COLD BLOODED KILLERS (Killers from around the World) (11 page)

Day 2

On September 2
^nd
, 2004, negotiations between Roshal and the hostage-takers proved unsuccessful, and they refused to accept food, water, and medicines for the hostages, or even for the bodies of the dead to be removed from the school. Many hostages, especially children, took off their shirts and other articles of clothing because of the sweltering heat, which led to rumors of sexual assault, though the hostages later explained it was merely to keep cool.

In the afternoon, following their negotiations with former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev, the gunmen agreed to release twenty-six nursing women and their infants. One infant was handed to Aushev as its mother refused to leave the school while her other children remained inside. At around 3:30 p.m., two explosions occurred at the school, approximately ten minutes apart from one another. These were later revealed to be the explosions of rocket-propelled grenades, fired by the hostage-takers in an apparent attempt to keep the security forces well away from the school.

Day 3

On the afternoon of September 3
^rd
, 2004, the hostage-takers agreed to allow medical workers to remove bodies from the school grounds. The removal team, reportedly consisting of FSB (Federal Security Service, formerly known as the KGB) officers, began to approach the school at 1:04 p.m., but the hostage-takers opened fire, and two large explosions were heard.

Two of the medical workers died; the rest fled under a hail of gunfire. Part of the gymnasium also collapsed, allowing a group of about thirty hostages to escape, but they were fired on by the gunmen, and then caught in crossfire as the Russian army and armed civilians tried to fire at the terrorists. Many of the escapees were killed. Ruslan Aushev, the negotiator during the siege, told the Novaya Gazeta that the initial explosion was set off by a hostage-taker accidentally tripping over a wire. As a result, armed civilians, some of them apparently fathers of the hostages, started shooting. Reportedly, no security forces or hostage-takers were shooting at this point, but the gunfire led the hostage-takers to believe that the school was being stormed. In response, they set off their bombs. It was at this point that Russian Special Forces activated their action plan to storm the school to rescue any possible survivors. A disorganized battle broke out as the Special Forces sought to enter the school and cover the escape of the hostages. Some panicking Russian army recruits fled the scene while the Special Forces commandos blew holes in walls to allow hostages to escape. A massive level of force was used. The special forces, regular army, and Interior Ministry troops were all involved, as were helicopter gunships and at least one tank. Many local civilians also joined in the battle, having brought along their own weapons.

Afterwards, the Russian government defended the use of tanks and other heavy weaponry, arguing that it was used after surviving hostages escaped from the school; however, this contradicts eyewitness accounts and common sense, as many hostages were seriously wounded and could not possibly escape by themselves.

The attack was followed by large explosions of other detonating bombs and several Shmel fuel-air explosive rockets used by the government forces, which destroyed the gym and set much of the building on fire. By 3:00 p.m., two hours after the assault began, Russian troops claimed control of most of the school. Fighting, however, continued as evening fell, and three gunmen held up in the basement with a number of hostages. They, and the hostages they were holding, were eventually killed. During the battle, a group of hostage-takers, approximately thirteen of them, broke through the military cordon and took refuge nearby. Two of those thirteen were reportedly women who allegedly attempted to blend into the crowd and escape disguised as medical personnel. The military cordon had been compromised as they’d permitted the passage of hostage’s relatives, dressed in civilian clothing and, in some cases, bearing firearms.

A few of the escapees were said to be cornered in a residential two-story house within 120 feet of the gym. Whether or not they had hostages was unknown. The house was destroyed using tanks and flamethrowers by 11:00 p.m., on September the third.

In the aftermath, Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Fridinsky believed that thirty-one of the thirty-two attackers had been confirmed dead, and one had been captured. One suspected hostage-taker was beaten to death by the fathers of hostages when he was injured and being driven to the hospital. Another suspected terrorist was assassinated on the scene, an event filmed by the Sky News crew.

According to the official data, 331 civilians and eleven commandos died. At least one surviving female hostage committed suicide after returning home. Many other survivors remained in severe shock. Some injured survivors died in hospitals.

The Russian government has been heavily criticized by many locals who, days after the end of the siege, did not know whether their children were living or dead. Human remains were even found in the nearby garbage dump several months later, prompting further outrage.

During the operation, eleven Russian Soldiers of the special groups Alpha and Vympel were killed, among them the commander of Alpha. This was the highest casualty rate ever suffered in a single engagement in the history of these units. One of their members said they’d rescued children first, and the hostage-takers had then shot at their backs; that was why they’d suffered such high losses (another commando admitted shooting children used by the terrorists as human shields). In addition, many were accidentally hit by civilian militiamen, who either fired indiscriminately or mistook them for the hostage takers. Wounds of varying severity were received by more than thirty fighters of the OSNAZ Special Forces.

In May, 2005, the only known accused terrorist to survive the Beslan massacre was Nur-Pashi Kulayev. All local lawyers refused to defend Kulayev. Albert Pliyev was appointed, reluctantly, as his lawyer. The local people at the time wanted to either lynch the defendant or sentence him to the death penalty. Over 1,340 people act as the injured party on the trial. Kulayev was charged with murder, terrorism, kidnapping, and other crimes, and pled guilty on seven of the counts. Kulayev is said to be incarcerated in a high-security prison on the small lake island of Ognenny Ostrov in the Vologda region.

In May of 2002, the Secret Service published a report that examined thirty-seven school shootings in the United States. They published the following findings:

* Incidents of targeted violence at schools were rarely sudden, impulsive acts.

* Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker’s idea and/or plan to attack.

* Most attackers did not threaten their targets directly prior to advancing the attack.

* There is no accurate or useful profile of students who engaged in targeted school violence.

* Most attackers engaged in behavior prior to the incident that caused others concern, or indicated a need for help.

* Most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures.

* Many attackers had considered or attempted suicide.

* Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the attack.

* Most attackers had access to, and had used weapons, prior to the attack.

* In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity.

* Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) the general definition of a spree murder is two or more murders committed by an offender, or offenders, without a cooling-off period – the lack of a cooling-off period marking the difference between a spree murder and a serial murder. Serial killers are different in that the murders are clearly separate events, happening at different times, while the attacks of mass murderers are defined by one incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders.

Another common term for spree killings is ‘going postal,’ meaning becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment. The expression derives from a series of incidents from 1983 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public in acts of mass murder. Between 1986 and 1997, more than forty people were gunned down by spree killers in at least twenty incidents of workplace rage.

- 11 - 
Rodrick Dantzler

Grand Rapids, Michigan Massacre

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 7
^th
, 2011, seven people were killed and others injured by Rodrick Shonte Dantzler, thirty-four, a building technician. His victims included his estranged wife, their children, other innocent people, and his former girlfriend. Dantzler had a rather shady childhood. In 1992, at the age of fifteen, he was convicted for burglary as a juvenile. He was raised by his stepfather who abused drugs, and his mother, but she kicked him out of her house when he was eighteen, allegedly over threats he repeatedly made. His mother would later say that he had an explosive temper and acted violently with thinking. After being kicked out of his mother’s home, he set fire to her house, and in 1997 was convicted of destroying property and domestic violence. From 2000 to 2005, he served time in prison for a road rage shooting incident. During his time incarcerated, he obtained his high school diploma and partook in anger management programs.

Upon his release from prison, Dantzler was said to be under doctor’s care, taking prescribed medication for bipolar disorder, and receiving a disability pension. In 2010 he was sent back to prison for another year after being convicted of assault and battery.

Just days before the shooting spree, Dantzler took his daughter and wife to Michigan’s Adventure in Muskegon. His wife, Jennifer Heeren, was planning on separating from him, but it is not known whether Dantzler was aware of it or not. It is known that on the day of the shootings, he drank a lot of alcohol and used cocaine.

The murdering began in the house of Dantzler's former girlfriend, Amanda Emkens. There, he killed Emkens, her sister, Kimberlee, and her sister's ten year old daughter, Marisa. He then went home where his wife, their daughter, and his wife's parents lived, and killed all of them too.

Dantzler called his mother and told her what he had done. His mother, in turn, contacted the police, who dispatched units and subsequently discovered the bodies. The police closed down the area and told neighbors to remain inside their homes, as they didn’t know at this time where the killer was located. At this point, Dantzler was near Godfrey Avenue, where he shot and injured a man in an apparent road rage incident before abandoning his Town Car and taking a Suburban from another person – who luckily jumped out of the vehicle. At 7:00 pm, April Swanson, a friend of Dantzler, called police on her cell phone to report that Dantzler was following her in a Suburban. He shot her from his vehicle at Fulton Street and Division Avenue. She suffered a serious but non-life-threatening arm injury. Police intervened by ramming Dantzler's vehicle. They exchanged gunfire, but no officers were shot. The suspect was chased by police who attempted to disable his vehicle as he drove through downtown Grand Rapids. Dantzler turned onto eastbound Interstate 96, where he crossed the median and continued eastward in the westbound lanes against the flow of traffic, and crashed into a freeway ditch around 7:15 pm.