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J.D. Cavrich / Altoona Mirror
Authorities block the road along Route 22 near Canoe Creek State Park, Pa., while investigating the shootings Friday, Dec. 21,2012.
A gunman killed three people Friday in central Pennsylvania, including a woman in a church, before police shot him dead, authorities said. Three state troopers were injured, including one who was shot twice in the chest but survived thanks to his bulletproof vest.
Pennsylvania State Police said the man killed the three people at three different locations, including the church and a private home in Frankstown Township, about 75 miles west of Harrisburg.
About 9 a.m. ET, the gunman fired into the church, killing the woman, before shooting and killing a man at a private residence, police said. Those shootings may have been related, Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio said.
As the gunman fled, his pickup truck crashed into a second vehicle, and he shot and killed the other driver, police said. The truck subsequently crashed into a car driven by one of the troopers on Juniata Valley Road near Geeseytown, and the gunman got out and began firing. The troopers returned fire, killing the suspect, police said.
The woman was killed at Juniata Valley Gospel Church in Frankstown Township, the Rev. James McCaulley, brother of the church's late pastor, told The Associated Press. McCaulley, who was in town after having presided over his brother's funeral Thursday, told the AP that the woman was struck by gunshots that flew through a window of the church hall as she was decorating for a children's Christmas party.
Consiglio said one of the injured troopers was shot twice in the chest but was saved by his bulletproof vest. One was injured in the crash, and one was injured by flying glass from a bullet that was shot through his car window, he said. None sustained life-threatening injuries.
The county sheriff's office indicated that the gunman may have had more targets in mind, saying in a post on its Facebook page that the toll "could have been a lot worse" had state troopers not responded as quickly as they did. As it was, investigators' resources were stretched processing five separate crime scenes, including the church, said Deputy Col. George Bivens of the State Police.
"This is one of the largest crime investigations that I've seen," Consiglio said.
The Blair County Emergency Management Agency said it was calling in counselors for the public to a command center it had set up at the Geeseytown Fire Hall, and a prayer service and vigil were planned for Saturday at Geeseytown Lutheran Church.
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Michelle Acevedo of NBC News contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Please stop blaming the NRA for every gun related death. Gun laws will not stop this things from happening. Criminals seeking attention, or that have issues will find a way to get a gun. There is no stopping a determined person with motive. What gun legislation would you have passed to stop this? Please let me know, because there isn't one. No assault rifles? Newsflash, even if they were banned today there are millions of them out there. There is no solution. Education is the best defense, that and not parading these gunmen on the media.
I'm not even in the NRA, but I have a couple dozen guns, enjoy shooting them at a properly administered shooting range, and have a concealed weapons permit. I carry a gun for personal protection, which I have done since 1968. I have never murdered anyone, never gone on a shooting spree, never used a gun (or any other means) to bully anyone, nor rob anyone. There are millions of us who carry a gun for personal protection who never get in any trouble nor commit violence against anybody. But having a gun on my person has saved me from violent assaults 7 times in my 44 years of carrying. The media sometimes (not always) takes the approach that it is better to be a willing victim than it is to defend yourself.
And here again, nothing will be done - just a bunch of talk. Oh, don't anyone tread on their rights - lets keep shooting one another.
Right, lets not tread on their rights..Just remember that the right to free speech and to believe what you want and to vote, and the right to free association just to name a few, are RIGHTS guaranteed by our Constitution. Don't for get that these rights belong to you as well!
so far, every mass murderer has been below the age of 30.
Maybe the ones over 40 do not play those moronic video games. We are to busy working for a living or being constructive with our off time or busy chasing around a single woman for a good time. does anybody remember that or is a piece of a$$ off limits nowadays to?
well...guns arent the problem. they dont just stand up on their own and start shooting people. see...this country has become the BIGGEST wimps in the whole world. sure we have the strongest/best military but...as a people we've become GODLESS and SOFT. parents cant bust there kids butts anymore so they pay them off to be good with "stuff" and the children grow up selfish with NO respect for anyone. then they grow up and enter the "real" world and they cant do it so they choose lazy/easy ways through life. in the Bible it plainly says "spare the rod...spoil the child". but because we think we're gods in our selves we do it our way. whats a being that created the universe know about anything right? WRONG! our society is Doomed to fail because we dont see or hear anymore. NUFF SAID!
The big trouble here is the sicko's of the media exploiting every event that supports their agenda, no matter who gets hurt. The more this $#!t gets splattered all over the "news", the more it will happen. It brings all the idiots out of the woodwork, trying to get their 15 minutes of infamy. The "news" outlets have an orgasm every time they are successful in instigating another sensational event.
I wonder how many people cars killed in the last few hours? Of course that's not as big a story... even though 2,000 or 3,000 people a year are killed by one.
I guess we shouldn't get angry at muslim terrorist anymore, we are killing ourselves now without their help.
And the knuckleheads continue to surface, WOW !! No wonder aliens wont land here and make contact , why would they want to be associated with a bunch of idiots !!!!!! Stop F******G killing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW sick of this !!!!!!!!!!! Everytime I turn on my computer I have to see another story about these J***k A***S, Cant there be any good news !!!!! YOU MORONS !!!!! PEACE PLEASE !!!!!!!!
Chill dude! You just might be profiled as one of those so called sicko's you speak of with that TONE!
Lets get real people. If the issue were guns, mental health, movies, video games, or aaaaanything else everyone could come up with then why arent women commiting mass murders??? It is almost at conspiracy level that the media is not addressing the one true commonality to all of these types of tragedies...the male violence pattern. Until we start talking about that we are not even getting close to having insight.
I for one think we need to start by helping our young boys and men with communication, connection, empathy, and emotion. As a father, I plan to start with my son...
How does taking the rights of a law abiding citizen to bear arms FOR THEIR OWN PROTECTION prevent gun violence that is CARRIED OUT by CRIMINALS OR DRUGGED IDIOTS?
IT DOES NOT.
Ask EVERY inmate convicted of a violent gun-related crime if passing gun laws stop them from getting a gun.
They will laugh at you.
They will also tell you the only fear they have is that YOU (the CITIZEN) have A GUN ON THEIR PERSON.
ARM YOURSELF TO THE TEETH PEOPLE.
We have a right to bear arms for our self-defense.
Deputize the school principals and teachers. Hire retired marines, cops, etc as janitors.
Let local sheriffs train them.
WE DON'T NEED A BUNCH OF FEDERAL BS in the schools like the TSA.
I agree my friend! Take responsibility back for our/yourselves!
Awfully hard to kill someone with my PS3 disk.
There you go! Cover it till no one can escape it. Make the shooter famous. That's what the media is doing.
"Oh, my life sucks and I'm worth nothing. I want to kill myself. I KNOW! I'll go out in national news!"
That's the idea the media is selling to people who are down and about to kill themselves. By over hyping all of this they are actually making it worse.
There was a shooting, that's all we need to know. Don't tell us where, who did it or who died. Tell us nothing that the will help curb most of these.
Don't make killers celebraties, there is part of your answer.
PLEASE don't release the photo/name of the shooter! We NEED to stop giving celebrity and fame to these lunatics who have nothing to lose. We can't keep the insatiable media from reporting on these tragedies, but the police force/authorities need to stop disclosing the identity of the killers. It's at least worth a shot! Make it a law!
We all are very lucky that the level headed people in this heated debated are the gun owners. If they were as irate and out of control as the anti-gun nuts everyone in America would have waken up dead this morning and the Mayan calender would have been correct.
Wonder where the next "FREAK" with a "GUN" will "FREAKOUT" and dust off more of the population.
East or West of the Mississippi?
Quote Odds!!
Notice I said "FREAK" with a "GUN"
separately there almost harmless.
NBC News kills another 4 people...when are liberals going to demand that news organizations report news and not proactively pursue their political agenda with blathering articles???
Someone actually said these types of shootings don't happen in other countries. I disagree.
- September 27, 2001 - SWITZERLAND
A man bursts into the local assembly in the central Swiss town of Zug and opens fire, killing 14 members of parliament and local government then turning the gun on himself.
- March 27, 2002 - FRANCE
Eight local councillors are killed and 19 injured when a man opens fire on members of the municipal council of Nanterre, outside Paris. He kills himself the next day while in police custody.
- April 26, 2002 - GERMANY
Sixteen people, including 12 teachers and two students, are gunned down at a school in Erfurt in eastern Germany by a 19-year-old former student, apparently in revenge for having been expelled, who then killed himself.
- November 7, 2007 - FINLAND
An 18-year-old goes on a shooting rampage in a school in the southern Finnish town of Tuusula, killing eight people before shooting himself.
- September 23, 2008 - FINLAND
Eleven people, including the 22-year-old gunman, die in a massacre at a training school at Kauhajoki, Finland.
- March 11, 2009 - GERMANY
Nine pupils, three teachers and three passers-by are killed in a school shooting at Winnenden in southern Germany by a former pupil who then kills himself.
- June 2, 2010 - ENGLAND
Twelve people are killed when a 52-year-old taxi driver goes on a shooting spree in the English region of Cumbria, before killing himself.
- April 9, 2011 - THE NETHERLANDS
A gunman opens fire in a packed mall in the Netherlands, killing six people before shooting himself dead.
- July 22, 2011- NORWAY
A bomb attack on government buildings in Oslo that kills eight is followed by a shooting which kills 69 at a summer holiday camp organised by the ruling Labour party on the island of Utoeya, near to the capital. A right-wing extremist is arrested for carrying out both attacks.
- December 13, 2011 - BELGIUM
Three people, plus the gunman, are killed when a man, armed with grenades, opens fire on a square packed with children and Christmas shoppers in the eastern Belgian city of Liege.
In ITALY a far-right militant kills two Senegalese street vendors and wounds three people in a shooting spree in Florence after which he apparently kills himself.
Its the media. If they would stop reporting for days and weeks and months about these shootings they would stop. I blame the MEDIA for all of this, period. If a shooting happens you report it and then move on. The more and more media attention that is shown the more mental raged people will see how easy it is to become famous and committing suicide while doing it.
Wake Up
I agree....there are 300 million people in this country and our media sensationalizes by reporting every story that contains violence....especially when it has an agenda.
He is probably one of those doomsday preppers and don't know what to do with all that ammunition, guns and built up anxiety they had preparing for the end of the world today.
If someone wants to get a weapon there are so many illegal ways and they aren't and will never be controlled or their supply stemmed. True story: 3 years ago the ATF raided the company I worked at. They entered the building armed and fully protected. They approached 2 of our co-workers and cuffed them on the spot. They then evacuated us to an area 2 blocks from the building. The company parking lot was locked down and 2 cars were surrounded and the bomb squad was onsite. 3 hours later, we were allowed back into our building. But, our 2 co-workers were gone as were the 2 cars. In the trunks of both cars were grenades, AK's, and much more. Turns out that on our night shift these 2 were supplying/selling illegal weapons to the guys on the street and the local gangs. They were selling right out of the companies parking lot on their breaks. Neither of these people had mental issues, and both always appeared to be everyday family people and after the trial we found that even their husbands were clueless about what they had been doing. Just goes to show that no matter what gun laws are in place, nothing is going to keep criminals and mentally ill people from access to their guns.
,,
Love how everyone is commenting when we don't have the story again. Already saw someone on here saying the armed officers didn't stop this and they got killed, so more guns aren't the answer.
When I READ the article, which is INCOMPLETE, I saw that all 3 INJURED officers were alive and well. In FACT, only 1 officer was shot(his vest stopped a bullet). One was cut by some glass, and the other was hurt in a car crash.
If I were like these people, I may be inclined to ASSUME, that the gunman had killed 3 people, the cops showed up, had a little gun fight and one of the cops shot the gunman preventing further harm.
That too, though plausible, would be a poor assumption since MSNBC decides to publish these partial stories before they really know anything.
You are so correct. I live here, in Central PA, where it occurred, and we don't even know. I suppose that there are a lot of people out there who just love using things like this for their own agendas. I have several friends who are on the police force here.
Our local newspaper has this so far: - no names have been released and the area is being investigated.
Please pray for our police: PA State Police of Hollidaysburg, Logan Township Police, and Allegheny Township Police Departments. Thank you.
What's clear is that there are a number of crazed and unsettled people in our society now...wonder why? Good on the cops for taking him out if that is the case.
Beam me up, Scotty!
This one is the gunmans fault, and the media's for making reality stars of these people. Good going. I hope it was worth it.
This story is so pathetic and sad...no sorry, it's not a gun problem, it's a society problem. What do these crazy a-holes have to be afraid of anymore? We are a Godless (or whom ever higher power you look up to) society that doesn't believe in any form of discipline whatsoever! Why ban guns? Does the government really think that banning guns will solve this? NO! Dope is illegal in most states also, but does that keep people from smoking it illegally? Again, no. What about driving over the speed limit? Still against the law yet people drive super fast and automakers make vehicles that go in excess of 120 MPH....outlaw cars? Yeah, really don't see that happening either....wtg America...
Every ban, law, or restriction in the world will not stop a person who wants to commit a crime with a gun. Society has become a mess and these people with mental illness have slipped through the cracks. My weapons have never been used for violence (except to a target or sporting clay) there are some people that just cannot deal and they are the ones who use weapons in the wrong way. I do not have a problem with registration of my weapons and do not believe anyone that has nothing to hide, or uses them for the right reason should. I also think the reason were hearing about so many of these shootings is the media hype needing to raise a fuss. If u look back to the 90s there were and still are thousands of inner city shooting a year. The lack of Morals, Respect for Life, and the continued Drug, and mental illness in this country are more to blame than guns. Place a gun on the ground and i guarantee it wont hurt anybody till its picked up by the wrong person.