On February 13th a twenty-four-year-old man walked into...
A mall crowded with Sunday afternoon shoppers and began to open fire with his Hesse model AK-47 Soviet assault rifle. About sixty rounds were fired, said one report. Fortunately, and miraculously, no one was killed. But two men were shot. One of them, a 20-year-old National Guard private, was seriously wounded.
The Hudson Valley Mall where the shooting took place is in or near the city of Kingston, New York. This is not far from where I live. So the local newspapers were filled with stories about the rampage.
As expected, in the days following the shooting, the media began to look into the psyche of this troubled man. He was obese, socially awkward, lonely, and he dressed in black clothing when he went to the mall that day. Even his sneakers were black.
With his rifle in tow, he must have looked like a Navy SEAL on a mission. The report said he was also a high school dropout.
In one article, Ulster County District Attorney Don Williams was quoted as saying that Robert Bonelli, Jr., had a "lurid fascination" with the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. And the same article said that a "cache of news reports and other materials" about Columbine were found in Bonelli's home.
While another report said that Robert Bonelli Jr. had two friends, both in their early 20s, who had just been charged with making and setting off pipe bombs, although this had no apparent part in the mall shooting.
Nevertheless, in this case we have a troubled young man who vents with a gun, while his friends, although not participants in the shooting, were obviously antisocial. They more than likely reinforced Robert's violent behavior. After all, these three made pipe bombs together for fun.
From all the information that has been given this far, I could tell that this is clearly an unhappy man who probably believes that he has no future. Yet it appears that Robert has a loving father. His dad, heartbroken, was calling out to his son in the courtroom during the jury proceedings.
Expectedly, however, the newspaper article for February 17th ended with the standard oft used response. Ulster County Police Chief Paul Watzka said that various law enforcement agencies will be looking into this matter to see if there is anything else "we can learn" about what happened.
D.B.
Sources:
"The Invisible Kid" (front page headline) from the Times Herald-Record,
Feb. 15, 2005, Middletown, NY, by Ben Montgomery and Paul Brooks.
Times Herald-Record, Feb. 17, 2005, Middletown, NY, by Paul Brooks.
The Hudson Valley Mall where the shooting took place is in or near the city of Kingston, New York. This is not far from where I live. So the local newspapers were filled with stories about the rampage.
As expected, in the days following the shooting, the media began to look into the psyche of this troubled man. He was obese, socially awkward, lonely, and he dressed in black clothing when he went to the mall that day. Even his sneakers were black.
With his rifle in tow, he must have looked like a Navy SEAL on a mission. The report said he was also a high school dropout.
In one article, Ulster County District Attorney Don Williams was quoted as saying that Robert Bonelli, Jr., had a "lurid fascination" with the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. And the same article said that a "cache of news reports and other materials" about Columbine were found in Bonelli's home.
While another report said that Robert Bonelli Jr. had two friends, both in their early 20s, who had just been charged with making and setting off pipe bombs, although this had no apparent part in the mall shooting.
Nevertheless, in this case we have a troubled young man who vents with a gun, while his friends, although not participants in the shooting, were obviously antisocial. They more than likely reinforced Robert's violent behavior. After all, these three made pipe bombs together for fun.
From all the information that has been given this far, I could tell that this is clearly an unhappy man who probably believes that he has no future. Yet it appears that Robert has a loving father. His dad, heartbroken, was calling out to his son in the courtroom during the jury proceedings.
Expectedly, however, the newspaper article for February 17th ended with the standard oft used response. Ulster County Police Chief Paul Watzka said that various law enforcement agencies will be looking into this matter to see if there is anything else "we can learn" about what happened.
D.B.
Sources:
"The Invisible Kid" (front page headline) from the Times Herald-Record,
Feb. 15, 2005, Middletown, NY, by Ben Montgomery and Paul Brooks.
Times Herald-Record, Feb. 17, 2005, Middletown, NY, by Paul Brooks.
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