DailyTech - Building at NASA's Johnson Space Center Evacuated Due to Gunman

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Blog: Science Building at NASA's Johnson Space Center Evacuated Due to Gunman
Michael Hoffman (Blog) - April 20, 2007 3:58 PM

4 comment(s) - last by nictow.. on Apr 25 at 12:00 AM

A man with a gun forced the evacuation of a NASA Johnson Space Center building earlier today

A building located at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston was evacuated after an armed person was spotted somewhere in the building, according to early reports from NASA. All staff and employees from the building were safely evacuated. The first call for help was received by Houston Police at 2:40 p.m. EST, but authorities do not know who made the call.

Both NASA security and the Houston police department responded to "a report about a person with a weapon" in Building 44 on the Johnson Space Center campus. Building 44 is a laboratory that mainly deals with communications and tracking development. The small two-story building is relatively isolated from the rest of the buildings on the NASA campus.

"The building primarily consists of office space and a few labs to support tracking of spacecraft," NASA said in a statement released to the media.

It appears that at least one shot has been fired, but no injuries have been reported. The Houston Police SWAT team has been sent to the surrounding area to assess the situation.

Space Center Intermediate School, a middle school located close to the campus, has been placed on lockdown for the time being. School administrators have asked parents to not try to pick their kids up.

UPDATE: The gunman, a NASA contract worker, killed one person before turning the gun on himself. A second hostage escaped after being poorly restrained to a chair with duct tape.

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Jeez

By Chillin1248 on 4/21/2007 3:26:38 AM , Rating: 5

I remember reading a statistic which showed that the amount of shootings keep going up after, something to do with how the mind works in these cases. It only takes one person to start it.

The media should not publicize these events so damn much, it's only giving incentive to every Joe or Jane out there to go out with a bang. I mean we have people still come on TV talking about the VT School killer's childhood, etc. He is getting his fame. Instead we should just report this in the news and be done with it, no different than a traffic report. Doesn't give much incentive to kill yourself and others then.

-------
Chillin

RE: Jeez

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 4/24/2007 1:59:46 PM , Rating: 1

Yea, but if you want some serious media coverage, screw shootings, go with a large explosion, take out half a city block or something.... You will be talked about for a very very long time...

TBH, these shootings are because these guys want the thrill of ending people's lives themselves, they want to "go in guns blazing". They want to vent their frustrations on the world on people around them, and thus why we have shootings.

Now, from my point of view, these guys are rookies. The VT shooter was more level headed from the perspective that he had planned it out and knew exactly what he was doing. Pray and pray hard that one of these guys isn't highly intelligent especially when it comes to destruction. I mean I can go down to Home Depot and pickup all the materials I need to completely annihilate a decent sized portion of a city block so when you think about it, Shootings are the least of our problems. It is entirely possible for one of these nutcases to pull off something more in line with the Oklahoma City bombing in the early 90's.

Parent

RE: Jeez

By James Holden on 4/24/2007 2:12:53 PM , Rating: 2

Kris (Dailytech owner) wrote a thing or two about this last week:

http://kristopher.us/2007/04/nbc-panders-to-mass-m...

quote:
There's no such thing as bad PR, and if a few more maniacs know to push their manifestos onto Old Media before they kill a few dozen people, so be it.

A tragedy considering so many people knew this is exactly what was going to happen.

Parent

Human Nature

By nictow on 4/25/2007 12:00:38 AM , Rating: 2

The heart of a man has a contiguous spirit,
of innovation, of creativity, that is unmatched
by any other creature.

This spirit also carries with it,
a destructive power, that is unmatched
by any other creature.

This indescribable amount of destruction,
is carried also by the innovative genius,
the evil, the hatred, of the mind of a man.

This spirit of man cannot and will not be broken,
as well as the destruction of the human genius,
and the ingenuity of human devistation.

This can be explained, for it is human nature
-to destroy ourselves

-N. Townsend

"I mean, if you wanna break down someone's door, why don't you start with AT&T, for God sakes? They make your amazing phone unusable as a phone!" -- Jon Stewart on Apple and the iPhone