August 5, 2009
(CNN)--...George Sodini, 48, brought four handguns into the LA Fitness gym outside Pittsburgh and used three of them, firing at least 36 times around 8 p.m. Tuesday, Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said.
Sodini, a member of the gym, was found dead in the aerobics room, lying on top of one of his guns about seven feet from one of the victims.
Authorities believe Sodini targeted the aerobics class, because a schedule was found in his home with that class circled, Moffatt said.
But police do not believe he targeted anyone personally. An online diary, as well as notes at the scene and at his home, have led them to believe he was targeting women in general.
holy cow!
In the note found at the scene in Sodini's gym bag, he complains he had never spent a weekend with a woman, never vacationed with a woman and never lived with a woman, and that he had had limited sexual experiences, Moffatt said.
He makes similar complaints in his online blog, which also documents his growing rage at women for rejecting him and at the world he felt had abandoned him.
Witnesses told police the gunman was dressed in black when he entered the class, shut off the lights, walked about 10 feet and opened fire...
...Sodini apparently had "practice runs" before the shooting Tuesday, Moffatt said. Someone at the gym had showed him how to shut off the lights, he said, not knowing his plans.
"He just had a lot of hatred in him, and he was hell bent on committing this act," Moffatt said.
Sodini worked as a systems analyst in the finance department of K&L Gates, a law firm with an office in Pittsburgh, since 1999, Mike Rick, a spokesman for the firm, said. Neighbors described him as reclusive and said he had stopped talking to them in the past few years.
On Tuesday, Sodini visited the gym three times -- the first about 11 a.m., a second time at 7:40 p.m. and a third time at 7:56 p.m., Moffatt said. Members of the gym are required to swipe a card to check in, but do not have to check out, he said. The first 911 call was dispatched at 8:16 p.m...
...Police know Sodini made a telephone call at 7:45 p.m., and believe he may have left the gym to make it. Authorities are attempting to locate the person he contacted, Moffatt said.
Sodini did not mention killing himself in the note found at the scene, which was mostly typed with handwritten notations, but did mention it in a handwritten note found at his home, Moffatt said...
...The shooting victims were taken to the three major hospitals in the area. Moffatt said he believed none of those who remained hospitalized Wednesday had life-threatening injuries.
County officials said counselors were being made available to area residents in the wake of the shooting.
Police spoke to a pastor mentioned on Sodini's online diary. The man said Sodini attended his church but stopped in 2006, and that there was a minor incident involving a woman who felt "he was paying too much attention to her," Moffatt said. The pastor spoke to Sodini, and it stopped, he said.
Moffatt said police have no knowledge of any mental health issues involving Sodini, but are still puzzled at the violence. "I can't ever make sense of murders," he said.
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Before the anti-gun politicos and commentators have a field day with this, it should be considered that he chose an exercise class because he could be sure that the women would be unarmed. With their street clothes and purses left in dressing room lockers and the lights off, this creep could then do his cowardly act of violence with relative certainty that an armed citizen or off-duty police officer would not be able to stop him. Law abiding armed citizens are the only real answer to this kind of evil.
You are a moron
Stories like this make me sick. If only someone had quashed this low-life prior to this act... Three beautiful women are dead because some loser was too bitter to realize HE was the real issue.
Women can sense creeps. If they don't like you, it's probably because there IS something wrong with you.
I truly don't get that this man had hatred for women. He had a long-term profound experience of loneliness and persistent rejection. He simply wanted to be loved... So sad for all of us.
This gentleman's difficulty is pretty simple to figure out. He was 48 years old and still trying to establish a relationship with 20-somethings. The only men who are able to successfully date women 20+ years younger are very, very wealthy. You have to have something substantial to offer when the relationship is so obviously unbalanced.
In my day, we called old guys hitting on much younger women creeps. All he cared about was the sex with much younger women. A real relationship would have required much more of him than he was prepared to give.
And I speak as a female with not the greatest social skills. But I was smart enough to seek out a deeper relationship. Been married for almost 16 years. Feel very sorry for the poor ladies who lost their lives and were injured. Feel a little (but only a little) sorry for him.
Its just another story... going towards the waking up of men...
Society has been treating men like cr*ap for the past few decades.
The suicide rate for men is 4x higher than that of women... And when boys learn their gender role (at the beginning of puberty), the suicide rate increases 15,000% than before they've learned it!
We live in a society where man-bashing, and "bitchiness" is seen as "empowering" to women... and men live through a live of constant rejection and ridicule, expect to "man up" and feeling guilty just for having been born a man.
We're told we're evil just because we're man. The "toxic male guilt" phenomenon its called. I hope this story brings more light to the problem.
I think that people should really try to understand what was going on inside the head of people who do these kind of things, then I believe they will have some sympathy for what he did and for the people he killed or harmed. Everyone wants to write this off as he was just a crazy guy. Well, I know exactly how he feels. Now, would I go kill a bunch of people? I'm not sure. I do know that women in this country (specifically THIS country - and yes, I've been all over the world), are extremely pretentious. It's all about being either Bill Gates or Brad Pitt - or both. In other words, it's all about looks and money. How sad.
To Alek. I think that you forgot that women get paid a fraction of what men get paid. That this is a MAN's world, in case you haven't noticed. Please, don't come and complain about how this world is unfair to men. Men run the world.
It is the women who need to give guys a chance instead of immediate rejection. I am a male an I am in a relationship now. Took me a while but I finally found someone. I could have dated someone different but only to be rejected because i wasnt suave enough or I wasnt bulked up enough. Women need to stop dreaming of having some James Bond guy come for them and look at what is in real life. Women have a false sense of reality. They'd rather have a james bond type man treat them liker crap over a skimpy nerd type that will give to them whatever they have. Shame on both but the womwn more
We really must remove the guns from society. We can keep propogating this fantasy that you can say "ok all the crazies on the left, non crazies on the right, now only you non crazies can buy on of my guns?" VT an LA Fitness prove that its not just criminals that commit crimes. People who are not criminals (yet) but are crazy enough to do things like this are all over the place.
Lets let the NRA make the gun laws, but for every crime committed with a gun, fine them 10 million and for every murder 100 million and then pay that sum to the victims. No more gun lobby.
There was a special on one of the nightly news magazines a few months ago, where they took gun owners and non gun owners alike, including a guy who trained at gun ranges often, and put them through a training class. During one of the training seminars a gunman came in and started shooting. NO ONE was able to stop the crime from being committed, even the gun owners either missed the perp completely or winged him, a few even shot innocent by-standers.
This protect myself attitude is bs. Guns must go - hand guns, rifles, everything. Alot of us out here in the real world who were uncomfortable with guns to begin with are down right scared now. If Sodinis had charges in there with a knife, he would have gotten a 20lb plate to the face, and it all would have been over.
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