Earlier reports were that Omar Thornton shot himself; he did not. It was called a "cop shooting" because Omar Thornton did not put his gun down, so police opened fire.
According to Fox CT News video on the Hartford Courant page, and via the mother of a woman, Kristi Hannah, who dated him for eight months, the shooter, 34-year old Omar Thornton, who's African American, complained of racism to his employers, but they did nothing.
John Hollis, a Teamsters Union official said that Omar Thornton, who was a driver with Hartford Distributors, was a "discipline problem" and the union was bringing Thornton in to "remedy" the problem.
Thornton shot a number of people, and as of this writing, it's not known how many because what once stood at seven killed just rose to nine killed, so we don't know how many were injured in some kind of way. Here's the exact quote from the Hartford Courant regarding Omar Thornton's possible motive for the shooting at Hartford Distributors:
Joanne Hannah, who lives in the Enfield neighborhood where Thornton lived until about a month ago, said her daughter Kristi had dated Thornton for eight years. Thornton, who is black, had complained about being racially harassed at work. Thornton brought his complaints to his superiors, who did nothing about it, she said her daughter told her.
A New Trend: blacks who kill over racism
It seems there's a new and to this blogger, disturbing "small" trend of late where black men are as likely to commit workplace shootings as any white male.
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| Stephen Hill |
This is disturbing because I and my generation (I turn 48 tomorrow) was raised to be hardened and to expect racism, to point it out, but to not react violently to it.
Because racism is a mental illness, people who are racist are to be treated with pity and avoided. That's the way I'm conditioned to think.
Frankly, you just didn't hear of someone black who would open fire and kill anyone over racism. We were instructed that it was a sickness that's "just part of the deal" and something you needed to overcome to be successful.
This small trend says nothing good about the overall mental strength of the next generation of black men. If one who's black and make expects to be successful in America, reacting violently to racism can't be considered an option.
Stay tuned.
Pawlenty knows “earned” media coverage is less costly than buying ads, and he’s got the recent examples of Palin and Bachmann proving the press loves provocative statements more than substantive discussion. Any “news” outlet is reliant on ad revenues, which are in turn driven by ratings.