Thursday, August 22, 2013 7:44:51 AM
A Convicted Murderer's Case for Gun Control
Jorge Silva/Reuters
Why a man serving 28 years to life at the Attica Correctional Facility believes a few simple laws could significantly affect criminal behavior
John Lennon
Aug 21 2013, 1:40 PM ET
It was swift and cowardly.
Defenseless, distracted by music, Alex sat in the passenger seat of the rental as I made my way to the trunk. I remembered Frankie’s words: “It’s loaded, cocked, and the safety is off. All you have to do is pull the trigger.”
At that point in our lives, Alex and I, both in our early twenties, were gun-toting thugs immersed in gangster culture. We were out on bail for separate gun charges. A few years before, Alex had been acquitted of murder for allegedly shooting a woman through the peephole of a Brooklyn housing project door. After that, his reputation preceded him.
On that night I knew Alex had been extorting a man who sold drugs for me. It sounds sick but part of me aspired to murder because it’s considered an accomplishment in gangster culture -- it would enhance my reputation, complete my image. Yet another part of me knew this culture was foul and murder was horrible.
Despite the Xanax dulling my emotions, my heart pounded when I picked up the M-16. A surge of power rushed through me when I felt the trigger. I pointed in the driver’s side window ... and squeezed.
Arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced [ http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/Screen%20Shot%202013-08-19%20at%202.08.52%20PM.png ] to a jarring 28 years to life at Attica, I entered prison. For many years I sifted through a host of rationalizations, but today I accept responsibility. I’m sorry for killing Alex, sorry for taking all the life he could have had.
With this in mind, I wish to add some perspective to the gun-control debate. My first gun was a chrome .25 caliber automatic with a pink, pearl handle. It was beautiful. But it was a killing machine, and at 14 years old I had the same hole in my heart that President Obama, in a Chicago speech [ http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/15/news/la-pn-obama-chicago-preventing-violence-20130215 ], stated other child killers had. I had no business with that gun. Yet making guns accessible to troubled souls is business as usual in America.
Here’s how the game works. Criminals manipulate people with clean records -- cash-strapped students, vulnerable women, drug addicts -- to buy guns for them in states with minimal oversight, like Virginia. The criminal transports the guns to New York, then resells them or trades them for drugs that he’ll take back to Virginia to sell. This was the hustle when I was out in the ‘90s. I’m sure some form of it still continues.
However, since the Senate -- the most undemocratic aspect of our government -- halted gun legislation in April [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/well-so-much-for-serious-gun-control/275081/ ], the nation has moved on. But the shootings and killings in the world I know have continued and will continue unless we refocus on the root of the problem: our gun culture, and the easy access it affords criminals. Background checks for killing machines cannot be rudimentary, where criminals know every step -- the rules of the game I describe have to change.
Disconnected Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, says, “Criminals do not submit to background checks now. They will not submit to expanded background checks.” Grassley’s full-scale alternative gun measures, which focused on funding prosecutions [ http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/294499-sens-grassley-and-cruz-present-alternative-gun-bill ] for illegal gun possessions rather than background checks, helped derail the legislation in April. Aggressive prosecutions are punishment measures that, frankly, do not deter criminals from acquiring, possessing, or killing with guns. Conversely, intensifying background checks will change the game and spook those who buy guns for criminals. This will deter so-called straw purchases.
Government should also create a system that tracks gun-purchasing patterns. Credit-card companies already respond to irregular spending patterns—I used to shop with stolen credit cards, and when the employee at the register said, “I have to call the company,” I knew the jig was up. Similarly, it should raise red flags when a person who has never bought a gun suddenly buys five handguns. If the buyer is, for example, purchasing the guns for a drug dealer in the parking lot, he or she will be shaken if the sales clerk says something like, “We have to call and document this purchase with a new agency.”
Likewise, it’s bizarre that the bazaars selling guns aren’t regulated. Websites like Armslist.com [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/the-assault-weapons-ban-isnt-happening-get-over-it/272743/ ] provide a buffet of leads for charismatic criminals to buy guns from private sellers. These sites are like perpetual gun shows, which are truly the ultimate forums to make connections for criminals who blend in well -- like me.
Bottom line, criminals create an indirect demand for gun manufacturers and merchandisers. For most criminals, purchasing a gun isn’t a one-shot deal. I had two separate gun-possession charges before I killed with an assault rifle. These are my convictions, but they hardly represent the number of guns I went through during my criminal career.
Engulfed in an orgy of violence, my last month of freedom was chaos. Home invasions, robberies, murder -- at the center of it all were guns: They would be disposed of, tossed after shoot-outs, then bought again. Easily. And I always bought new guns, so the notion that criminals just use stolen guns [ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/guns.html ], acquired from a neighborhood burglar, is absurd. (The paper trail may suggest that, because the people making straw purchases also file false reports claiming the guns stolen.) Like most criminals, I created an extraordinary demand for the gun sector.
I’m where I belong. But without a gun I would not have killed. Like most misguided, impulsive youth in America, I was emotionally and socially retarded, with a killing machine on my waist. The gun sector and I do not share the same culpability. Hardly. It’s unethical, however, for stakeholders of Sturm, Ruger and Smith & Wesson to contest oversight that would prevent arming individuals like me. Hiding behind manipulative interpretations of the Second Amendment and arguments crafted by the gun lobby, which suggest that the panacea is to enrich our moral fiber, is no help. God knows I’d support moral reform -- but fixing moral decay is a tall order. Meanwhile, our free-market gun culture is out of control. Let’s fix that. Now.
Congress needs to take up gun control again when members return to Washington in September. This debate isn’t going away. “The world is watching the United States Senate, and we will be held accountable,” Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal, one of the senators at the helm of gun-control efforts, said after the bill stalled this spring [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/us/politics/senate-obama-gun-control.html?pagewanted=all ]. Perhaps it’s too utilitarian or oversimplified, but as a nation we’re left with the following question: Is the benefit of experiencing that surge of power, which some individuals get from sport shooting, worth the cost of unhealthy individuals, like me, experiencing a similar surge of power while they swiftly and cowardly shoot people?
For our own sake, for the sake of thousands of victims’ families affected, and thousands more whose lives will be affected, the answer seems clear.
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/a-convicted-murderers-case-for-gun-control/278824/ [with comments]
--
How The NRA Built A Massive Secret Database Of Gun Owners
While the National Rifle Association publicly fights against a national gun registry, the organization has gone to incredible lengths to compile information on “tens of millions” of gun owners — without their consent.
August 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association has rallied gun owners — and raised tens of millions of dollars — campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners.
But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country’s largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby’s secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy.
That database has been built through years of acquiring gun permit registration lists from state and county offices, gathering names of new owners from the thousands of gun safety classes taught by NRA-certified instructors and by buying lists of attendees of gun shows, subscribers to gun magazines, and more, BuzzFeed has learned.
The result: a big data powerhouse that deploys the same high-tech tactics all year round that the vaunted Obama campaign used to win two presidential elections.
NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam declined to discuss the group’s name-gathering methods or what it does with its vast pool of data about millions of non-member gun owners. Asked what becomes of the class rosters for safety classes when instructors turn them in, he replied, “That’s not any of your business.”
[...]
http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevefriess/how-the-nra-built-a-massive-secret-database-of-gun-owners [with comments]
--
School Employee Helped Avert Tragedy in Standoff
By KATE BRUMBACK and PHILLIP LUCAS
DECATUR, Ga. August 21, 2013 (AP)
The 911 tapes from a frightening standoff and shooting at an Atlanta-area school show how a school employee's calm demeanor and kind approach helped end the ordeal without any injuries.
Police said Wednesday that school bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff was heroic in how she responded after being taken hostage a day earlier by Michael Brandon Hill, a 20-year-old man with a history of mental health issues. Hill went to the school armed with an AK 47-style rifle and nearly 500 rounds of ammunition, police said.
On a recording of a 911 call released Wednesday, Tuff can be heard relaying messages from Hill to DeKalb County emergency dispatchers before convincing him to surrender. She tells the dispatcher that Hill said he wasn't there to hurt the children but wanted to talk to an unarmed officer.
"He said, 'Call the probation office in DeKalb County and let them know what's going on,'" Tuff is heard telling the dispatcher. "He said he should have just went to the mental hospital instead of doing this, because he's not on his medication."
No one was injured, but police said the suspect shot into the floor and exchanged gunfire with officers who had surrounded Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, a suburb east of Atlanta. The school has 870 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.
Dramatic television footage showed lines of young students racing out of the building with police and teachers escorting them to safety. They sat outside in a field for a time until school buses came to take them to their parents at a nearby Wal-Mart.
The exchange between Tuff and the suspect was captured on a recording of a 911 call made by school officials to dispatchers.
Tuff begins by telling Hill of her own struggles, including raising a disabled child and losing her husband. The bookkeeper reassures him by saying he didn't hurt anyone, hadn't harmed her and could still surrender peacefully.
"We're not gonna hate you, baby. It's a good thing that you're giving up," Tuff says after having Hill put his weapons and ammunition on the counter. Tuff tells Hill she loves him and will pray for him.
Before he surrendered, Tuff took to the school's public address system to say Hill was sorry for what he'd done and didn't want to hurt anyone — although the lockdown remained in effect.
Hill is charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, terroristic threats and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Police declined to discuss what he told them when questioned.
"We have to make a reasonable assumption he was there to do harm to someone," DeKalb County Police Chief Cedric L. Alexander said.
The DeKalb County Public Defender's office said in a statement that it was representing Hill, calling him "a young man with a long history of mental health issues."
"Mr. Hill is being represented by members of our Mental Health Division and he has decided to waive his first appearance today," the statement said. "We are all very thankful that no one was hurt in this incident and that all of the children are safe."
One of the office's attorneys, Claudia Saari, wrote in an email that a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 5.
Police said Hill got the gun from an acquaintance, but it's not clear if he stole it or had permission to take it. His motive is still unclear.
Law enforcement officers praised Tuff for helping to avert a potential tragedy.
"She was a real ally," Alexander said. "She was a real hero in all of this. She just did a stellar job. She was cool, she was calm, very collected in all of this, maintained her wherewithal."
Tuff told WSB-TV in Atlanta that she tried to keep Hill talking to prevent him from walking into the hallway or through the school building.
"He had a look on him that he was willing to kill — matter of fact he said it. He said that he didn't have any reason to live and that he knew he was going to die today," Tuff said.
Hill was arrested in mid-March for making terroristic threats in Henry County, DeKalb and Henry County sheriff's officials have said. He was sentenced to probation.
A woman who said she served as a mother-like figure to him said he didn't seem to have any friends and rarely talked about his family or past during the months he lived with her and her husband several years ago.
He was quiet and didn't display anger or violent tendencies, said Natasha Knotts, the woman who took him in after he started coming to the small church where her husband is pastor and she is an assistant pastor.
Knotts told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Hill lived with them for about six months in his late teens.
"He was part of our family," Knotts said, though they were not related. She said her family was aware that "he had a mental disorder" before he moved in.
Hill told her that his birth mother was dead and that he didn't know his father. He also has brothers.
Knotts was shocked when she realized Hill had been taken into custody.
"This is something that's totally out of his character. This is not him. This is not the Mike that I know. For anyone that knew Mike, this was a total devastation," she said in an interview at her home in Lithonia, Ga.
She kept in touch after he moved out and said he'd recently been living with another couple who belonged to the church. Knotts last saw Hill about a month ago and he seemed fine.
Knotts said Hill called her sister Tuesday afternoon before the shooting to thank the family for all they had done for him and said he had a rifle. He did not say what he was planning to do.
Police released an undated photo of Hill posing with an assault rifle they believe is the one used Tuesday.
Knotts said she thinks Hill's actions were a plea for help.
"Unfortunately," she said, "he didn't know a better way to get it."
Lucas reported from Atlanta.
© 2013 Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mother-figure-ga-school-suspect-mentally-ill-20025583 [ http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mother-figure-ga-school-suspect-mentally-ill-20025583?singlePage=true ] [with comments]
--
EXTRAORDINARY!! 911 Tapes Of Georgia School Shooting! - Antoinette Tuff American Hero!
Published on Aug 21, 2013 by martysoffice
911 Tapes Of Georgia School Shooting! Antoinette Tuff American Hero!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcqFSGE5HzM
--
Antoinette Tuff's 911 call at McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur
Published on Aug 21, 2013 by Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Aug. 20, 2013: McNair Learning Academy bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff called 911 while a gunman was on campus. This is the audio from that call, courtesy of DeKalb police. For complete coverage of the ordeal and its aftermath, visit http://www.ajc.com/s/news/local/mcnair-dekalb-gunman/ ( http://bit.ly/12p6Ktq ).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6mtcRnUGRg [dead times in the call not edited out of this one; dead times were edited out in the call as played in the one above [which might or might not last, hence this one, which hopefully should)]
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ABC World News Now : School Clerk Helps Shooting Suspect Surrender
Published on Aug 21, 2013 by ABCNews
Antoinette Tuff describes how she helped Michael Brandon Hill surrender to Georgia police.
*MORE: http://abcnews.go.com/US/elementary-school-clerk-convinced-suspect-put-weapons-surrender/story?id=20014879 ( http://abcn.ws/19wxbPZ )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG4TPXbgBn8
--
(linked in):
again, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91033276 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91211255 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91274674 and preceding (and any future following)
Jorge Silva/Reuters
Why a man serving 28 years to life at the Attica Correctional Facility believes a few simple laws could significantly affect criminal behavior
John Lennon
Aug 21 2013, 1:40 PM ET
It was swift and cowardly.
Defenseless, distracted by music, Alex sat in the passenger seat of the rental as I made my way to the trunk. I remembered Frankie’s words: “It’s loaded, cocked, and the safety is off. All you have to do is pull the trigger.”
At that point in our lives, Alex and I, both in our early twenties, were gun-toting thugs immersed in gangster culture. We were out on bail for separate gun charges. A few years before, Alex had been acquitted of murder for allegedly shooting a woman through the peephole of a Brooklyn housing project door. After that, his reputation preceded him.
On that night I knew Alex had been extorting a man who sold drugs for me. It sounds sick but part of me aspired to murder because it’s considered an accomplishment in gangster culture -- it would enhance my reputation, complete my image. Yet another part of me knew this culture was foul and murder was horrible.
Despite the Xanax dulling my emotions, my heart pounded when I picked up the M-16. A surge of power rushed through me when I felt the trigger. I pointed in the driver’s side window ... and squeezed.
Arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced [ http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/Screen%20Shot%202013-08-19%20at%202.08.52%20PM.png ] to a jarring 28 years to life at Attica, I entered prison. For many years I sifted through a host of rationalizations, but today I accept responsibility. I’m sorry for killing Alex, sorry for taking all the life he could have had.
With this in mind, I wish to add some perspective to the gun-control debate. My first gun was a chrome .25 caliber automatic with a pink, pearl handle. It was beautiful. But it was a killing machine, and at 14 years old I had the same hole in my heart that President Obama, in a Chicago speech [ http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/15/news/la-pn-obama-chicago-preventing-violence-20130215 ], stated other child killers had. I had no business with that gun. Yet making guns accessible to troubled souls is business as usual in America.
Here’s how the game works. Criminals manipulate people with clean records -- cash-strapped students, vulnerable women, drug addicts -- to buy guns for them in states with minimal oversight, like Virginia. The criminal transports the guns to New York, then resells them or trades them for drugs that he’ll take back to Virginia to sell. This was the hustle when I was out in the ‘90s. I’m sure some form of it still continues.
However, since the Senate -- the most undemocratic aspect of our government -- halted gun legislation in April [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/well-so-much-for-serious-gun-control/275081/ ], the nation has moved on. But the shootings and killings in the world I know have continued and will continue unless we refocus on the root of the problem: our gun culture, and the easy access it affords criminals. Background checks for killing machines cannot be rudimentary, where criminals know every step -- the rules of the game I describe have to change.
Disconnected Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, says, “Criminals do not submit to background checks now. They will not submit to expanded background checks.” Grassley’s full-scale alternative gun measures, which focused on funding prosecutions [ http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/294499-sens-grassley-and-cruz-present-alternative-gun-bill ] for illegal gun possessions rather than background checks, helped derail the legislation in April. Aggressive prosecutions are punishment measures that, frankly, do not deter criminals from acquiring, possessing, or killing with guns. Conversely, intensifying background checks will change the game and spook those who buy guns for criminals. This will deter so-called straw purchases.
Government should also create a system that tracks gun-purchasing patterns. Credit-card companies already respond to irregular spending patterns—I used to shop with stolen credit cards, and when the employee at the register said, “I have to call the company,” I knew the jig was up. Similarly, it should raise red flags when a person who has never bought a gun suddenly buys five handguns. If the buyer is, for example, purchasing the guns for a drug dealer in the parking lot, he or she will be shaken if the sales clerk says something like, “We have to call and document this purchase with a new agency.”
Likewise, it’s bizarre that the bazaars selling guns aren’t regulated. Websites like Armslist.com [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/the-assault-weapons-ban-isnt-happening-get-over-it/272743/ ] provide a buffet of leads for charismatic criminals to buy guns from private sellers. These sites are like perpetual gun shows, which are truly the ultimate forums to make connections for criminals who blend in well -- like me.
Bottom line, criminals create an indirect demand for gun manufacturers and merchandisers. For most criminals, purchasing a gun isn’t a one-shot deal. I had two separate gun-possession charges before I killed with an assault rifle. These are my convictions, but they hardly represent the number of guns I went through during my criminal career.
Engulfed in an orgy of violence, my last month of freedom was chaos. Home invasions, robberies, murder -- at the center of it all were guns: They would be disposed of, tossed after shoot-outs, then bought again. Easily. And I always bought new guns, so the notion that criminals just use stolen guns [ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/guns.html ], acquired from a neighborhood burglar, is absurd. (The paper trail may suggest that, because the people making straw purchases also file false reports claiming the guns stolen.) Like most criminals, I created an extraordinary demand for the gun sector.
I’m where I belong. But without a gun I would not have killed. Like most misguided, impulsive youth in America, I was emotionally and socially retarded, with a killing machine on my waist. The gun sector and I do not share the same culpability. Hardly. It’s unethical, however, for stakeholders of Sturm, Ruger and Smith & Wesson to contest oversight that would prevent arming individuals like me. Hiding behind manipulative interpretations of the Second Amendment and arguments crafted by the gun lobby, which suggest that the panacea is to enrich our moral fiber, is no help. God knows I’d support moral reform -- but fixing moral decay is a tall order. Meanwhile, our free-market gun culture is out of control. Let’s fix that. Now.
Congress needs to take up gun control again when members return to Washington in September. This debate isn’t going away. “The world is watching the United States Senate, and we will be held accountable,” Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal, one of the senators at the helm of gun-control efforts, said after the bill stalled this spring [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/us/politics/senate-obama-gun-control.html?pagewanted=all ]. Perhaps it’s too utilitarian or oversimplified, but as a nation we’re left with the following question: Is the benefit of experiencing that surge of power, which some individuals get from sport shooting, worth the cost of unhealthy individuals, like me, experiencing a similar surge of power while they swiftly and cowardly shoot people?
For our own sake, for the sake of thousands of victims’ families affected, and thousands more whose lives will be affected, the answer seems clear.
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/a-convicted-murderers-case-for-gun-control/278824/ [with comments]
--
How The NRA Built A Massive Secret Database Of Gun Owners
While the National Rifle Association publicly fights against a national gun registry, the organization has gone to incredible lengths to compile information on “tens of millions” of gun owners — without their consent.
August 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association has rallied gun owners — and raised tens of millions of dollars — campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners.
But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country’s largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby’s secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy.
That database has been built through years of acquiring gun permit registration lists from state and county offices, gathering names of new owners from the thousands of gun safety classes taught by NRA-certified instructors and by buying lists of attendees of gun shows, subscribers to gun magazines, and more, BuzzFeed has learned.
The result: a big data powerhouse that deploys the same high-tech tactics all year round that the vaunted Obama campaign used to win two presidential elections.
NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam declined to discuss the group’s name-gathering methods or what it does with its vast pool of data about millions of non-member gun owners. Asked what becomes of the class rosters for safety classes when instructors turn them in, he replied, “That’s not any of your business.”
[...]
http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevefriess/how-the-nra-built-a-massive-secret-database-of-gun-owners [with comments]
--
School Employee Helped Avert Tragedy in Standoff
By KATE BRUMBACK and PHILLIP LUCAS
DECATUR, Ga. August 21, 2013 (AP)
The 911 tapes from a frightening standoff and shooting at an Atlanta-area school show how a school employee's calm demeanor and kind approach helped end the ordeal without any injuries.
Police said Wednesday that school bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff was heroic in how she responded after being taken hostage a day earlier by Michael Brandon Hill, a 20-year-old man with a history of mental health issues. Hill went to the school armed with an AK 47-style rifle and nearly 500 rounds of ammunition, police said.
On a recording of a 911 call released Wednesday, Tuff can be heard relaying messages from Hill to DeKalb County emergency dispatchers before convincing him to surrender. She tells the dispatcher that Hill said he wasn't there to hurt the children but wanted to talk to an unarmed officer.
"He said, 'Call the probation office in DeKalb County and let them know what's going on,'" Tuff is heard telling the dispatcher. "He said he should have just went to the mental hospital instead of doing this, because he's not on his medication."
No one was injured, but police said the suspect shot into the floor and exchanged gunfire with officers who had surrounded Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, a suburb east of Atlanta. The school has 870 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.
Dramatic television footage showed lines of young students racing out of the building with police and teachers escorting them to safety. They sat outside in a field for a time until school buses came to take them to their parents at a nearby Wal-Mart.
The exchange between Tuff and the suspect was captured on a recording of a 911 call made by school officials to dispatchers.
Tuff begins by telling Hill of her own struggles, including raising a disabled child and losing her husband. The bookkeeper reassures him by saying he didn't hurt anyone, hadn't harmed her and could still surrender peacefully.
"We're not gonna hate you, baby. It's a good thing that you're giving up," Tuff says after having Hill put his weapons and ammunition on the counter. Tuff tells Hill she loves him and will pray for him.
Before he surrendered, Tuff took to the school's public address system to say Hill was sorry for what he'd done and didn't want to hurt anyone — although the lockdown remained in effect.
Hill is charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, terroristic threats and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Police declined to discuss what he told them when questioned.
"We have to make a reasonable assumption he was there to do harm to someone," DeKalb County Police Chief Cedric L. Alexander said.
The DeKalb County Public Defender's office said in a statement that it was representing Hill, calling him "a young man with a long history of mental health issues."
"Mr. Hill is being represented by members of our Mental Health Division and he has decided to waive his first appearance today," the statement said. "We are all very thankful that no one was hurt in this incident and that all of the children are safe."
One of the office's attorneys, Claudia Saari, wrote in an email that a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 5.
Police said Hill got the gun from an acquaintance, but it's not clear if he stole it or had permission to take it. His motive is still unclear.
Law enforcement officers praised Tuff for helping to avert a potential tragedy.
"She was a real ally," Alexander said. "She was a real hero in all of this. She just did a stellar job. She was cool, she was calm, very collected in all of this, maintained her wherewithal."
Tuff told WSB-TV in Atlanta that she tried to keep Hill talking to prevent him from walking into the hallway or through the school building.
"He had a look on him that he was willing to kill — matter of fact he said it. He said that he didn't have any reason to live and that he knew he was going to die today," Tuff said.
Hill was arrested in mid-March for making terroristic threats in Henry County, DeKalb and Henry County sheriff's officials have said. He was sentenced to probation.
A woman who said she served as a mother-like figure to him said he didn't seem to have any friends and rarely talked about his family or past during the months he lived with her and her husband several years ago.
He was quiet and didn't display anger or violent tendencies, said Natasha Knotts, the woman who took him in after he started coming to the small church where her husband is pastor and she is an assistant pastor.
Knotts told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Hill lived with them for about six months in his late teens.
"He was part of our family," Knotts said, though they were not related. She said her family was aware that "he had a mental disorder" before he moved in.
Hill told her that his birth mother was dead and that he didn't know his father. He also has brothers.
Knotts was shocked when she realized Hill had been taken into custody.
"This is something that's totally out of his character. This is not him. This is not the Mike that I know. For anyone that knew Mike, this was a total devastation," she said in an interview at her home in Lithonia, Ga.
She kept in touch after he moved out and said he'd recently been living with another couple who belonged to the church. Knotts last saw Hill about a month ago and he seemed fine.
Knotts said Hill called her sister Tuesday afternoon before the shooting to thank the family for all they had done for him and said he had a rifle. He did not say what he was planning to do.
Police released an undated photo of Hill posing with an assault rifle they believe is the one used Tuesday.
Knotts said she thinks Hill's actions were a plea for help.
"Unfortunately," she said, "he didn't know a better way to get it."
Lucas reported from Atlanta.
© 2013 Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mother-figure-ga-school-suspect-mentally-ill-20025583 [ http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mother-figure-ga-school-suspect-mentally-ill-20025583?singlePage=true ] [with comments]
--
EXTRAORDINARY!! 911 Tapes Of Georgia School Shooting! - Antoinette Tuff American Hero!
Published on Aug 21, 2013 by martysoffice
911 Tapes Of Georgia School Shooting! Antoinette Tuff American Hero!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcqFSGE5HzM
--
Antoinette Tuff's 911 call at McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur
Published on Aug 21, 2013 by Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Aug. 20, 2013: McNair Learning Academy bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff called 911 while a gunman was on campus. This is the audio from that call, courtesy of DeKalb police. For complete coverage of the ordeal and its aftermath, visit http://www.ajc.com/s/news/local/mcnair-dekalb-gunman/ ( http://bit.ly/12p6Ktq ).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6mtcRnUGRg [dead times in the call not edited out of this one; dead times were edited out in the call as played in the one above [which might or might not last, hence this one, which hopefully should)]
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ABC World News Now : School Clerk Helps Shooting Suspect Surrender
Published on Aug 21, 2013 by ABCNews
Antoinette Tuff describes how she helped Michael Brandon Hill surrender to Georgia police.
*MORE: http://abcnews.go.com/US/elementary-school-clerk-convinced-suspect-put-weapons-surrender/story?id=20014879 ( http://abcn.ws/19wxbPZ )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG4TPXbgBn8
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(linked in):
again, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91033276 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91211255 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91274674 and preceding (and any future following)
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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