Shootings | featured news

Wade M. Page, the man who the police say shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin this week, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said on Wednesday. The authorities had reported earlier that he was fatally shot by a police officer.

Anaheim officers have killed five people since Jan. 1. Police say the shootings are intertwined with the rise in violent, gang-related crimes. The controversy over the fatal police shooting of an unarmed Anaheim man is part of a significant increase in both violent crime and officer-involved shootings in the city so far this year, according to records reviewed by The Times.

A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to killing six people and wounding 13 others, including then-U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, in an Arizona shooting rampage last year and will be spared the death penalty in exchange.

A day after Wade Michael Page strode into a Sikh temple with a 9mm handgun and multiple magazines of ammunition, authorities were trying to determine if the 40-year-old Army veteran was taking his own advice when he opened fire on total strangers in a house of worship.

President Barack Obama said on Monday that mass killings like the shooting rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin were occurring with "too much regularity" and should prompt soul searching by all Americans, but he stopped short of calling for new gun-control laws.

The psychiatrist who treated suspected movie-theater shooter James Holmes contacted a University of Colorado police officer to express concerns about Holmes's behavior several weeks before his alleged rampage, ABC News reported, citing unnamed sources.

The gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin before he was shot to death by police was identified today as a 40-year-old Army veteran and former leader of a white supremacist metal band. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Haanstad in Milwaukee identified the shooter as Wade Michael Page. Page joined the Army in 1992 and was discharged in 1998, according to a defense official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information yet about the suspect.

A coroner’s office scheduled an autopsy Monday for a northeast Ohio woman who was shot in her bed at a hospital’s intensive care unit, allegedly by her husband in what police believe was a mercy killing. Capt. Dan Zampelli said an initial court appearance for John Wise likely wouldn’t come until at least Tuesday or even Wednesday. He said police needed results of the autopsy to decide what charge would be appropriate.

The Colorado movie theater complex that was the scene of a gunman's massacre this month didn't have any uniformed security guards on duty the night of the shooting, even though other theaters operated by the same company did provide such protection for the busy premiere of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises."...

For some, it's too soon to discuss gun reform, a little more than one week after the mass killings in Aurora, Colorado. I disagree. Too many Americans are being killed by guns every day; this most recent heinous tragedy should not keep us from having a rational debate.