Current Events / Weekend Roundup

It looks like Moldavia's got a revolution on their hands. We're all Moldavians now.

Actually, Moldavia's probably a safer place to be than here in America. Since last October, several shooting sprees here in the USA have made headline news, including a Christmas Eve incident in California where a man dressed as Santa Claus killed nine guests at a house party. In March, a gunman killed 10 at an Alabama home, including several members of his family and a guest and her 18-month-old daughter. And on April 3, an immigrant from Vietnam living near Binghamton, N.Y., went on a shooting spree at a citizenship center there, taking the lives of 13 workers and fellow immigrants.

The killings continued last week. On Saturday, April 4, a man in Graham, Washington shot four of his own children, aged 7 to 16, in their beds and a fifth in the bathroom before taking his own life with a rifle in a parked car 18 miles away. The children were aged 7 to 16.

Around noon the same day, over on the other side of the country, police were called to a cul-de-sac in Cobb County, Georgia after two bodies were found with gunshot wounds. Both victims were adult males. Investigators recovered unspecified evidence at the scene and are searching for two persons of interest.

On Monday, April 05, three youths were shot on the street near Atlanta's Turner Field. A 16-year-old boy died, another is in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head, and a third was in serious condition with a wound to the leg. The incident is considered to be gang-related. The three boys were standing in front of an apartment complex when they were approached by five or six other young men believed to range in age from 16 to their early 20s. Gunfire broke out; two handguns were used. It was not known if the victims were also armed.

On Wednesday, April 7, an Alabama man turned on his family, killing his estranged wife, his 16-year-old daughter, his sister, and his nephew, before killing himself with a shotgun about 200 yards behind his house. The man and his wife had a hearing scheduled on Monday as part of divorce proceedings; it had been postponed until Wednesday.

Early on Friday, April 9, a 13-year-old boy was fatally shot in an apartment complex in Atlanta. He and two young men were playing with a gun when it discharged and hit the 13-year-old. A 20-year-old man was arrested on a murder charge.

In Michigan, two students were also killed on Friday in an apparent murder-suicide at a community college west of Detroit. The bodies of a 28-year-old man and 20-year-old woman were discovered after police responded to an emergency call of a gun shot on campus. As officers entered the Fine Arts Center, they heard another shot. The man had apparently used a shotgun to kill the woman and then turned the gun on himself.