Police may have curtailed shooting
Police may have curtailed shooting
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A gunman who killed a worker and shot several other people at a psychiatric hospital on the University of Pittsburgh campus lived nearby and used two semiautomatic pistols, one of them stolen, as he marched around checking offices possibly in an attempt to find more victims before campus police fatally shot him, authorities said Friday.
John Shick began shooting almost immediately upon entering the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic lobby Thursday afternoon, wearing a tan trench coat, T-shirt, jeans and two watches. He also had a fanny pack containing plastic bags with medicines police haven’t disclosed and carried a box of ammunition.
After the initial shootings, Shick went up a stairwell to a second-floor parking area, where he apparently tried to exit but couldn’t because he didn’t have an electronic card needed to open a secure door. A window on the door was shot but didn’t shatter, suggesting Shick tried to shoot his way through.
Police believe Pitt officers, who had trained for a Virginia Tech-style shooting, encountered Shick as he came back down the stairs and into the lobby, perhaps planning to escape through the front door he had entered.
Mitt Romney used his private email
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and some of his top aides used private email accounts to conduct state business at times when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The communications were legal, even though Romney’s own administration warned state agencies against the practice due to cyber security concerns. The state archives in Massachusetts which learned about Romney’s emails from the AP now says the private emails should have invoked rules about preserving copies of state records.
Private email accounts used by public officials to perform their public jobs are effectively off limits to review by citizens, watchdog groups, political opponents and news organizations because they’re often used secretly. Free accounts from commercial providers also are more vulnerable to hackers who exploit easy-to-use features to reset email passwords.
Papers sweat over ‘Doonesbury’
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A national syndicate will offer replacement “Doonesbury” comic strips to newspapers that don’t want to run a series that uses graphic imagery to lampoon a Texas law requiring women to have an ultrasound before an abortion, executives said Friday.
A handful of newspapers say they won’t run next week’s series, while several others said the strips will move from the comics to opinion pages or websites only. Many already publish the strip by cartoonist Garry Trudeau, whose sarcastic swipes at society’s foibles have a history of giving headaches to newspaper editors, on editorial pages.
The comic strips feature a woman who goes to an abortion clinic and is confronted by several people who suggest she should be ashamed. Among them is a doctor who reads a script on behalf of Texas Gov. Rick Perry welcoming her to a “compulsory transvaginal exam,” and a middle-aged legislator who calls her a “slut.”
Tech president: ‘I tried my best’
CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (AP) — Virginia Tech’s president on Friday defended his actions during the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, saying in court: “I tried my best.”
President Charles Steger testified for two hours at a wrongful death trial brought by the families of two students killed during the April 16, 2007, campus attack. The civil suit claims university officials delayed warning the campus of the initial two shootings in a dormitory and then attempted to cover up their missteps. In the end, 33 people including the gunman were dead.
Steger said that officials delayed sending a warning to avoid panic on campus and allow the university to identify the first two victims and contact their families.