Welcome To The Wild Wild West

[HARDCORE]

Web-posted Friday, November 14, 2003
Former VA patient shoots rounds


By CHERYL BERZANSKIS
cberzanskis@amarillonet.com
The Amarillo Globe-News
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A 42-year-old Amarillo man frightened people at the Amarillo Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System hospital Thursday when he discharged multiple rifle rounds about 8:30 a.m.

The man, whose name has not been released, drove up to the emergency room door in a white van and began shouting for the police to shoot him while firing a .22-caliber rifle.

Capt. Al Newman and Officer George Lawler of the VA security force subdued the man.

Newman said he heard three shots. The man threw the rifle from the van, then Newman and Lawler pulled the man from the van and handcuffed him. He was taken into the hospital for treatment.

Wally Hopkins, system administrator, said the man had been a patient at the VA. He praised the officers and staff.

"They responded quite professionally and subdued him," Hopkins said.

The man was given medication to calm him, he said. Newman did not have to pull his gun, Hopkins said.

After the incident at the VA, Amarillo Police Department went to a home in the 3700 block of Memory Lane. After the man was subdued at the hospital, he told police something that led them to think he might have been involved in a serious crime there, said Sgt. Randy TenBrink of the Amarillo Police Department.

"We sent policemen there and made emergency entry. When we got in the house we discovered the house in extreme disarray and also several small smears of blood on a wall and a door," he said. The man, who had a key to the house but does not own it, has superficial injuries and is not under arrest, TenBrink said.
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I WILL BE INTERESTED TO SEE THE REST OF THIS STORY AS IT SURFACES - MOTIVATION-WISE?!

VERITAS

[Boats]

You get of your meds a lot can happen. Scary!! Glad no one got hurt. Have a brother-in-law whose little of center when he doesn't take his meds.