This is a strange story.
Can't find or catch the guy?
Gonna need more cameras and tougher gun laws, right?
CUI BONO, readers?
"Suspect in Ill. store shootings at large"
"by Michael Tarm Associated Press | February 4, 2008
Police were searching yesterday for a gunman who killed five women at a suburban Chicago clothing store during a botched robbery attempt.
A man was seen leaving the Lane Bryant on Saturday morning before police found the store's manager and four customers shot to death. Authorities have released few details about the brazen killings in the busy shopping center.
Investigators believed it was a robbery that was interrupted, but declined to say how it was stopped or who called 911.
"This has been an extremely sensitive investigation," police Chief Mike O'Connell said.
Why? Aren't they all?
Why is this one being kept quiet?
Another black op, is it?
Police asked for the public's help. The department would not confirm media reports Sunday that a sixth woman was shot and survived the attack at strip mall southwest of downtown Chicago.
The Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune, citing unnamed sources, said in stories posted on their Web sites that the survivor was treated at a hospital. The Sun-Times reported that the woman was released Sunday afternoon.
St. James Hospital spokeswoman Sherry Sissac confirmed that the facility received one female shooting victim Saturday but declined to give further information.
"We have not disclosed any information regarding the condition," she said Sunday. "We are not allowed to address any information involving a criminal investigation."
The five women — a manager and four customers — were herded into the back room of the store and killed shortly after it opened, authorities have said.
The victims were identified as Connie R. Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor; Sarah T. Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest; Carrie H. Chiuso, 33, of Frankfort; Rhoda McFarland, 42, of Joliet; and Jennifer L. Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Ind.
The coroner's office said all five died from gunshot wounds.
"Our emotions are raw. And we are still in shock," Szafranski's family said in a statement. "Sarah was loved by all who knew her and we are counting on that love to sustain us while we mourn."Chiuso was a social worker at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, where she graduated 1993.
"Carrie was deeply loved by faculty and staff," said school spokesman Dave Thieman in a statement. "She had a real touch with students. The entire H-F family is deeply saddened."
Officers swept through neighboring shops, aisle by aisle and with guns drawn, shortly after the shootings in search of a man a bystander reported fleeing the store. Police later used dogs and a helicopter equipped with infrared sensors in their search but did not find the suspect.
Huh? They always do on "Cops!"
Did the witness see him get into a car or anything?
And WHY cut the police state aspect, readers?
More cut:
The Lane Bryant store did not have a camera, but Tinley Park police Sergeant T.J. Grady said investigators were trying to determine whether there was video from security cameras mounted at nearby stores.
Chicago-area Lane Bryant stores were closed Sunday in honor of those who died. The store's parent company, Bensalem, Pa.-based Charming Shoppes Inc., offered a $50,000 reward for information that could lead police to the gunman.
"The employees of Charming Shoppes and Lane Bryant are deeply saddened by the loss of life resulting from this horrific event," the statement said. "We grieve for the innocent victims and our primary concern at this time is for the families and loved ones of those fatally injured."
Mourners erected the makeshift memorial of crosses and flowers in the parking lot.The attack stunned residents of Tinley Park, a growing suburb of nearly 60,000 people where only one homicide was reported between 1999 and 2006, according to Illinois State Police.
And if it can happen there, well...
Tinley Park's mayor, Edward Zabrocki, ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on municipal buildings for five days -- one day for each of the victims.
Cindy Sorenson brought a bouquet of bright red roses to Lane Bryant, which is part of a cluster of stores that sit across a large blacktop parking lot from the big box stores, including Target and Best Buy.Sorenson, who works at a nearby mall, said she didn't know the victims, but couldn't stop thinking about the women who died. "You spend so much time in a store and you never think anything like this will happen," she said.
That heart-tugging ehough to get you to give up your guns and liberty, 'Murka?
And WHY the total rewrite from what is in my paper, Globe?
WTF?
