
“While some may say enduring threats are just a part of running for office, my personal safety has increasingly become a concern,” Weaver said.
King didn’t mention this when criticising hostility from the left.
Back to the Balz article:
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), whose district cuts across central Illinois to the Mississippi River just above Hodgkinson’s home town of Belleville, was on the baseball field when the shootings took place.
Davis condemned what he called “political, rhetorical terrorism” practiced by both sides. He appealed passionately for everyone to step back and find a better way to hash out and then resolve their differences.
“Is this America’s breaking point?” he asked on CNN. “It’s my breaking point. We’ve got to end this.”
But when it again becomes a blame game between left and right the end looks nowhere in sight.
Wednesday’s shootings can act as a temporary circuit breaker to some of the hostilities, and Thursday’s Congressional Baseball Game can become an emotional and poignant coming together.
But will that be enough to prevent a swift return to the kind of debilitating political conflict that has become so accepted as the norm? History shows how difficult that could be.
Some of the reactions to yesterday’s shooting also show how difficult it could be.
At least five people have been killed, three of them foreigners, when a gunman opened fire outside the Blue Parrot nightclub in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen during the BPM electronic music festival, police say.
More than 2000 people were said to be in the club at the time of the attack, many of them Australians. The festival is popular with foreign tourists.
In contrast to some shootings there doesn’t seem to have been any jumping to conclusions. Whale Oil hasn’t posted on it and there doesn’t seem to be any mention in comments – they mustn’t care about Mexicans and non-Israeli tourists.
Suspect named by Florida senator as Esteban Santiago, who had military ID
Terminal evacuated a second time 90 mins after first incident
People seen running across tarmac, crouching behind fire engines
Mayor of Broward County: ‘No second gunman’
UPDATE: There are now reports of a second shooter at Fort Lauderdale.
A sheriff is now being reported saying there was no second shooter.
It’s now being reported that the suspect flew into Fort Lauderdale from Alaska and picked up a checked-in bag containing firearm at the airport, and then started shooting. He apparently had a license to carry it (but not in flight). With the proper paperwork for this is legal.
This may well force a rethink of the right to carry arms in the US. Or it should.
Update: there are now reports the suspect was involved in an altercation or argument on the flight before landing in Fort Lauderdale.
Several days after an attack in a train in Bavaria that injured several people before the attacker was shot dead there is news of a shooting in a shopping mall in Munich.
A police operation is underway after gunfire erupted at a shopping center in Munich Friday. CNN affiliate NTV reports several are dead and others are wounded. Authorities shut down public transportation and warned people to stay home or seek protection.
Here’s what we know so far:
At least one shooter is still on the loose after a shooting inside a McDonald’s across from the Olympia shopping mall, police spokeswoman Claudia Küntzel said. “There could be several dead and one or even several shooters are on the loose,” Küntzel said. The shooting at the McDonald’s happened around 5:50 p.m. (11:50 a.m. ET), she said. It’s unclear whether shootings have occurred at other locations, and whether the gunfire has stopped.
Gunfire also broke out inside the mall, witnesses said.
On Facebook, police said gunfire was reported in several locations, and that witnesses report seeing three different people with firearms.
“At the moment, we have not been able to arrest any perpetrators. The manhunt is underway at high speed,” police said. “Because of the unclear situation we ask all people in the city area to stay at home or to look for protection in any nearby building. The operation of public transportation service has been stopped.”
Witnesses report three gunmen in area around shopping centre
Authorities declare emergency and advise residents not to leave home
US citizens in #Munich advised to shelter in place. Media reports of shots fired at Olympia shopping mall: https://t.co/DWRw6CGa7q— Travel – State Dept (@TravelGov) July 22, 2016
What I don’t know and I don’t know if anyone knows is whether the recent attacks in Nice, Wurzburg and now Munich have any connection as some sort of campaign, or whether they are a spate of individual attacks with one perhaps precipitating the next independently.
But: “German NTV is reporting the Bavarian interior ministry has confirmed three people have died in the shooting” and “German NTV is reporting the Bavarian interior ministry has confirmed three people have died in the shooting”.
Guardian updates:
Six dead, German police say
German police confirm that there was a shooting in Hanauer Street, adjacent to the shopping centre. Six people have been killed and an unknown number injured.
Police are now saying that there are nine people are dead. They do not know at this stage – and are checking – whether the additional person is one of the gunmen.
Asked if this was a terror attack, a police spokesman said: “If a man with a long gun in a shopping centre opens fire and eight people are dead, we have to work on the assumption that this was not a normal crime and was a terrorist act.”
He confirmed that the police were looking for three perpetrators and said officers were getting support from elite units but have not found any weapons.
Another death confirmed but a suggestion it could be an attacker.
There are now unconfirmed reports in local media that about 20 people are injured; some of them very gravely. Earlier, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, said that local authorities were doing all the could to save lives.
Guardian: Here’s where things stand at 3:30am GMT
Nine people were shot and killed, and a further 21 injured, in an attack at a shopping center in Munich on Friday evening
Despite early reports of multiple attackers, there was only one gunman, whom police identified as an 18-year-old with dual German and Iranian citizenship.
The gunman shot himself, bringing the death toll to ten
His motive is still “fully unknown”, the chief of Munich police told a press conference in the early hours of Saturday morning
Sixteen people remain in hospital, police said, three of whom are in “serious” condition
For the second time this week the police have shot someone. The first was killed in a drug raid in Hamilton on Tuesday, and another was shot and seriously wounded in Rotorua yesterday.
The latest figures released under the Official Information Act show police have shot 22 in the last decade – nine of them fatally.
Greg O’Connor from the NZ Police Association said the fatal police shooting of Nicholas Marshall in Hamilton Tuesday night was the end of an unfortunate spiral where a successful businessman’s life was destroyed by crystal meth.
Pepper spray and tasers were apparently ineffective. The armed man was running into a busy area in the middle of the day.
Police have a very difficult job to do, trying to protect the community against some of the worst and most dangerous people in our society. But it is always going to be contentious when someone is shot by the police.
I think it’s too soon to judge whether either shooting was justified or not. They will be investigated in time.
The figures show nine people were killed by police and another 13 people injured when police have discharged a firearm in the last 10 years. But police records only go back to 2007.
Professor Greg Newbold, a professor of sociology at Canterbury University, has been keeping his own records since 1941. His records detail the deaths of 34 people shot by police.
He also notes accidental killings by police including a choking in 1989, suffocation in 1994, running a man over with a car in 1994 and the 2009 killing where police shot bystander Halatau Naitoko, 17, at an AOS callout.
Since 2011, police have had firearms in all frontline vehicles. But routinely arming police on patrols is another step.
It has been claimed that drugs were significant factors in both this week’s shootings. Methamphetamine does seem to be a growing problem.
US police have killed more people in the last month than all New Zealand shootings since World War II. According to The Washington Post, US police have killed 518 people so far in 2016 and 990 people in 2015.
I’m not sure that using the US as a comparison is a good idea. We don’t want to go anywhere their level of firearm use by the police or by the public.
A Kiwi officer is justified in using “necessary force” to overcome someone resisting police unless a warrant, or process, can be carried out in a less violent manner or an arrest made by other reasonable means.
Should the police be routinely armed? Or should they use firearms less?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice to express sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting.
Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.
Rt Hon JOHN KEY:
I move, That the House express sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting. This is a shocking atrocity, and on behalf of all New Zealanders, I would like to express our country’s sincere condolences to those affected by it.
As I said yesterday, no innocent person should have to worry about such violence when going about their daily lives or be persecuted for their beliefs or because of who they are.
The evening vigils that took place in Auckland, Wellington, and elsewhere were a tangible demonstration of the depth of people’s very real feelings at the scale of this atrocity.
Over the days and weeks ahead, we will learn more about the motivations behind this senseless tragedy, but right now there are many people grieving: the victims’ families and friends, and the gay and lesbian community in Florida and around the world.
All too often we see these hateful attacks and mass shootings taking the lives of innocent victims. New Zealand stands with the United States and other countries in the fight against violent extremism.
Yesterday I wrote to President Obama to express condolences on behalf of all New Zealanders.
Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and friends, and with those who responded to this tragic attack, and we wish those injured a speedy recovery.
ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition):
The Labour Party joins with the Government in expressing its horror at this atrocity and its love and sympathy with the victims and their families. Our thoughts are with the people of Orlando and the United States, as well as their representatives here in New Zealand.
This was an atrocious and hateful act. It was an act of terror. It was also an act of hate. It was a targeted attack at the LGBTI community. It was the deliberate mass-murder of LGBTI people because of who they were and whom they loved.
These young people were attacked and murdered in a place that was meant to be safe for them. It was meant to be a haven where they could go to dance and have fun and be themselves. This was a place where they would not be subject to homophobia or violence or hatred. And in that place, in that sanctuary, they were murdered in cold blood.
Like millions of people around the word, we have all seen the heart-breaking details of what emerged about this shooting. The stories of first responders arriving at the scene to a chorus of ringing cellphones, as the families of those hurt and killed desperately tried to contact their loved ones.
The story of Eddie Justice, who was able to hide in the bathroom of the nightclub long enough to send his mother a text telling her that he loved her and whose mother then had to read the horrifying words: “He’s coming. I’m going to die.”
This attack has broken hearts around the world, but while we mourn and grieve, we must also rededicate ourselves to the great universal values of humanity, which attacks like this seek to deny and destroy: inclusion, openness, respect, love.
We must reaffirm our commitment to a society where everyone is free to love whom they choose, worship how they choose, and to be themselves without fear of violence or repression.
We must reaffirm our commitment to ending bigotry and intolerance and hatred wherever we find it, because that is what the path of true freedom demands.
While we grieve and we mourn, we remind ourselves that love is love and that love is stronger than hate, and that together we will not let hate win.
KEVIN HAGUE (Green):
I rise to support the Prime Minister’s motion and to thank him for it. The Green Party wishes to express its profound shock and sorrow at what has occurred, and its sympathies to the victims themselves, to their families, to their friends, and to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex communities in Orlando and around the world.
An attack against one of us is an attack against all of us. I want to name this as an act of homophobic violence.
For those of us who are in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex communities, we know that just below the level of taunts and name-calling and subtle prejudice, there is an undercurrent of violence.
In this particular case, in Orlando, America’s absurd gun laws have been a unique enabler for the mass murder that has occurred. But New Zealand also has a history of homophobic violence; one thinks, for example, of Jeff Whittington , who just over 17 years ago was murdered in this town.
It should not be that when I and my partner or any from our communities are out in public, we should have to check who is around before we kiss or hold hands, and yet it is so.
At this time I want to ask everyone in this House and everyone listening to this debate now to pay particular attention to the needs of young and vulnerable members of our communities.
For older members of the gay community, for example, like me, we have the privilege of being able to choose whom we associate with. We have the relative privilege of being able to make ourselves as safe as we can be.
But a younger person does not have that privilege. They are particularly vulnerable; they need our support and they need our love, right now.
I also want to extend a hand of friendship and of love to Muslim communities around the world. We understand that what this man did is not representative of your communities, and we seek relationships that are based on peace and mutual respect.
A belief that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people are not entitled to what we call universal human rights, or, worse, a belief that we deserve death for being who we are, cannot be allowed to stand in the world.
In closing, we in the Green Party and, I hope, this House commit ourselves to act against homophobia and homophobic violence and, indeed, transphobic violence, wherever it occurs in the world, and we seek to be a constant voice in the world for universal respect for basic human rights. Thank you.
Peters:
Peters’ speech was widely regarded as highly inappropriate and disgraceful, so the transcript won’t be posted.
He devoted most of his speech ignoring Orlando and trying to score political points on New Zealand immigration. About two MPs slow clapped his speech, it looks like he stunned or embarrassed even the NZ First MPs.
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party):
No transcript has been supplied by Parliament for Flavell’s speech.
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future):
No words, no spin, and no gloss can carry over the events that occurred in Orlando yesterday. The slaughter of nearly 50 innocent people is unacceptable by any moral or ethical standard.
Equally unacceptable, I think, is the sort of intolerance and the bigotry—because that is what it is—that gets paraded at a time like this as people start to attempt to explain these unacceptable actions.
I believe that bigotry begets bigotry, and that in turn begets the type of extremism that we saw exemplified in Orlando yesterday.
This is not an issue where one makes a moral judgment about anybody. The fact is that these young gay and lesbian people were out socialising, something they should have been able to do in perfect freedom, in perfect security, and in perfect confidence.
A madman—because that is the one thing that is certain about the perpetrator—cruelly ended that, and the questions will go on for some time as to why and how.
There will be questions about the United States’ attitude to the possession of handguns. There will be questions about the motivation of the individual. None of those actually remove the tragedy of what happened. None of those restore any of those lives, rebuild any of those families or those friendships, or rebuild those shattered communities.
We are a long way away, and I am sure that the people of the United States are not sitting by their televisions now hanging on our every words, but our expression of sympathy and solidarity with them at this time of grief counts in that it shows that as members of the world community we actually share some basic values about integrity, we share some basic values about freedom, and we share some basic values about people being able to live their lives and express their personalities to the fullest extent.
Every time we see an event like this it is a challenge to all of those values that we hold dear, even if we may not be immediately near the scene of the crime.
So I share with others the sense of outrage and the expression of condolence and sympathy to the people of the United States, and Orlando in particular, on this horrific occasion. But to start to go beyond that to draw spurious conclusions at this early stage I simply think starts to light the fuse for the next horrible outrage, and that is unacceptable.
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT):
I would like to add the ACT Party’s sympathy and condolences to those messages from other leaders who have made dignified and factual contributions to this debate.
It is a great tragedy, and our thoughts are with the victims, with their families, with their communities, and particularly with the LGBTI communities of Orlando, who appear to have been deliberately targeted.
Let us remain strong in the knowledge that free and open societies have the resilience to sustain these tragedies to support each other and to grow stronger again together. Thank you.
It was inevitable that questions would be asked about our gun laws after the Bay of Plenty shootings and siege.
I don’t know how tightening firearm laws would prevent isolated incidents like this. It’s impossible to predict which individuals might make stupid decisions.
Perhaps it’s more important to seriously reconsider our cannabis laws.
While the Kawerau siege ended peacefully, the alleged shooting of four police officers has raised the issue of whether cops need better access to firearms, as well as questions about New Zealand’s gun culture. Can anything be done to stop similar situations?
The last major change to police firearms access came in 2012, when police were given access to a lock-box of firearms in every frontline car.
The Kawerau siege is not an ideal example for those pushing for easier police access to guns: the police shot were not unwitting constables taken by surprise, but members of the elite Armed Offenders Squad, sporting extensive training and body armour which saved their lives.
Tellingly, the idea of police officers toting guns on their hips isn’t a vote-winner, either with politicians or ordinary Kiwis.
But is it a vote loser?
And should votes be the deciding factor?
Police Association president Greg O’Connor, a long-term supporter of greater police access to guns, says talking about the topic now would distract from the main issue – how criminals are getting guns in the first place
O’Connor says no police officers are surprised by the Kawerau shooting, coming on the back of a notable rise in firearms-related incidents which police have faced in recent years.”There have been so many near-misses, so many times police officers have been shot at…this time, four officers weren’t lucky.”
He says the real arms race is taking place between criminals, with police the “collateral damage”.
But is ‘criminals getting guns’ the issue in the Kawerau incident?
I think one of the biggest questions from this shooting is:
Another issue which the Kawerau siege raises is the country’s drug laws, and the dangers that police face in enforcing them.
In Napier, Christchurch and Kawerau, it was a cannabis search or operation which led to a violent outcome in each case.
The amount of resources involved in policing cannabis and the risks involved should be balanced against the risk of using the drug – which are relatively low. Illegality aside cannabis causes far fewer problems than alcohol.
The Kawerau incident is more failed cannabis policies (political and police). Firearms were a prominent factor but gun laws don’t seem to be the issue here.
