Tragedy At Seattle Pacific University!

Shooting at the Seattle Pacific University leads to multiple injuries and confirmed deaths.

We here at Journal de la Reyna send our condolences to those lost in this senseless tragedy.

Okay, it's been about two weeks since the shooting in California. Deranged shooter Eliot Rodger went on his rampage near the University of California Santa Barbara.

Now details emerge about a shooting at a Seattle based university. At Seattle Pacific University there was a gunman who managed to take one victim and injure multiple in a mass shooting tonight.

The Associated Press reports that the one gunman armed with a shotgun opened fire Thursday in a building at a small Seattle university, fatally wounding one person and injuring three others before a student subdued him with pepper spray as he tried to reload, Seattle police said.

A student building monitor at Seattle Pacific University disarmed the gunman and several other students jumped on top of him and pinned him down until police arrived at the Otto Miller building, police said.

A 19-year-old man died at the hospital and a critically injured 20-year-old woman was taken to surgery, Harborview Medical Center spokeswoman Susan Gregg said. A 24-year-old man and a 22-year-old man were in satisfactory condition. None of the victims was immediately identified.

While on the phone, Brianna Clarke tells her family about the mass shooting on the private Christian university.

Police said they had arrested one man. None of the victims at the hospital was the arrested man, Gregg said.

The afternoon shooting came a week before the end of the school year, and the situation was particularly tense when police initially reported that they were searching for a second suspect. They later said no one else was involved.

The university locked down its campus for several hours, and it alerted students and staff to stay inside. Some students were taking finals in the same building as the shooter.

The school canceled classes Thursday evening, and it planned to hold a prayer service.

"We're a community that relies on Jesus Christ for strength and we'll need that at this point in time," said Daniel Martin, president of Seattle Pacific University.

About 4,270 students attend the private Christian university. Its 40-acre campus is in a leafy residential neighborhood about 10 minutes from downtown Seattle.

Jillian Smith was taking a math test on the second-floor of Otto Miller Hall when a lockdown was ordered.

She heard police yelling and banging on doors in the hallway. The professor locked the classroom door, and the 20 or so students sat on the ground, lining up at the front of the classroom.

"We were pretty much freaking out," said Smith, 20, a sophomore. "People were texting family and friends, making sure everyone was OK."

Police pat down students who approach the campus.

Smith said they sat in the classroom for about 45 minutes before police came and escorted them out of the building. On the way, they passed the lobby where she saw bullet casings and what appeared to be blood in the lobby carpet and splatter on the wall.

"Seeing blood made it real," Smith said. "I didn't think something like this would happen at our school."

Ashley Springer, 26, was in a classroom with her professor and a few other students when a woman with a bullhorn came into the room and told them to lock the door, pull down the shades and turn out the lights.

Springer, a senior, called Seattle Pacific University "a really close community."

David Downs, a 22-year-old senior who is graduating next week, said he had just left campus 30 minutes before the shooting.

"I'm in utter shock," said Downs, who is a point guard on the university's basketball team. "It's so unbelievable to me that this could happen on our campus. It's the last thing I would have ever thought could happen here."

"It puts things in perspective," he said. "Anything can happen, even on a small Christian campus."

Grief stricken students and first respond units.

The incident follows a spate of recent shootings on or near college campuses.

Last month, according to police, Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured seven before turning his gun on himself in a rampage in Isla Vista, California, near two universities.

Seven people were killed and three injured when a 43-year-old former student opened fire at a tiny Christian school, Oikos University, in Oakland, California, in 2012. A gunman killed five people and injured 18 when he opened fire in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall in 2008.

In 2007, 32 people were fatally shot in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, before the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, killed himself.

No Rap Geniuses Here!

Mahbod Moghadam was shown the door after he said that mass shooter's rampage was justified.

Mahbod Moghadam, the co-founder of social networking website RapGenius was force to resign after he endorsed the idea of Eliot Rodger's murderous rampage.

We live in a sick world when people start flocking around a mass killer because of his disgust of society.

How on earth can people relate to a man who could inspire a domestic attack on people who never knew him or ever had a chance to defend themselves?

This parallels to the conservative junk food agitators attacking the father of a victim. They claim that they feel "sorry" for the man that he lost his child, but he had no business bringing up the NRA or guns into the picture.

They believe that Rodger killed three with a knife. A knife is just a deadly says the conservative agitators.

HipHopDX reports that Moghadam, one of Rap Genius' co-founders, has resigned from the company following annotations he made regarding Elliot Rodger.

Rodger is a man law enforcement officials believe went on a killing spree near University of California, Santa Barbara recently, killing at least 6 people and injuring several others, before reportedly killing himself.

Moghadam's annotations, which have since been deleted, were placed on Rap Genius' site, annotating the 141-page manifesto believed to have been left behind by Rodger. In his annotations, Moghadam says at least part of Rodger's document is "beautifully written" and that Rodger's sister is likely "smokin hot."

"I was fascinated by the fact that a text was associated with such a heartbreaking crime, especially since Elliot is talking about my neighborhood growing up," Moghadam reportedly said in a statement to Gawker. "I got carried away with making the annotations and making any comment about his sisters was in horrible taste, thankfully the [Rap Genius] community edits out my poor judgment, I am very sorry for writing it."

Tom Lehman, who is a co-founder and CEO of Rap Genius, announced Moghadam's resignation yesterday (May 26). He said Moghadam “not only didn’t attempt to enhance anyone’s understanding of the text, but went beyond that into gleeful insensitivity and misogyny. All of which is contrary to everything we’re trying to accomplish at Rap Genius.

"I cannot let him compromise the Rap Genius mission,” Lehman added.

Rap Genius was founded by Moghadam, Lehman and Ilan Zechory in 2009. The three Yale students raised millions to back their company and have been involved in controversy surrounding publishing licenses for its content. Recently, the company worked with publishers and the National Music Publishers Association to help correct this issue.

Rap Genius was also targeted by Google within the last year for link schemes which impacted the company's standing with the search engine. Rap Genius returned to Google soon after being punished by the search engine. Their statement about the link issue included an apology to its readers and Google.

"To Google and our fans: we’re sorry for being such morons," the statement said. "We regret our foray into irrelevant unnatural linking. We’re focused on building the best site in the world for understanding lyrics, poetry, and prose and watching it naturally rise to the top of the search results."

Lehman's full statement regarding Mahbod Moghadam's resignation, as printed on Rap Genius, is below:

"Yesterday the Rap Genius community annotated Elliot Rodger’s manifesto on News Genius. Because this tragedy is still so raw, there was internal debate as to whether this document belonged on the site at all. Ultimately we decided that it was worthy of close reading – understanding the psychology of people who do horrible things can help us to better understand our society and ourselves.

"The current version of the annotated document is far from great, but the hope is that the annotations will improve over time as the story unfolds and it will eventually be a good resource for people looking to understand this tragedy.

"Almost all the annotations were at least attempting a close reading – they were genuinely, though imperfectly, trying to add context to the text and make it easier to understand.

"However, Mahbod Moghadam, one of my co-founders, annotated the piece with annotations that not only didn’t attempt to enhance anyone’s understanding of the text, but went beyond that into gleeful insensitivity and misogyny. All of which is contrary to everything we’re trying to accomplish at Rap Genius.

"Were Mahbod’s annotations posted by a new Rap Genius user, it would be up to our community leaders, who set the tone of the site and our approach to annotation, to delete them and explain to the new user why they were unacceptable.

"Were Mahbod’s annotations posted by a Rap Genius moderator, that person would cease to be an effective community leader and would have to step down.

"And Mahbod, our original community leader, is no exception. In light of this, Mahbod has resigned – both in his capacity as an employee of the company, and as a member of our board of directors, effective immediately.

"Mahbod is my friend. He's a brilliant, creative, complicated person with a ton of love in his heart. Without Mahbod Rap Genius would not exist, and I am grateful for all he has done to help Rap Genius succeed. But I cannot let him compromise the Rap Genius mission – a mission that remains almost as delicate and inchoate as it was when we three founders decided to devote our lives to it almost 5 years ago."

Womanist Musings: George Sodini: Misogynist and Racist

Womanist Musings: George Sodini: Misogynist and Racist



Past posting from Womanist Musings regarding George Sodini's misogynistic racism.  I see the similarities between yesterday's Santa Barbara shooter and Mr. Sodini.   Mr Sodini's right-wing racism and Eliot 

Rodger's.  This serves as proof that the war on women, working/middle class people, and people of Color are real and deadly!

According to Renee Martin:

White women and people of color are routinely referred to as angry and castrating and yet the violence of White men is always viewed as an anomaly.  Limbaugh recently referred to Obama as an angry Black man for daring initially to speak truth to power regarding the Gates incident, however the ways in which White men use hate speech and violence to maintain their undeserved privilege is never seen for what it truly is – fear and anger run amok.

Sodini may be only one man but his body represents much of the anger that White men are currently experiencing at the thought that power dynamics could possibly change.  Some may not go as far as to murder innocent people, however just as one would not turn your back on a wounded animal, so to is it dangerous to take the threat that they pose lightly.  This is not about how Sodini felt as man but specifically how he identified as a White man.