David,
a French nurse who delivered first aid to a suicide attacker who blew
himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire cafe during last week's Paris
attacks, poses during an interview with Reuters in Paris, France,
November 20, 2015. FRANCE-SHOOTING/NURSE-BOMBER
Reuters/Eric Gaillard
In
the chaos of the explosion at the Comptoir Voltaire cafe, one of
several targets hit in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, nurse David
instinctively sought to help the wounded.
Among them was a man
lying amid overturned chairs and tables. David, who asked to be called
just by his first name, lay him down. The man did not look to have
massive injuries, but appeared unconscious, so David began CPR, the
cardiopulmonary resuscitation he'd been trained for.
When he tore
open the man's t-shirt, David quickly realized that what he initially
thought was a gas explosion at the cafe close to the Bataclan music hall
where gunmen killed 89, was actually something far worse.
"There
were wires; one white, one black, one red and one orange. Four different
colors," he told Reuters. "I knew then he was a suicide bomber."
The
man David was trying to resuscitate was Brahim Abdeslam, one of those
involved in a series of deadly attacks that killed 130 people at bars,
restaurants, a soccer stadium and a music hall. No one other than
Abdeslam died at the cafe.
A Chinese communist party flag is held by soldiers. Photograph: China Newsphoto/Reuters
A
senior Chinese official has killed himself in his Beijing office,
according to reports – the latest mysterious suicide of a ruling
Communist party cadre.
Xu Ye'an, 58, was deputy chief of China's state bureau for letters and calls – the agency that fields grievances from citizens over injustices or disputes.
According
to the respected magazine Caixin, Xu was discovered to have killed
himself in his office on Tuesday, although the details surrounding his
death remain unclear.
"It is learned that Xu was not in good
health lately and was suffering from tinnitus over the past few months,"
Caixin reported, citing a person close to the bureau for letters and
calls. "He was always in a bad mood."
The
soldier behind Wednesday's deadly shooting at Fort Hood was being
evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder, and had seen no combat
while deployed in Iraq three years ago.
Also, the shooter bought his gun from the same place the 2009 Fort Hood shooter got his weapon.
Army
officials Thursday afternoon identified the killer as Spc. Ivan Lopez,
34, a Puerto Rican father of three who authorities say had no record of
misbehavior. Wednesday's tragedy at the Texas Army base left four people
dead, including the gunman, and 16 injured.
"We have very strong
evidence that he had a medical history that indicated an unstable
psychiatric or psychological condition," Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, head of
the Army's III Corps at Fort Hood, said of Lopez. "There was no
indication that he was targeting specific people."
Milley hinted
at a motive for the shooting. "There may have been a verbal altercation
with another soldier or soldiers," he said. "There is a strong
possibility that that immediately preceded the shooting." MORE: Alleged shooter was not required to register weapon STORY: Tragedy again touches Fort Hood community STORY: Military plays catch-up on PTSD STORY: 4 dead, 16 wounded in Fort Hood attack MORE: Fort Hood shooting comes less than 5 years after earlier attack MORE: '09 shooting led to Pentagon review of base security
Lopez purchased his gun on March 1.
Last
year, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan was convicted and sentenced to
death in the Nov. 5, 2009, attack at Fort Hood on his fellow soldiers as
they waited inside a crowded building on the base. Thirteen died and
more than 30 were wounded, and it remains the deadliest attack on a
domestic military installation in U.S. history.
The Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Wednesday night traced the
gun used in Wednesday's attack to a local gun shop, said a federal law
enforcement official not authorized to comment publicly. The official
confirmed that the gun had been purchased at Guns Galore, the same shop
that sold a weapon to Hasan.
Lopez enlisted in the Army in June 2008 and served four months in Iraq as a truck driver.
"His
records show no wounds, no involvement — direct involvement — in
combat," said Army Secretary John McHugh, the U.S. Army's top civilian
official. "As Gen. Milley said, no record of Purple Heart or any injury
that might lead us to further investigate a battle-related TBI
(traumatic brain injury) or such."
Milley said Lopez had "self-diagnosed" a traumatic brain injury. "He was not wounded in action," Milley said.
On
Thursday, McHugh said the suspected shooter had two deployments,
including the one in Iraq. Lopez enlisted as an infantryman and later
switched his specialty to truck driver.
Lopez, who was on a
variety of prescribed drugs including Ambien, had not yet been diagnosed
for post-traumatic stress disorder. But he was also undergoing
treatment for depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance and a variety of
other issues, McHugh said.
"He was seen just last month by a
psychiatrist," McHugh said Thursday. "He was fully examined. And as of
this morning, we had no indication on the record of that examination
that there was any sign of likely violence, either to himself or to
others. No suicidal ideation."
Out of respect for Lopez's family
and the integrity of the investigation, Milley said he would not release
any more details about the soldier's medical status. He did add that it
was too early to tell if Lopez received adequate mental health
treatment.
Soldier's 'Courageous Act' Remembered as Fort Hood Begins Healing
Fort Hood Public Affairs Office via Reuters
Sergeant
First Class Daniel Ferguson, 39, of Florida, who served as a
transportation supervisor and had been deployed to Kuwait, Iraq and
Afghanistan, is pictured in this undated handout from Fort Hood Public
Affairs Office. Ferguson was one of three victims killed at the shooting
at Fort Hood.
In
a final heroic act, Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Ferguson threw his body
against the entryway of a door as a fellow soldier-turned-gunman blasted
away in a terrifying rampage at Fort Hood.
Ferguson, 39, was fatally hit in the moment he became a human shield — a sacrifice remembered in a news conference Saturday.
Ferguson's
“courageous act of blocking the door with his own body prevented
further bloodshed,” said Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas.
Also
killed in Wednesday's shooting were Sgt. Timothy Owens, 37, and Staff
Sgt. Carlos Lazaney-Rodriguez, 38. Sixteen others were wounded. Gunman
Spc. Ivan Lopez died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials
said.
Rep. Williams, along with
Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, met some of the wounded soldiers Saturday,
and commended them on their valor. Among the victims was Maj. Patrick Miller, who was shot in the stomach with Lopez's .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
Miller had called 911 as he tended to his own wounds.
Timothy
Wayne Owens, a counselor at Fort Hood, was known to friends as a
stand-up guy who triumphed over a hardscrabble upbringing to become an
empathetic military man, one who helped people and defused conflicts.
So,
it was no surprise to residents in his home town of Effingham, Ill., to
hear that Owens lost his life trying to calm the shooter in Wednesday’s
Fort Hood killings.
“He was a brave
man,” said Owens’s mother, Mary Muntean, 77, who said she learned that
her son had been killed as he tried to talk with Ivan Lopez, who has been identified as the man who killed three people and injured 16 in the shooting on the Army post.
Muntean
said she received a call at her Effingham home from her son’s wife,
Billy Owens, on Wednesday evening telling her that he had been shot five
times after trying to calm Lopez in a post parking lot. Military officials have
not released the names of those killed or injured or confirmed reports
of how the violence unfolded. But friends of Owens said the account
provided by his family fits the man they knew.
Among Fort Hood Victims, a Sergeant Is Killed, and a Major Is Wounded
Photo
Sgt. Timothy Owens was killed Wednesday night.Credit Courtesy of Glen Welton, via Associated Press
The
names of the victims of the shooting in Fort Hood began to come out on
Thursday, released by relatives and by officials offering their
condolences.
In
Effingham, Ill., family members told The Associated Press that Army
Sgt. Timothy Owens was one of the three soldiers killed Wednesday in a
mass shooting by Specialist Ivan Antonio Lopez. Sixteen others were
wounded in the shooting. The Army has not released a list of the
victims, pending notification of relatives.
The
mother of Sergeant Owens, Mary Muntean, 77, of Effingham, told The
Associated Press that she had learned of her son’s death in a telephone
call with her daughter-in-law.
Unable
to reach her son, she called his wife, Billie Owens, who first said he
was in the hospital. Before long, Sergeant Owens’s wife called back, and
Mrs. Muntean had her worst fears confirmed. “She said, ‘Mom, I want to
tell you how sorry I am. Tim’s gone,' ” Mrs. Muntean said, according to
The A.P. “I broke down.”
Sergeant
Owens dropped out of high school in 1995. But his mother said he earned
his high school equivalency after joining the Army in 2004.
Photo
Maj. Patrick Miller was wounded in the shootings.
A
friend and former roommate, Paul Eatherton, said Sergeant Owens, whose
family moved back to Effingham from Missouri in the mid-1990s, worked at
Pizza Hut and studied tae kwon do at a local gym. Mr. Eatherton, a
martial arts instructor at the time, said Sergeant Owens got his black
belt and started teaching at a gym in Effingham.
“He
was the best student I’d ever seen or known,” Mr. Eatherton said. “We’d
go to tournaments, and he’d bring first places home every time.”
He
said Sergeant Owens, who was in his mid-30s, had recently signed up for
another six years in the Army. “I think he was going to be a lifer,” he
said. He said he had not talked to Sergeant Owens for several months,
but when he heard news of the shooting, he texted him immediately. He
got no reply. “That really worried me,” he said.
The
commander of Fort Hood, Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley, said in an afternoon
news conference, that nine of the 16 people wounded in the attack were
taken to Scott & White Memorial Hospital in nearby Temple, Tex., for
treatment. Three were upgraded to serious condition on Thursday.
Hospital officials said doctors had operated on two patients, a man and a
woman, who had been shot in the abdomen and neck. The third person had
an abdominal wound. The other victims taken there were discharged.
Gunman Had ‘Clean Record,’ With No Violent Sign, Officials Say
Photo
Specialist Ivan Lopez served in Iraq but did not see combat.
Specialist
Ivan Antonio Lopez had seen a military psychiatrist as recently as last
month. He was being treated for depression and anxiety, and had been
prescribed Ambien to help him sleep. He had come back from a four-month
deployment to Iraq in 2011 and told superiors he had suffered a
traumatic head injury there. But military officials said he had never
seen combat, and there was no record of any combat-related injury. He
was being evaluated for possible post-traumatic stress disorder.
Still,
military officials said, they had seen nothing to indicate that
Specialist Lopez, 34 — who killed three people and himself and wounded
16 others on Wednesday in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex. — was
violent or suicidal.
“He
had a clean record,” Secretary of the Army John McHugh said Thursday
morning in testimony before a Senate panel in Washington. “No
outstanding bad marks for any kinds of major misbehaviors that we’re yet
aware of.”
Lt.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Fort Hood commander, said Thursday at a news
conference that there were “very strong indications” that there had been
a “verbal altercation” between Specialist Lopez and one or more other
soldiers in the minutes before the shooting started, but the authorities
were still investigating what role, if any, that played in the attack.
Photo
Before joining the Army, Specialist Lopez was in the Puerto Rico National Guard.Credit Puerto Rico National Guard, via Reuters
“We
have very strong evidence looking into his medical history that
indicated an unstable psychiatric condition,” General Milley said.
Friends
from his hometown in Puerto Rico said that Specialist Lopez was angry
with the Army when he returned home for his mother’s funeral in
November. Ismael Gonzalez, a former schoolmate who had kept in contact
with Specialist Lopez on Facebook, said the soldier was very upset that
he had initially been given only 24 hours to attend the funeral.
In
addition, Mr. Gonzalez said, Specialist Lopez, who was earning $28,000 a
year, told him that he was “in a precarious economic situation” trying
to support his family in Texas and two children in Puerto Rico from his
first marriage. And he was angry that the Army would not allow him to
move his family onto the base at Fort Hood, Mr. Gonzalez said.
None of this had found its way into Specialist Lopez’s official record, though.
“This
was an experienced soldier,” said Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the Army’s
chief of staff. “He spent actually nine years in the Puerto Rico
National Guard before coming on active duty, so he’s a very experienced
soldier.”
Those
who knew Specialist Lopez as a young man, obsessed with the high school
band, were even more stunned to learn what he was suspected of doing.
“I
cannot believe you are speaking about the same guy,” said Sgt. Maj.
Nelson Bigas, one of Specialist Lopez’s superiors in the National Guard.
“He was the most responsible, obedient, humble person, and one of the
most skillful guys on the line.”
For
a year beginning in 2006, Specialist Lopez was deployed with his guard
unit on the Sinai Peninsula, watching the border between Egypt and the
Gaza Strip.
But,
the authorities say, it was Specialist Lopez who went into Guns Galore
in Killeen, Tex., near Fort Hood on March 1 and bought the .45-caliber
Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol that was used in the shootings
on Wednesday.
It
was the same gun store where Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army major, had
bought at least one of the weapons used in a 2009 mass shooting on the
base.
Photo
Specialist Lopez in an image from Facebook.
So
information was emerging slowly on Thursday about Mr. Lopez. He was
raised in the small fishing village of Guayanilla on the southern coast
of Puerto Rico, about an hour and a half from San Juan. While there, he
attended the School of Asunción Rodríguez de Sala, where he was active
in the band and an enthusiastic drummer.
In
1999, he joined the National Guard, where he also played in the band.
Later, he joined the Puerto Rico Police Department and became a member
of its band. Officials said his record with the force was clean, with no
disciplinary or behavioral problems.
His
main job for the police was visiting schools and hospitals around
Puerto Rico to give demonstrations on his percussion instruments. After
he finished, other police officers would speak to the students or
patients about gun violence, drugs and bullying, said Jeann Correa, the
director of the unit for which he worked. His pay was $2,400 a month.
In
2010, getting a special leave from the police force, he shifted into
the Army as a private first class and was quickly promoted to specialist
and stationed with the First Armored Division at Fort Bliss in El Paso,
Tex. He was an infantryman there but his military record shows that in
November, because of a medical condition identified as plantar
fasciitis, a painful foot ailment, he moved to Fort Leonard Wood in
Missouri, where he trained to become a truck driver. In February, he was
posted to Fort Hood in that capacity.
Within the past few weeks, at least three high level bankers
and one financial journalist have either died due to mysterious
circumstances that officials have quickly labeled as 'suicides', or
disappeared without a trace. With little information to go on from most
public sources, several outside investigators have questioned the timing
and reasons why these individuals have suddenly died, or been killed
off, and are continuing to seek answers.
However, on Feb. 5, an
insider and former head trader for a top banking firm issued a warning
that new information is out which shows that 'hit squads' have been made
active in the Wall Street area, and that a high level banker tied to recent investigations into Forex manipulation, along with up to three dozen others involved in scandals, are being targeted for potential assassination in light of their viability as witnesses and whistle blowers to federal and financial regulators.
Word
on the "street" watch for a top level American bankster to expire. Hit
teams are fully operational in Wall Street. (REDACTED) HIGHLY VISIBLE
POWER BROKER- co-ordinating. Speak to you soon. Please post this to warn
sheep. V-UPDATE 9:24 AM MOUNTAIN-NEXT ON THE HIT LIST CITI EXECUTIVE
TIED IN WITH FOREX FRAUD -HIT LIST HAS 3 DOZEN MORE NAMES-DESPERATE
TIMES REQUIRE DESPERATE MEASURES IN THE WORLD OF MONETARY CONTROL! JPM
can't hold yellow metal shorts on notional gold. LIBOR
and derivative hits continue as bankster suddenly commit "suicide". 43
are on the knock off list and counting. The shock waves of this and many
other scandals are creating turmoil everywhere. - V, Guerrilla Economist, Q Alerts Read More Here
On March 13, the son of Jon Corzine was found dead in Mexico City of an apparent suicide. Jon Corzine was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, head of MF Global, and Governor of New Jersey, as well as being a long time campaign financier for President Barack Obama.
The son of former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine killed himself in a Mexico City hotel, sources told The Post on Thursday.
Jeffrey Corzine, 31, was the youngest of Corzine’s three children with ex-wife and childhood sweetheart Joanne Corzine.. - NY Post
While little is known about the circumstances behind Jeffrey Corzine's alleged suicide, his death comes on the heels of at least eight unusual
banker deaths, many of which were also labeled as suicides despite the
near impossibility of one of them being attributed to suicide by nail
gun. Read More Here
.....
'He made the tragic decision to take his own life': Youngest son of
former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine commits suicide in Mexico City
hotel
Jeffrey Corzine took his own life 'several days ago' in Mexico City hotel
His family traced him through his credit card
Had battled addiction through his teens and twenties
Jeffrey, 31, was thought to be working as a drug counselor in California
He was the youngest of Corzine's three children with his first wife
Corzine's successor Chris Christie issued a statement of his condolences, calling the death 'unthinkable'
By
Meghan Keneally PUBLISHED:
15:56 EST, 13 March 2014
| UPDATED:
11:31 EST, 14 March 2014
Former New Jersey Governor Jon
Corzine's 31-year-old son, Jeffrey, - who struggled with drug and
alcohol addiction - committed suicide at a Mexico City hotel this week, a
person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Jeffrey
Corzine had been living in Malibu, California, and was an aspiring
photographer, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity and
could not name the hotel. Corzine family spokesman Steven Goldberg confirmed Jeffrey Corzine's death in a written statement.
Jeffrey Corzine is seen at his father's side
(right) when he was elected to be the governor of New Jersey in November
2005. His brother, Josh, is also pictured raising his father's hand in
victory (left).
Young: Jeffrey, who was known to friend as 'Jeff', was the youngest of three siblings
Discovered: The US Embassy in Mexico City
confirmed that Jeffrey Corzine was found dead in a Mexico City hotel
'several days' ago
'The sad fact is that
Jeffrey Corzine had been suffering from severe depression for several
years and recently had been receiving treatment for what is a very
painful and debilitating physical and mental ailment,' Goldberg said. 'On Tuesday morning, he succumbed to his disease and made the tragic decision to take his own life.' The family is planning a small, private memorial for Jeffrey, Goldberg said.
'Among many things, the
Corzine family hopes Jeffrey will be remembered for his dedication to
helping others overcome their struggles with depression and addiction,
something to which he had been devoted for the past 10 years,' he said.
Corzine,
who was described by family friends as a 'lost' soul, was discovered
dead in Mexico City 'several days' ago after failing to reply to
messages from loved ones. His friends and family tracked down his whereabouts to his hotel by following his credit card trail.
Fort Hood Public Affairs Office via Reuters
