February 27, 2009

Victims-FloridaShooter_d1a2c.JPG

[Victims Nicolas Corp, 23, and Racine Balbontin, 22] [Video here.]

Via neil at dKos, the news out of the Florida Panhandle this morning is grim indeed:

Residents in this Miramar Beach community are taking extra precautions after their neighbor allegedly went on a shooting rampage.

It began a little before 2:00 Thursday morning at these units of the Summer Lake Townhomes.

Walton County sheriff's deputies arrived to find two people shot to death, 3 others critically injured.

Investigators say the suspect, 60-year-old Dannie Baker, left his townhouse, armed with a rifle, walked across the complex to the victims' unit, and opened fire.

After the shooting witnesses saw Baker carrying a rifle though the pool area across the street to his home on the other side of the complex.

Authorities say he locked himself inside...and waited.

After Baker was arrested, his neighbors said he'd been talking about doing this for some time:

Neighbors say Baker wasn't happy with all the activity at the house and think that was the motive for his shooting spree.

Neighbor Crystal Lynn says "he did come up to me one time and asked me if I was ready for the revolution to begin and if I had any immigrants in my house to get them out."

The victims were foreign nationals who appear to have been working in the U.S. legally.

Investigators say, at the time of the shooting, there were at least 14 other people in the one unit with the victims...all of Hispanic descent.

An update identifies the victims:

A reporter out of Chile contacted News Channel Seven’s Alex Denis to confirm the identities of the people who were shot and those who were killed in a shooting rampage that happened early Thursday morning in South Walton County.

The reporter confirmed that Francisco Cofre is in serious condition; Sebastian Arizaga is in stable condition and David Bilbao is in good condition at Sacred Heart Hospital. The two killed, were 23-year-old Nicolas Corp and 22-year-old Racine Balbontin. Photos are courtesy of La Tercera.

The reporter confirmed the students were on a work-study program out of Chile.

This rampage has more than a passing resemblance to last summer's rampage in Knoxville, though in this case the targets of the shooter's rage appear to be immigrants specifically rather than liberals generically.

Naked self-promotion notwithstanding ... You may want to pre-order my upcoming book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. It's looking more and more relevant all the time.

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