Attention Holiday Shoppers...
A part of us can sympathize. Every time we're in a mall (which, thankfully, turns out to be infrequently) we can grin and shuffle through the crowd for a while, jumping from Express to the Gap to JC Penny and aquiring giant bags for tiny items as we go, but at some point during the excursion we're bound to get that "gun waving lunatic" crick in our neck that begins to slowly work its way towards our brainstem. So far we've managed to make a break for the parking lot thereby diffusing it before it's been able to manifest as action.
Not so for one dude at Tacoma Mall this weekend, however. Dominick Sergio Maldonado thumbed a short SMS screed to a friend including the line "The world will feel my anger" before alledgedly opening an assult rifle on the mall, injuring six people, and then holing up in a Sam Goody with hostages. Police were able to talk him down and he was taken into custody, although one of the shooting victims remains in critical condition.
Apparently Sam Goody had a calming effect on Maldonado after an initial rampage where he's reported to have fired twenty rounds randomly around the mall. Hostages report that Maldonado let them take bathroom breaks and phone and text loved ones outside the mall and told reporters that he indicated that he didn't wish to hurt anyone else during the hours-long stay inside the music store. Strange, because Seattlest feels that four hours inside Sam Goody could drive anyone to random acts of violence.
