By Morgan Lee, Susan Montoya Bryan and Anita Snow, AP
Videos released Thursday of this week’s deadly rampage in northwest New Mexico recorded a voice said to be the shooter urging police to “kill me” and officers rushing toward the 18-year-old gunman before fatally shooting him outside a church.
“He is yelling on the Ring footage, ‘Come kill me,'” Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said of Beau Wilson, the high school senior who authorities say killed three older women during the attack.
“He’s making a stand, he has opportunities to run off, he does not use those opportunities,” Hebbe said. “So yes it’s my belief that ultimately in his head, he has made the decision that he is going to stand and fight it out until he is killed.”
Three older woman were killed Monday by the shooter, including a mother and daughter who happened to be driving through the neighborhood. The victims were identified as longtime Farmington residents Gwendolyn Dean Schofield, 97, her 73-year-old daughter, Melody Ivie, and 79-year-old Shirley Voita.
At least six other people were wounded in the shootings, which sent waves of grief rippling through the community of 50,000 people. They included two police officers, who have been released from medical care as they recover.
Hebbe’s comments mirrored an account from witness Candi Brammell, who lives next to the church and told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that the gunman seemed to be egging police on, saying: “Come on!”
Brammell said she couldn’t believe what she was seeing as Wilson opened fire. Within an instant, he was exchanging shots with the police and then was down in the grass.
Wilson lived with his father in a home that contained an arsenal of weapons and ammunition, apparently legally owned, according to law enforcement authorities. He bought an assault-style rifle last year after he turned 18.
On Monday, police say, he began shooting indiscriminately with the rifle from the front porch area of the home.
The first person hit was Voita, a retired school nurse who was driving by. Video released by police showed her car rolling down the street with the door open after she managed to get out.
Video also showed the path of a vehicle carrying Schofield and Ivie, who stopped to help. Schofield was a teacher her entire career, and Melody followed in her footsteps by running a preschool for 40 years.
“They see something in the road, which turns out to be (Voita), and they’re in the process of pulling over” when another hail of gunfire erupts, Hebbe said, narrating the images. “At that time we believe all those rounds are fired from (the rifle).”
Police say Wilson soon dropped the weapon into some bushes even though it still held more live ammunition.
Wilson then walked down the street for about a quarter mile, spraying bullets indiscriminately using two pistols. He discharged a .22-caliber gun and then depleted rounds from a 9-mm weapon in the final shootout with police, during which he let off at least 18 rounds.
He wore what appeared to be a modified protective vest with steel plates, but authorities say he discarded the vest before the shootout with police.
Police body camera video showed the perspective of one officer walking and running down the middle of the residential street, readying an assault rifle in one hand while barking commands into a radio in the other. On the run, he takes cues from a local resident and a dog runs beside them.
That video is later partially obscured, but a shadow on the ground shows the officer bracing in firing position for the final confrontation.
“I have eyes on the suspect. He’s walking south. He’s wearing all black,” an officer tells dispatchers in another video segment.
He then yells, “Farmington police! Let’s see your hands!“
A police car speeds by with flashing lights and sirens.
Video from the body camera of Sgt. Rachel Discenza showed her pointing her handgun toward where the suspect was standing. Amid an exchange of gunfire, she falls to the ground, and says: “I’m shot.“
She struggles unsuccessfully to get up, and a fellow officer uses her belt as a tourniquet.
“We got one hit. Get me a medic here for sarge,“ he yells.
In the grass in front of the church, officers rush to the suspect after the gunfire subsides, telling him not to move. One officer cuffs him, while another says, “Subject is down. He is secured.”
A note was later found in the pocket of the discarded vest that said, “If your reading this im the end of the chapter.”
The gunman’s body was left in the grass for a time as investigators worked the scene, and it was unclear then how many times he was shot.
Police said earlier this week that they couldn’t say how many gunshot wounds the victims had suffered and were waiting on the medical investigator’s report, which had not been made public as of Thursday.
Police have been probing for motivations behind Monday’s rampage, which took place the day before Wilson was due to graduate from high school, amid some indications from relatives of prior mental health issues.
Efforts were underway by authorities to access medical and school records that might shed light on his mental history.
Can I get a pistol that can “spray bullets”? That sounds like fun!
I might be able to show you how to do that with a rifle and a belt loop, but I might not.
I could show you how to do it on a certain sh0tgunm of mine. All you need is to do is ride the reset, lean into it but good, and hold on tight. Push-pull and c-clamp is highly suggested. Ride the lightning.
Ay-eL-Gee may or may not be required.
I’d like to know how many guns constitutes the AP’s definition of an “arsenal”. Is is more than a “collection”, but less than an “assortment”? Does the quantity change if the guns are not legally owned, as compared to those reported here? Does the threshold differ if counted in NY or HI as compared to WY or MT?
Remember it was the mere presence of an arsenal, in Lexington that started the fight for Liberty and Freedom. Which as of now hasn’t fully been won.
Darkman,
If anything, we are regressing, thanks to Leftist/fascist morons like dacian the demented, MajorLiar, Senile Joe, Chuck Schumer, Malig-Nancy, American’s Dumbest Bartender, and many others.
Our forefathers long ago would have lost patience with this batch of progs in Gov’t. It’s worse than under old King George.
2, and a hundred and ten rnds, if past ‘news’ stories are any indication.
Suicide by cop, AFTER senseless murder. According to the stories, the shooter (I will not write his name; he doesn’t deserve the publicity) had family members who “mentioned prior mental health issues”, and yet we know he passed a NICS check, so his issues hadn’t been reported to the NICS database (again). I wonder if this was another perp that was “on the police’s radar”??
Further proof that “universal background checks” would accomplish f***-all, except to give dacian and MajorLiar their little Leftist/fascist hard-ons.
Mental health issues are not reported to NICS unless there has been an involuntary admission to a mental health care facility, which results in a lifetime ban. Anything less is not disqualifying under federal law. So of course universal background checks cannot accomplish anything else. Some state laws are more restrictive, but those typically result in “temporary” bans of one to five years, and are not reported to NICS.
Mark N.,
True (although the stories I saw just mentioned “mental health issues”, so I have no idea if he was committed or not, but assuming he wasn’t, my comment still stands, as the gun-grabber lie is that “background checks” will weed out “mentally unfit” people, who “shouldn’t own guns”. No, they wouldn’t.
Incidents like these have nothing to do with mental illness. They are nothing more than Evil being perpetrate at the hands of a criminal. The choice of weapon is irrelevant to the act. Fudds and people like ‘LoD’ just have a hard on for firearms. Had the perpetrator used any other tool to commit their Evil act. Fudds and irrational Gun Grabbers would never call for the banning of knives, clubs or especially cars. All of which injure and kill thousands of people every week. For them it’s an emotional issue, simply because by their own hypocrisy. They show their argument is not based on facts. So stop playing their latest game of crime being a mental illness problem. Which accomplishes nothing more than opening another avenue to use to restrict or deny citizens 2nd Amendment Rights. Besides even the Federal government doesn’t follow that protocol. The Texas mall (5/6) shooter is just the latest evidence of that.
dacian and MajorLiar obviously have their own “mental health issues”. I wonder if they have been registered?
They should have never let the SOB fire any more rounds…they should have shot him on sight.. if they saw him with a firearm and knew he was the shooter…. He should have been eliminated right then.. they waited too long!!!
Well, he asked.
I’m glad we don’t lock up the severely mentally ill in hospitals where they can get treatment, like our barbaric ancestors did. This way they can be free to live in squalor on the streets, threaten people on subways, and murder the innocent. That’s much better than what they did back in the ’60s.
The best we can do with the mentally ill now is use popular media to nudge them toward surgical sterilization to prevent them from procreating.
Anything else would be inhumane.
But that would be cruel manipulative and utterly destructive to the health and sanity of the ……………damn I better stop before I get hit with being transphobic.
……..I actually saw a street shitter in action this week and some panhandler did violently assault a state worker a block or so down the street from where I work………… someone Seattled my Albany.
I actually am glad, without sarcasm. Seeing as the left largely controls the levers of power via the deep state and half the country truly believes that we gun people are severely mentally unwell. And even beyond that, I would think we of all people should be extremely leery of government locking people up under the guise of psychiatric treatment when they’ve broken no laws
Conspiracy theorist + hate group participation. Translation not believing the news and going to church. Extreme guess of what may come but not as out there as it should be.
Got blocked recently by a companies firewall for looking up the number to a local holistic vet.
Big warning came up: “Access blocked for Alternative Beliefs.”
Not even dangerous or threatening. Just “alternative.”
You left out
terroristconcerned parent attending a local school board meeting.Same department that straight up murdered a man when they idiotically went to the wrong house. I assume they’ve already investigated themselves and found they’ve done nothing wrong.
Did they do something wrong in this incidence?
red coyote,
Good to see you remain an unserious dolt. Some things never change.
Why couldn’t the cops have shot the guns out of the guy’s hands?
Asked no sane person ever.
no name,
NO!!! Our “competent, ‘norms-preserving'” Prezduhdent done told us, “Shoot through the door”, or “shoot them in the leg”. Gun’s a smaller target; you’re more likely to hit the perp if you shoot blindly through the door, without being able to see the perp, or just shoot for the legs (which are a MUCH larger target than the torso, amirite??).
You are SO behind the times on woke “tactical doctrine”, no name. Catch up, dude!!
Oh, wait, . . . I skipped past that part where you said “same person”. Sorry, my bad.
A pos like him is the reason why I advised having dedicated squeaky clean weapons on hand that are tweaked and proven reliable. Situations like this have no margin of error…Let that be the perp’s problem.
Wonder why someone in the neighborhood didn’t take him down. Pull that where i live and they would be selling the body for scrap metal ! Thought it was funny that the media said that haven’t found out how many time the coward was shot. He was shot enough !
To be fair – it takes most people time to react. If an armed civilian isn’t on hand when the crazy goes bugfok, he can kill some number of people before the cops get there. Apparently, this all happened within a 4 or 5 minute period, maybe even shorter than that.
I would really like to hear what mental health issues on the shooter were documented and if it was sufficient enough to have been included in the NICS background check. Even so, he got a hold of the father’s pistols. Did the father know anything of his son’s mental illness where he should have erred on the safe side and made sure he couldn’t access his firearms without supervision? Years ago, when the wife was going through severe depression accompanied by suicide thoughts, you can bet I took many safety precautions during that time where only I had access to the firearms in the house. (Plenty of great product solutions out there for quick-access and safe storage if that’s what you want to set up.). Lots of questions here as to why this young man’s behavior wasn’t flagged prior to this. No one noticed????
Remember even though he is 18 he was still in highschool. Those records are sealed.
From an article I saw about the shooter:
The teen, who was not named, told the newspaper: “I knew he was going to do something bad, but I didn’t think it was going to be something like that,” adding that Wilson was “different.”
He told the newspaper that at a Halloween sleepover Wilson had started talking to people who weren’t there.
“I was really confused,” the teenager told the newspaper. “I was, like, ‘Are you OK?’ He was, like, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘These voices just keep getting to me.’” He described Wilson as having a hard time meeting new people and recently selling his Xbox.
Like I mentioned before, I’d like to know if he took any prescription or recreational drugs. Sometimes mental illness is a euphemism for drug user. Sometimes it’s a euphemism for evil.
Unless someone is committed for treatment against his will by a court, his mental illness will not be reported to NICS and is not a disqualifying issue. Neither is submitting to treatment voluntarily.
I’m surprised. New Mexico, despite being a blue state, is strapped to the gills. It’s puzzling no one took out this POS with a high powered hunting rifle.
They did. Well high powered rifle. I imagine these things happen pretty fast, and depending exactly where they happen would probably dictate who all has a chance to get involved. Sounds like in this one that would a couple old ladies driving down the street.
For some reason i Doubt they had a .308 in the backseat
* that would be a couple of old ladies…
I keep a few items handy in the house for situations like this, as well as my vehicle. As do my neighbors. Though our neighborhood is more rural, anyone who tried that kind of crap would be dead in less than ten seconds.
The kid got what he asked for. Two officers hurt as well as others.
ABS.
Always Be Strapped.
Crap can happen anytime, anywhere.
A single .357 from a 4″ barrel at a distance of 50 yards would have wounded this POS, enough to slow him down for further application of kinetic energy at a closer distance. You can take cover behind the engine block of your car.
Also good to drill at distance. Set up targets at 25+ yards when practicing with your pistol.
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