Thread: Gunman opens fire at Tenn. hospital; kills 1, self

By Beth Rucker, Associated Press Writer 10 mins ago

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A gunman took a taxi to a hospital and gave the cab driver $20 to wait, then opened fire Monday in an area where patients are released, killing one woman before committing suicide.

All the victims were female and current or former employees of Parkwest Medical Center, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said. The attack happened about 4:30 p.m. outside the hospital's discharge area.

Police are still trying to determine a motive, but it did not appear that any of the victims were related to the suspect or that there was any connection between them, spokesman Darrell DeBusk said. Police also don't think the suspect was ever employed at the hospital.

Cab driver Freddys Sakhleh told The Associated Press that he picked up the suspect outside an apartment building and they made several stops on the way to the hospital, including to an ATM where the gunman got $20.

The driver said the man said little about himself, only that he was from Atlanta. "He looked like, you know, angry, depressed. He was kind of itchy," Sakleh said. Sakhleh said the man eventually got out of the cab at the hospital, handed the driver the $20 and told him to wait five minutes.

He then came back to the cab, pulled a gun from his waist and starting firing. "I called 911, and I said, 'Please send some people here, this man is shooting like crazy,'" Sakhleh said. He said the gunman then shot himself in the head.

Sakhleh saw a woman bleeding. "I went berserk," he said.

Photographs of the entrance to the discharge area, where vehicles can pickup patients, showed a man's body surrounded by police. Yellow crime tape was stretched around the area and police took photographs inside of a van taxi.

Two of the victims were taken to the trauma center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. The family of Ariane Reagan Guerin, a 26-year-old employee at Parkwest, said they were hearing promising information about her prognosis. The family of the other victim, Nancy Chancellor, said she was doing well.

The gunman's name has not been released.

Linda Cody, whose father was a patient at the hospital, said she had gone to smoke a cigarette when she saw a man's body face down, surrounded by blood, outside the discharge area of the hospital.

She said she didn't know if the man, who wasn't moving, was dead or alive, but she had learned the victims had been shot in the same area where she normally smoked. "It was scary," she said. "It kind of gives you the willies thinking that could have been me five seconds ago."

Cody overheard a woman tell police that a gun was underneath the man.

Police put the hospital on lockdown as SWAT team members searched each floor to make sure no one else involved with the attack had made it inside. "The hospital is safe and is being reopened with limitations," Owen said.

Charles Billingsley was taking his sister to a nearby doctor's office and heard the shooting, though he wasn't close enough to see the attack. "I heard five pistol shots, back to back, and then another and then another," Billingsley said. "I just saw people running from the hospital."

Sakhleh, the cab driver, said he was so agitated about seeing the incident that he couldn't sleep. Still, he considered himself fortunate. "I'm lucky I'm alive," he said. "My wife always tells me, 'be careful, be careful.' But after tonight, I'm going to be real careful."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/...NsawNwcmludA--

Man kills woman, self outside Tenn. hospital
By Beth Rucker, Associated Press Writer 20 mins ago

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A man opened fire outside a Tennessee hospital, killing a woman and himself, after taking a cab to the scene and asking it to wait. The cab driver said the man seemed angry and depressed, but police had not released any motive by early Tuesday for the rampage.

The two women who survived the shooting were taken to the trauma center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Their conditions were not released. The women's families issued statements expressing thanks for prayers and support.

The family of Ariane Reagan Guerin, a 26-year-old employee at Parkwest, said they were hearing promising information about her prognosis. The family of Nancy Chancellor, 32, said she was doing well.

The women killed was Rachel Wattenbarger, 40. Her father, Ray Wattenbarger, said she had worked at the hospital for about five or six years, helping discharge the elderly. He said he would remember his daughter's smile.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/...NsawNwcmludA--

Hospital shooter mentally ill, had grudge
By Beth Rucker, Associated Press Writer 4 mins ago

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A mentally ill gunman who killed a hospital worker and wounded two others was upset with a doctor he thought had implanted a monitoring device during an appendectomy in 2001, police said Tuesday.

Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said gunman Abdo Ibssa (AB'-doh IHB'-sah) first entered a medical tower near Parkwest Medical Center and asked for the doctor who performed the appendectomy. After being told the doctor wasn't there, Ibssa went to another area where patients are discharged and opened fire with a revolver.

He killed himself after shooting the three women who work at the hospital on Monday, a day before his 39th birthday. "There was less than 5 seconds from the time of the first shot until the last shot," Owen said at a news conference.

Investigators found a note at Ibssa's Knoxville apartment in which the gunman said the doctor had implanted a chip that was being used to track his movements, Owen said.

Haloperidol, an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome, was also found at his apartment, but investigators believe he hadn't been using it, Owen said.

Owen said relatives of the naturalized citizen from Ethiopia had him committed for mental treatment in February.

Also found during the search were a second handgun, a bag of marijuana and a copy of the book "The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception" — a reproduction of a Cold War-era CIA handbook on the use of illusion and deception for acts of espionage.

The gun used in the shooting had been reported stolen in March, while other one had an altered serial number but wasn't reported stolen. Police were not sure how Ibssa obtained either gun and said he did not have a handgun permit.

Police said Ibssa operated a convenience store near downtown Knoxville, which was closed Tuesday.

On Monday, a cab driver picked Ibssa up outside his apartment building, and the gunman told him to take him to the western side of Knoxville, eventually specifying the medical center.

Cab driver Freddys Sakhleh said Ibssa said seemed angry and depressed and said little about himself.

Ibssa directed the cab driver to the medical center tower and told to wait for him to come back. Inside, the gunman was told the doctor he sought wasn't there.

When Ibssa returned, Sakhleh said, he told the driver to take him to the hospital entrance where some patients are discharged.

Owen, the police chief, said Ibssa fired four shots at people exiting the building, hitting the three hospital workers. The gunman killed himself with a fifth shot. Police said it doesn't appear he knew the women.

"I called 911, and I said, 'Please send some people here, this man is shooting like crazy,'" Sakhleh said.

The two women who survived the shooting were taken to the trauma center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Owen said Tuesday afternoon the women were in stable condition.

The women's families issued statements expressing thanks for prayers and support.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/.../date/asc/1171

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

--Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764).

Notice they always go where arms are banned hospitals or colleagues where they know no one will have a way to defend. Laws that bar honest citizens right to bear arms will not stop the crazy and criminal elements from acquiring fire arms, This article proves that 100%

[/quote]Guns were illegal in Rwanda when the genocide happened. People killed each other with machetes, kitchen knives, crowbars, bricks, logs, stones. You cannot stop people killing people by taking the guns away.[/quote]

I think it would be quite difficult for anyone to have prevented this. This person decided to take this action and it appears he may have obtained the guns illegally. No human or gov't can be truly omnipresent or omniscient. If they tried to be, it could create an outcry of encroachment of freedom/privacy. If one believes in a "greater power", they may believe that power has the ability to be everywhere or view everyone/thing - but then you open up another can of worms with those who have differing religious views. It seems you can't win for losing....

Suit: Accused Tenn hospital shooter violent before
By Beth Rucker, Associated Press Writer Wed Apr 21, 3:26 am ET

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Almost a year before he was accused in a deadly shooting outside a hospital, Abdo Ibssa violently attacked a stranger he suspected was saying something bad about him in a store, according to a lawyer who filed a lawsuit in the case.

On Monday, Ibssa fired a volley of bullets that killed one hospital worker and wounded two others because, police say, he thought his doctor had implanted a tracking chip in him during an appendectomy in 2001. Ibssa then shot himself, dying at the hospital entrance.

Police say Ibssa, who had been committed to mental treatment by his family earlier this year, appeared to have quit taking his medication for schizophrenia.

His erratic behavior dates at least to May 2009, when the store confrontation occurred. Jalal Boudarga sued Ibssa for $300,000 in January. His attorney, Jerry Martin, said Ibssa blocked Boudarga in the store parking lot with his car and then began yelling at him. Ibssa shoved Boudarga violently against his vehicle, causing him to hit the ground and break his leg.

Martin said Boudarga's leg was broken so badly that he had to have surgery, six screws and a metal plate placed in his bones.

"I guess if Mr. Ibssa imagined that a doctor had put a computer chip in him, then it's not that far of a jump for him to imagine my client saying something about him," Martin said.

The lawsuit provides some of the few details about Ibssa's life in Knoxville. The Ethiopian immigrant had become a naturalized U.S. citizen and moved to the Tennessee city.

Neighbors declined to talk to The Associated Press. A store operated by Ibssa was closed, and calls to possible relatives were not returned.

Ibssa entered a medical tower near Parkwest Medical Center before the attack and asked for the doctor who performed the appendectomy, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said. Unable to find the doctor, Ibssa went to another area where patients are discharged and opened fire on the women as they walked out of the building.

Ibssa, who police believe had been skipping doses of medication for psychotic behavior, killed himself to end the shooting, which occurred a day before his 39th birthday.

"There was less than 5 seconds from the time of the first shot until the last shot," Owen said at a news conference Tuesday.

Investigators found a note at Ibssa's Knoxville apartment in which the gunman said the doctor had implanted a chip that was being used to track his movements, Owen said.

Ibssa had a successful appendectomy at Premier Surgical Associates in November 2001 and suffered no complications, according to a statement from CEO Kevin Burris.

Haloperidol, an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome, was also found at Ibssa's apartment, but investigators believe he hadn't been using it, Owen said.

Owen said relatives had him committed for mental treatment in February.

Also found during the search were a second handgun, a bag of marijuana and a copy of the book "The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception" — a reproduction of a Cold War-era CIA handbook on the use of illusion and deception for acts of espionage.

The gun used in the shooting had been reported stolen in March, while other one had an altered serial number but wasn't reported stolen. Police were not sure how Ibssa obtained either gun and said he did not have a handgun permit.

Police said Ibssa operated a convenience store near downtown Knoxville, which was closed Tuesday.

On Monday, a cab driver picked Ibssa up outside his apartment building, and the gunman told him to take him to the western side of Knoxville, eventually specifying the medical center.

Cab driver Freddys Sakhleh said Ibssa said seemed angry and depressed and said little about himself.

He took Ibssa to the medical center tower and waited for him to come back, and then took him to the discharge area of the hospital. The driver said he watched in horror as Ibssa pulled out a gun from his waist and started shooting.

Owen, the police chief, said Ibssa fired four shots at people exiting the building, hitting the three hospital workers. The gunman killed himself with a fifth shot. Police said it doesn't appear he knew the women.

The two women who survived the shooting were taken to the trauma center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Owen said Tuesday afternoon the women — Ariane Reagan Guerin, 26, and Nancy Chancellor — were in stable condition.

The woman killed was Rachel Wattenbarger, 40. Her father, Ray Wattenbarger, said she had worked at the hospital for about five or six years, helping discharge the elderly.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100421/...l0YWNjdXNlZHQ-