Denver Mall Shooter Stopped by Armed Shoppers

When 19-year-old Robert Hawkins entered the Park Meadows Mall in suburban Denver, Colorado, carrying an AK-47 assault rifle wrapped in a sweater, he intended to become famous by shooting as many people as possible and then turning the gun on himself.

The mentally-troubled teen left a suicide note, and a trail of evidence on his computer and elsewhere that he knew the police would spend months investigating. He had done everything possible to ensure that his name would be mentioned along with other mass killers at Virginia Tech, near by Columbine High School and the like.
He knew that the Park Meadows Mall was a gun-free zone, with signs on the entrances warning people with conceal-carry permits that they may not bring their firearms into the mall. He took comfort from those signs, as he pushed through the doors carrying the stolen assault rifle.

As he ascended to the upper deck, Mr. Hawkins could almost hear the screams of the shoppers as they tried to flee the sound of his shots, but due to the echo couldn’t discern the shooter’s position. He pictured the confused mall security guards talking over each other on the two-way radios. He rehearsed in his mind the final trigger pull that would end his mortal pain, and imagined the silence that would follow, punctuated only by the groaning of his dying victims.

That was the plan — careful, premeditated and nearly perfect.

There was only one problem: some people don’t read signs, and others ignore them.

As Mr. Hawkins moved into the ideal sniper position on the upper deck, an unnamed middle-aged man emerging from the nearby Sears department store noticed his odd behavior and glimpsed the muzzle of the rifle peeking out from the sweater. Almost instinctively the man moved toward Mr. Hawkins, reaching to his belt to draw out a Springfield EMP, a small, 9mm semi-automatic handgun.

As the would-be famous mass killer raised the rifle to his shoulder, the unnamed shopper commanded him to stop. Mr. Hawkins turned the muzzle of the AK-47 toward the commanding voice, a single shot rang out and Mr. Hawkins staggered, dropped his weapon and fell against the railing.

By this time, two other shoppers were aiming their pistols at Mr. Hawkins — a young, single woman pulled a .40 caliber Glock 27 from her purse, and a retired rancher drew his 9mm Ruger SR9 (an early Christmas gift from his wife). Together with the first man they moved in to separate Mr. Hawkins from his gun, search him for other weapons and restrain him until law enforcement arrived.

Robert Hawkins is recovering from his gunshot wound as he awaits trial for attempted murder and other charges. He faces the prospect of 15-to-25 years in prison, where police say he will be famous as “the guy who was almost famous.”

Park Meadows Mall officials said they had not decided yet whether to press charges against the three who interrupted Mr. Hawkins’ plan by violating the mall’s gun-free zone policy.

Jimmie Johnson's Car Put Out To Stud

CHARLOTTE, NC—Hendrick Motorsports confirmed what many NASCAR fans had suspected all season, announcing Wednesday that Jimmie Johnson's number 48 Chevrolet Impala would be put out to stud, ending its career in stock-car racing and living out the rest of its service life siring the cars of tomorrow.

"I'll be sad to see the old warhorse go," Jimmie Johnson said at the car's retirement ceremony, held in the maintenance and breeding garage on Hendrick's 60-acre racing complex. "We've been through a lot together, but I guess it was just time. I have to say, I'm a little envious."

The number 48 car, which traces its own championship lineage back to Cale Yarborough's 1983 number 28 Hardee's Monte Carlo and Dale Earnhardt's 1981 number 3 Wrangler Pontiac, recorded 7 wins, 6 poles, and 15 top-five finishes in 2008 and is expected to command a stud fee approaching a quarter of a million dollars.

Number 48 has already spent several afternoons in the Hendrick pasture, nuzzling the flanks of smaller cars from NASCAR's "minor-league" Nationwide and ARCA series whose owners hope to capitalize on the Hendrick car's bloodline.

"It's really over pretty quickly," said autofertility technician Ray J. Wertham, whose job is to use a complicated array of hydraulic lifts and hoists to facilitate Number 48's progress if things do not progress naturally in the pasture or on the test track. "There's a lot of stuff to adjust if a car's running too loose or too tight, and fuel mixture, oil pressure, and engine temperature are all crucial. But on a day when everything's going well, there's 30 seconds of full-throttle engine revving, maybe a little backfiring, and then they're both idling happily again."

NASCAR rules specifically prohibit artificial fertilization of race cars, which happily spares number 48 the indignity of spending too much time up on jack stands methodically and impersonally having his fluids drained. The Chevrolet will also be forbidden from mating its power train with any non–General Motors product, as the historically conservative NASCAR organization has no wish to acknowledge the possibility of hybrids running in its racing series.

"Number 48 seems like a natural, though," said Wertham, adding that his specific output at the crankshaft may even rival that of Dale Earnhardt's #3 Monte Carlo, a car known for rear-ending anything that moves. "Sure, he tried to get up on the back of one of our Craftsman trucks, but that might just be dominance behavior. Except for the cars we turn out to run the road courses at Infineon or Watkins Glen, we don't usually have cars that go both ways."

"Putting a car out to stud is a great situation for everyone involved," team owner Rick Hendrick said while trainers gave the number 48 car a wax rubdown and topped off its fuel tank, already prepping it for mounting an impressive and growing list of customer cars. "Chopping old cars up for scrap like so much dog food, cannibalizing them for parts, selling them to wealthy hobbyists who mistreat them—all of that seems inhumane."

Added Hendrick: "Letting him drive over these fields during good weather, enjoying the best in GMAC car care, gulping down premium fuel, and mounting car after car until his odometer rolls over...That's a life any race fan would love.”

Here's a Deal For Detroit: Mend Your Wasteful Ways

While congressional Democrats are still trying for a $25 billion bailout of America's auto industry, and while the Bush administration remains reluctant to shift any of the vague-but-vast $700 billion bailout in Detroit's direction, some leading financial commentators are taking a hard line to the plea of the Big Three: Let 'em sink under the weight of poor executive decisionmaking and union intimidation.

Labor and management are sweetness and light with each other as they testify on Capitol Hill that our senators' and representatives' failure to ride to the rescue might well mean the death of one motor company, maybe more.

The fallout could be devastating — not just jobs lost on the assembly lines, but also at hundreds of companies supplying components of cars and trucks: brakes from one company, ignition switches from another, windshields from still another. Some have close corporate ties to the main manufacturers, some don't — but they and their workers are dependent on vehicles coming off the line and reaching drivers by way of the sales floor.

No cars, no sales — and no jobs for scores of Southern Coloradoan’s at our town’s dealerships, not to mention out-of-work colleagues in showrooms across our nation. Yet some of that could happen anyway if General Motors merges with Chrysler, aided and abetted by Congress.

Just cut us in for $25 billion, and maybe we'll make it ... Does that sound like an addicted nephew begging Uncle Sam for enough to buy another ounce?

Congress already lent our automakers $25 billion this fall — to re-tool factories to produce the fuel-efficient cars they insisted for years that they couldn't make.

It seems to us that Congress has a couple of choices: Gamble that second $25 billion, and who knows how much next time the executives come hat in hand — but do it with strict conditions: higher fuel-efficiency and clean-air standards, attainable but firm; bookkeeping controls that limit executive pay and executive deadwood as well as union salaries and benefits.

B-b-but you can't do that; this is free enterprise ...

So be our guests: go bankrupt — not the close-the-doors kind, but what's known as Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code: It keeps creditors at bay while the company reorganizes itself.

Under tough bankruptcy judges, the companies would keep turning out cars, but under a new set of rules: reduction of high union and management wages — and the high health and retirement benefits that are throttling the companies' competitiveness.

Let whoever might complain take comfort that he or she still has a job — which is more than the hordes laid off in many other industries have. As for shareholders clamoring for dividends, give 'em a similar answer: Don't hold your breath; just hope we come out of this with any share value at all.

If cash infusions are still needed, Congress could provide them as part of the reorganization process. Maybe it'll take a merger or more — but as long as Honda, Toyota and other competent competitors are around, with plants here in the U.S., anti-trust concerns shouldn't keep consumers awake at night. It'll be hard for some senators and representatives to resist the urge to punish our long-blithe auto industry — but they've got to find ways of sustaining it while it shapes up, as we think it can under tough guidance.

Joyous Occasions of the Week

It has been awhile since I have posted here so I thought I would catch up all at once.

They lived together. Dressed together. Slurped moose stew together. Rode snow machines together. Braided one another's hair.
All in the name of journalistic inquiry, for a series of TV interviews that have rivaled the Jerry Lewis telethon for sheer, stupefying length.
So it comes as no surprise that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, (R-Saks), announced that she's filing paperwork to formally adopt Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren.
Kindred spirits and great minds tend to be drawn together.

Other joyous occasions:

Having Trouble Going? Thank God that the presidential election is finally over. It's past time for Americans to get back to the real pressing issue of our time, which, if you watch any TV, you already know is a global epidemic of overactive bladders and bloated prostates.

They Could Tell You About It, But They'd Have To Kill You: Vice President-elect Joseph Biden and his wife were given an early tour of their new Washington, D.C., vice-presidential residence. Jill Biden said she appreciated the chance to order new carpets for the waterboarding chamber and a throw cover for Dick Cheney's bedroom sleeping coffin.


All Frothed Up: A tanker truck spilled 1,000 gallons of buttermilk across southbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Olympia, WA . A dozen motorists were treated for high cholesterol.

We're Still A Bit Better Than Japan — A Little: Speaking for a divided U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts opined that if whales off the coast of California don't want to have their brains blown out by Navy sonar, they can stay the hell out of the ocean.

The Week's News Quiz: Quick, do you know where the bulk of your $700 billion "bailout" package to rescue the U.S. economy has gone? Seriously. Can you name one place?

Speaking Of Humanitarians: In a kind bow to fans beset by a sagging economy, the non-world champion Boston Red Sox announced they will hold the line on ticket prices for next season. It was a grand gesture. Residents of Red Sox Nation might not be able to own their homes anymore, but at least the traditional $125 ticket to watch guys stand around scratching their crotch and spitting is safe.

Toxic Talk Jock Shock: Filling a pressing local demand for public commiseration over monumentally inept sports franchises, KCSJ-AM (590) is considering switching to a full-time sports format. There's no turning back on this: Radio-station managers already are having the desk microphones fitted for washable slobber covers.

Finding Her True (3 a.m.) Calling? Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-Pantsuits), has emerged as a possible candidate for secretary of state in the new Obama administration. Guess that means Bill Ayers will have to stick to teaching.

And Finally: The nation of India successfully smashed a small probe into the surface of the moon Friday. It was one dull thud for mankind.

At White House, Obama Links Laura to George W. Bush

After his first visit to the White House Monday to work on the transition process, President-elect Barack Obama attempted to link First Lady Laura Bush with “the failed policies of George W. Bush.”
“While she may want the American people to see her as an independent thinker, the fact is that she has supported George Bush every step of the way,” said Mr. Obama. “It’s like the two of them have become one.”
Obama transition team leader John Podesta later explained that Mr. Obama “didn’t let John McCain get away from the Bush legacy either. Whether it’s polite to say so or not, for nearly eight years of this administration Laura Bush has been in bed with this president.”
Mr. Obama also accused Barney, the president’s Scottish Terrier, of being “just a partisan lapdog, eating from the hand of George W. Bush, and following him obediently. When George W. Bush gives the command, Barney just rolls over.”

Obama Puts Clinton Vets on Team, Overlooks Hillary

As he prepares for his move to the White House, President-elect Barack Obama has already named two vigorous Democrat partisans to his team — Rep. Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and John Podesta to lead the transition. However, insiders say he has not even vetted the most aggressively-partisan Democrat for a post for which she is “eminently qualified” — Hillary Clinton for First Lady.
“He’s overlooking her again,” said one admittedly-embittered Clinton associate. “She’s the only Democrat with actual experience as First Lady. It’s a no-brainer, and he just ignores her.”
The source said that when it comes to the First Lady post, “He’s digging in his heels. All he talks about is Michelle, Michelle, Michelle. But she’s an absolute rookie — untested, nothing on the resume. She’s just not ready.”
Rep. Emanuel served as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2005, and as senior advisor to President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998, while Mr. Podesta was President Clinton’s chief of staff from 1998 to 2001. They’ll lead Mr. Obama’s NPTF (New Politics Task Force), fulfilling his promise to assemble a bipartisan administration that rises above old-fashioned politics-as-usual.

Now This is a Tough Call

So.

A judge in Houston is deciding whether to throw out Roger Clemens’ defamation suit against Brian McNamee.If the judge does toss it out, McNamee, whom I believe is telling the truth about his former boss’ use of illegal, performance-enhancing drugs, is spared further legal expense — which he certainly can’t afford — and justice prevails.On the other hand, if the case goes forward, we move to the discovery phase, which almost certainly means more embarrassing revelations about Clemens, including his alleged fling with a teenage Country-Western singer.

So.What should we root for here? Justice or dirt? Justice or dirt? Justice or …?

President Elect Obama

If President-elect Obama can solve all of the problems this nation has, both foreign and domestic, I will be happy to say I am sorry that I didn't vote for him. I will miss Tina Fey though.

New Dollar Bill

I received one of these in change yesterday and wondered if they are real.