Killeen rampage

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The Killeen rampage occurred on October 16, 1991 in Killeen , Bell County , Texas , USA. A man indiscriminately opened fire on customers and employees of a cafeteria, killing 23 people and injuring around 20 others. He committed suicide after an exchange of fire with the police. It was the most casualty rampage in US history up to that point.

Course of events

October 16, 1991 broke through loud different specifications 12:39 to 12:45 hours local time, a light blue Ford Ranger - Pickup the glass front of the Luby's Cafeteria on US Route 190 in Killeen. While the guests and employees present assumed an accident and some ran to the vehicle to help the supposedly injured driver, the driver got out and opened fire from two semi-automatic pistols of the Glock 17 and Ruger P89 types . The assassin shouted “All women in Killeen and Belton are poisonous snakes! You did that to me and my family! This has Bell County did to me. Was it worth it? This is home payment day! ”During the ten to fifteen minute shooting that followed, more than 40 people were hit, 23 of them fatal. The youngest victim was 29 years old and the oldest victim was 75. More than 20 other people were injured. 14 of the fatalities were women.

The Luby's cafeteria was unusually well attended because of the Boss Day holiday , and according to various reports, between 80 and 150 people were in the building. The mechanic Tommy Vaughn jumped through one of the large glass windows, allowing a larger number of people to escape. Many of those present tried to hide; a 19-year-old employee was only freed from a dishwasher the next day.

Officer Chuck Longwell and Officer Kenneth Olson were the first police officers to arrive on the scene after a few minutes. They were driving back from an undercover drug-related mission. Together with Officer Al Morris, they located the shooter. There should have been an exchange of fire at a distance of about ten meters, in which the perpetrator was hit in the right shoulder. He then withdrew to the washrooms and shot himself. He had previously told the police that he had hostages under his control.

Perpetrator

The shooter has been identified as 35-year-old George Jo Hennard from Belton . Hennard was born George Pierre Hennard on October 15, 1956 in Sayre, Pennsylvania . His father was a Swiss surgeon and his mother was an antique dealer, the parents divorced since 1983. The former Navy soldier last worked for the United States Merchant Marine's civilian merchant fleet . In 1989 he lost his license for owning marijuana . He was unemployed at the time of the crime. He had legally acquired his two weapons in Nevada in February 1991.

He was known to have a pronounced hatred of women. The police chief said during the police investigation that Hennard had an "obvious problem with women". According to witnesses, he allegedly uttered hateful tirades against women during the shooting. In June 1991, Hennard went to a local FBI office and filed a complaint against all women for violating his civil rights. That same month he had stalked two sisters in his neighborhood and sent them a letter with photos of himself saying, “Please give me the satisfaction of one day seeing the mostly white, insidious venomous snakes from these two cities [Killeen and Belton ] laughing in the face who tried to destroy me and my family. ”According to his former roommate, Hennard saw women as snakes. Days before the rampage, Hennard had watched the sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas on television. He publicly complained that the allegations were ridiculous and that women were taking over areas that were rightfully men's.

motive

According to the police and other assessments, Hennard's hatred of women is a possible motive for the rampage. According to several testimonies, Hennard left men out to shoot women. Witnesses also reported that Hennard allegedly said during the rampage, “ Wait 'til those fucking women in Belton see this! I wonder of they''ll think it was worth it ”(German:“ Wait until these damn women in Belton see this! I wonder if they 'll think it was worth it ”). In addition, according to news reports, Hennard said at the beginning of the killing spree “ This is for the women of Bell County ” (German: “This is for the women in Bell County”). Although there was no other evidence of Hennard's mental disorder, his delusional belief that he was persecuted and badly treated by women could be interpreted as a sign of paranoid psychosis . Another explanation for the rampage is that Hennard was not only motivated by his hatred of women, but that the rampage was the result of multiple experiences of rejection, rejection from women, employers, friends and family.

An explanation suspected by his father that his son had become violent due to a brain tumor or aneurysm could not be confirmed after an autopsy . He was also not under the influence of alcohol or other drugs at the time of the rampage .

A few weeks earlier, the Killeen area was the filming location for the film King of the Fishermen, starring Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams , in one scene of a killing spree in a restaurant. The police later found a receipt for a cinema ticket for this film among Hennard's belongings. Rumors that the perpetrator might have been inspired by this massacre could not be corroborated.

aftermath

Memorial to the memory of the 23 victims of the rampage.

Officer Al Morris, Officer Kenneth Olson and Officer Chuck Longwell were awarded the Medal of Honor for their intervention as the first officers in the Killeen Police Department.

As a result of the rampage, the Texas legislature passed a new gun law which, subject to certain conditions, allows the concealed carrying of firearms in public for the purposes of self-defense. The law was signed by then Governor George W. Bush in 1995 . Suzanna Hupp, who was in the cafeteria during the rampage and lost her parents, played a significant role in the introduction of the law. She was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1996 .

A memorial stone at the Killeen Community Center commemorates the victims. The Luby's cafeteria reopened a few months after the rampage, but closed in September 2000. A Chinese restaurant then opened in the same location.

The Killeen rampage remained the most casualty in United States history until the April 16, 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech , which killed 33 people. After the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, killing 28, the Killeen rampage was the third worst in the United States after deaths. He remained the most casualty outside an educational institution until the 2016 Orlando massacre, which left 49 fatalities.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Philip Jankowski: Survivors reflect on Oct. 16, 1991, Luby's shooting . In: Killeen Daily Herald , October 16, 2011.
  2. ↑ Anita Belles Porterfield, John Porterfield: Death on Base: The Fort Hood Massacre . University of North Texas Press, Denton 2015, ISBN 978-1-57441-596-4 , p. 20 .
  3. ↑ Original quote: “ All women of Killeen and Belton are vipers! This is what you've done to me and my family! This is what Belton did to me! Is it worth it? This is payback day! In: Carol Dawson, Carol Johnston: House of Plenty: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Luby's Cafeterias . University of Texas Press, Austin 2006, ISBN 978-0-292-70656-9 , pp. 176 f.
  4. ↑ Texas city official: Mass shooting left scars, but Killeen 'resilient'. In: CNN , March 11, 2009.
  5. ↑ Lianne Hart, Tracy Wood: Massacre: A gunman drives his pickup through a window and opens fire with a semiautomatic handgun, in nation's worst mass shooting. He is among the dead. In: Los Angeles Times , October 17, 1991.
  6. ↑ Thomas C. Hayes: Gunman Kills 22 and Himself in Texas Cafeteria . In: The New York Times , October 17, 1991.
  7. ^ A b J. Michael Kennedy, Richard A. Serrano: Massacre: Hennard was seen as reclusive, belligerent. Officials are looking into possibility he hated women. In: Los Angeles Times , October 18, 1991.
  8. ↑ Original quote: “ Please give me the satisfaction of some day laughing in the face of all those mostly white treacherous female vipers from those two towns [Killeen and Belton] who tried to destroy me and my family. In: James Alan Fox, Jack Levin: Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder . 3. Edition. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks 2015, ISBN 978-1-4833-5072-1 , p. 251 .
  9. ↑ James Alan Fox, Jack Levin: Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder . 3. Edition. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks 2015, ISBN 978-1-4833-5072-1 , pp. 251 f.
  10. ^ A b Don Terry: Portrait of Texas Killer: Impatient and Troubled . In: The New York Times , October 17, 1991.
  11. ↑ James Alan Fox, Jack Levin: Overkill. Mass Murder and Serial Killing Exposed . Springer US, Boston 1994, ISBN 978-0-306-44771-6 , p. 211 .
  12. ↑ Michael D. Kelleher: New Arenas for Violence: Homicide in the American Workplace . Praeger, Westport 1996, ISBN 978-0-275-95652-3 , p. 79 .
  13. ↑ Zack Schonfeld: Misogyny and Mass Murder, paired Yet Again . In: Newsweek , May 28, 2014.
  14. ↑ Deniese Kennedy-Kollar, Christopher AD Charles: Hegemonic Masculinity and Mass Murderers in the United States. (PDF) In: The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice . 8, No. 2, 2013, pp. 62–74.
  15. ↑ a b David Hanners: When Hatred For Women Turns Deadly . In: Orlando Sentinel , October 10, 1991.
  16. ^ Katherine M. Ramsland: Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers: Why They Kill . Praeger, Westport 2005, ISBN 978-0-275-98475-5 , p. 46 .
  17. ↑ Ronald B. Flowers, H. Loraine Flowers: Murders in the United States: Crimes, Killers and Victims of the Twentieth Century . McFarland & Company, Jefferson 2004, ISBN 978-0-7864-2075-9 , p. 80 .
  18. ↑ Mara Bovsun: Luby's massacre in Texas has a link to Robin Williams' movie "The Fisher King". In: New York Daily News , Sept. 20, 2014.
  19. ↑ John Clark: Gunpowder smell filled . In: Temple Daily Telegram , October 16, 2001.
  20. ^ 15 shootings that changed the law: Killeen, 1991 . In: AOAV , April 17, 2014.