From the AP:
A gunman wearing a jacket and tie wordlessly and randomly opened fire inside a Wendy’s during the lunchtime rush Monday, killing a firefighter who’d gone back to fetch his child’s toy and wounding five other diners. He then turned the gun on himself.
“This was not a robbery. He didn’t demand anything…,” said Paul Miller, a Palm Beach County sheriff’s spokesman. “Looks like this was just another random shooting like we’ve seen around the United States.”
The 42-year-old victim, a Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue lieutenant, had met his wife and child at the restaurant, Deputy Fire-Rescue Chief Steve Delai said. The family had just left, but the man returned to retrieve a toy his child had left behind and was shot in the back as he stood at the counter, Delai said.
“Our officer probably didn’t even see him,” Delai said, adding that the man’s wife and child were still in the parking when the shooting broke out.
Three of the survivors were in critical condition, sheriff’s spokeswoman Teri Barbera said. Two others had minor injuries, including one person who was injured while running away.
It really is horrible what happened to that firefighter. That is the kind of incident that is totally random, and nothing can be done to prepare for or situations like that.
One minute your eating lunch and the next minute your shot.
It’s all a matter of chance. Had that firefighter gone back to get the toy a minute later or a minute sooner would the outcome have been different? We’ll never know the answer to that, but nevertheless the entire episode is a senseless tragedy.
If only these whack jobs would just kill themselves instead taking innocent people with them.
-Chris Jones
