Pa. hospital shooting might have been worse ADVERTISING Pa. hospital shooting might have been worse MEDIA, Pa. (AP) — A psychiatrist’s patient ranted about a gun ban at a suburban medical complex before opening fire there, killing his caseworker and
Pa. hospital shooting might have been worse
MEDIA, Pa. (AP) — A psychiatrist’s patient ranted about a gun ban at a suburban medical complex before opening fire there, killing his caseworker and grazing his psychiatrist before the doctor pulled out his own weapon and fired back, authorities said Friday.
Dr. Lee Silverman emptied his gun’s chamber, striking patient Richard Plotts several times, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan said. Plotts by then had shot the caseworker in the face and fired several shots at Silverman, including one that grazed his temple and another that struck his thumb, he said.
Plotts had 39 unspent bullets on him when he was wrestled to the ground at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby, just southwest of Philadelphia, and police believe he had planned to use them.
“If the doctor did not have a firearm, (and) the doctor did not utilize the firearm, he’d be dead today, and I believe that other people in that facility would also be dead,” Whelan said.
Plotts was sedated but in stable condition after surgery Thursday for his gunshot wounds, police said. They expected to arraign him at his Philadelphia hospital bedside on Friday, charging him with murder in the death of caseworker Barbara Hunt and other crimes.
Plotts doesn’t have a listed home number, and it was unclear if he has relatives in the area.
Hospital policy bars anyone except on-duty law enforcement officers from carrying weapons on campus, said a Mercy Health System spokeswoman, who otherwise declined to discuss the report that Silverman was armed at work.
Concerns during Ariz.
execution come to light
FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) — U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake was attending a ceremony for a judicial colleague when he received an urgent — and unusual — request: Lawyers for a condemned inmate wanted him to stop an execution that didn’t seem to be working.
“He has been gasping, snorting, and unable to breathe and not dying,” lawyer Robin C. Konrad told the judge over the phone Wednesday, according to a transcript. “And we’re asking — our motion asks for you to issue an emergency stay and order the Department of Corrections to start lifesaving techniques.”
The judge asked his law clerk to quickly locate a phone number for an attorney for the state so he could find out what was happening. They conferenced in Jeffrey A. Zick, who was getting updates from the scene from Arizona’s corrections chief.
What followed provided a window in to the nearly two-hour execution of 55-year-old Joseph Rudolph Wood as the defense lawyer pleaded to stop it and the Arizona state’s attorney assured the judge everything was fine. In the middle of the arguments, Zick informed them that Wood had died.
The execution brought new attention to the death penalty debate in the U.S. as opponents said it was proof that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. On Thursday, the state’s top prison official said Arizona would temporarily put on hold any future executions as it reviewed what happened to Wood.
Fast food workers prepare to escalate wage demands
CHICAGO (AP) — Fast food workers say they’re prepared to escalate their campaign for higher wages and union representation, starting with a national convention in suburban Chicago where more than 1,000 workers will discuss the future of the effort that has spread to dozens of cities in less than two years.
About 1,300 workers are scheduled to attend sessions Friday and Saturday at an expo center in Villa Park, Illinois, where they’ll be asked to do “whatever it takes” to win $15-an-hour wages and a union, said Kendall Fells, organizing director of the national effort and a representative of the Service Employees International Union.
The union has been providing financial and organizational support to the fast-food protests that began in late 2012 in New York City and have included daylong strikes and a protest outside this year’s McDonald’s Corp. shareholder meeting that resulted in more than 130 arrests.
“We want to talk about building leadership, power and doing whatever it takes depending on what city they’re in and what the moment calls for,” said Fells, adding that the ramped-up actions will be “more high profile” and could include everything from civil disobedience to intensified efforts to organize workers.
“I personally think we need to get more workers involved and shut these businesses down until they listen to us,” perhaps even by occupying the restaurants, said Cherri Delisline, a 27-year-old single mother from Charleston, South Carolina, who has worked at McDonald’s for 10 years and makes $7.35 an hour.
Delisline said she and her four girls live with her mother, but the family still has difficulty paying utilities and the mortgage while providing for her children. She said she has not been to a doctor in two years and does not get paid if she stays home sick.
“To have a livable wage, it’s going to need to be $15 an hour,” said Delisline. “We make the owners enough money that they have houses and cars and their kids are taken care of. Why don’t (they) make sure I can be able to do the same for my kids and my family?”
The campaign comes as President Barack Obama and many other Democrats across the country have attempted to make a campaign issue out of their call to increase the federal and state minimum wages.
The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour translates to about $15,000 a year for someone working 40 hours a week, though many fast-food workers get far fewer hours. Obama and others have called for increasing it to $10.10.
Fast food workers say even that’s not enough because most people working in the industry now are adults with children, rather than teenagers earning pocket money. The restaurant industry has argued that a $15 hourly wage could lead to business closings and job cuts, though the Seattle City Council recently voted to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, phased in over several years.
A McDonald’s spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment.
The National Restaurant Association said Thursday that increasing wages to $15 will not solve income inequality and that the campaign was an attempt by unions to boost dwindling membership.
“Instead of demonizing an industry that opens doors for workers of all ages, backgrounds and skill levels, the focus should be on finding better solutions to lift individuals out of poverty,” including policies that increase education and job training, said Scott DeFife, the association’s executive vice president of policy and government affairs.
Turnout for the protests has varied, but they’ve struck a chord at a time when the gap between the country’s rich and poor has widened. Executive pay packages also are coming under greater scrutiny, including that of McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson, who was given a pay package worth $9.5 million last year. Nevertheless, shareholders this year overwhelmingly voted in favor of McDonald’s executive compensation practices.
Nancy Salgado of Chicago said she and her two children share a bedroom after being forced to move into an apartment with two other adults after her hours at McDonald’s were cut from 40 a week to about 24.
“I don’t think $15 will make me rich. … I just want an apartment for my family and be able to have my kids in their own room, to not have to wait for the washing machine or the bathtub, and I don’t want to be behind on bills if I take time off or get sick,” said Salgado, who earns minimum wage after 12 years with the company.
“If we’ve got to stop working and shut down (restaurants) to get it, that’s what we’re going to do,” she said.
