Shooting at Wendy's near West Palm Beach, Florida

By Hum
in Real World News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Hum

Posted
Posted (edited)

Updated

WEST PALM BEACH, FL (AP) -- A gunman in a jacket, tie and baseball cap wordlessly opened fire inside a Wendy's during the lunchtime rush Monday, killing a paramedic who had gone back to fetch the right toy to go with his child's meal and wounding five others. The 60-year-old shooter then committed suicide.

''This was not a robbery. He didn't demand anything,'' said Paul Miller, a Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman. ''Looks like this was just another random shooting like we've seen around the United States.''

The 42-year-old victim, Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue Lt. Rafael Vazquez, who was not in uniform, had met his wife and child at the restaurant during a break in training down the street, Deputy Fire-Rescue Chief Steve Delai said. The family had gotten their food and walked out, but Vazquez returned because the wrong free toy had been included in the kids' meal, detectives said.

Vazquez's wife, a law enforcement officer in nearby Palm Springs, and child were in the parking lot when he was shot in the back as he stood at the counter.

''Our officer probably didn't even see him,'' Delai said of the gunman, Alburn Edward Blake.

Miller said Blake, a handyman and maintenance worker, had no relation to anyone at the restaurant and had never worked for Wendy's, and authorities had not found any notes.

''We don't know why he picked this location to do this horrible deed,'' he said.

Vazquez had been promoted in January and was attending a course called ''Strategy and Tactics'' before taking his lunch break. Delai said the course teaches officers how to ''manage large-scale incidents like we had today.''

The mayhem unfolded just after noon during the lunch hour rush at the eatery on a major suburban road lined with strip malls, car dealerships and fast food restaurants, about five miles from downtown West Palm Beach. A billboard advertising an upcoming gun show stands just behind the Wendy's.

Blake entered the restaurant and went to a restroom before coming out brandishing a 9 mm handgun, Miller said. About 10 to 15 people were in the restaurant at the time, he said.

Ashley Milton, 28, said she had just opened the door to get lunch when she heard the ''pop pop'' of gunfire and saw people running.

''I really didn't think that's what it was. I thought this can't be happening,'' she said. ''You see your life flash before your eyes.''

Josh Maynard, 30, said he and his 20-year-old brother Jerry hit the floor when Blake opened fire. Jerry Maynard said the shooter held his gun sideways and said nothing.

Three of the survivors were hospitalized and stable, Miller said. They included a 43-year-old man, a 16-year-old girl, and a 65-year-old man and his 62-year-old wife. Two others had minor injuries, including one person who was injured while running away.

''I just saw a lady with a little boy in her arms come running out screaming, 'Somebody's shooting!''' said Sandra Jackson, who had been getting gas across the street. The woman said her husband was still inside, said Jackson, 43, of Palm Springs.

When the shooting stopped, the Maynard brothers ran out of the restaurant. Josh Maynard's blue jeans were torn and his brown leather boots were sliced, damage he said was caused by a bullet that grazed him as he lay on the floor.

''It felt like somebody kicked me in the foot,'' he said.

One customer kicked the pistol away from the gunman after he shot himself, then started first aid on the wounded, Miller said.

Blake owned a maintenance company until 2003, according to public records. A 1996 story in The Palm Beach Post reported that he accidentally ran over an 18-month-old girl with his van, seriously injuring her. The story said he had a young daughter who would now be a teenager.

Neighbors described Blake as a quiet man who kept to himself. Michele Grippe watched police go into Blake's apartment after the shooting to search it.

''The only thing they took out of the house was a bag of pills,'' Grippe said. ''Right now, I'm really, really shocked. ... I'm here with my kids, and it's really scary to think about that. Sometimes we'll keep our door open. My kids play outside.''

Bob Bertini, a Wendy's Inc. spokesman based in Dublin, Ohio, called the shooting ''a senseless tragedy.''

source

Edited by Hum
Grand Master

ShaneSparky_YYZ

Posted
Posted

West Palm Beachis such a nice place in FL, what a shame to see this happen. I was there last year and its really upscale, I wouldn't think this would happen there, but it can happen anywhere.

Grand Master

Hurmoth

Posted
Posted
Another one?

I'm actually scared of going into the US now.

Don't be. The chances of being shot and killed are probably just as great as being killed in an automobile collision.

so bizarre. a wendys? why the hell a wendys?

I imagine it was something as stupid as them getting his order wrong:

"I said Vanilla Frostie Mother****ers!" :laugh:

Mentor

NateB1

Posted
Posted
Another one?

I'm actually scared of going into the US now.

Yeah, it's quite a challenge getting around here in the US - dodging bullets, avoiding knifing, and ordering food in a fast food restaurant are major issues. Fatalities are quite common around here. :rolleyes:

Grand Master

Farstrider

Posted
Posted (edited)
No, no, no and no. It isn't, it wasn't and it won't ever be.

IN Puerto Rico?s capital, San Juan, among the dilapidated colonial-style buildings and cobbled streets, the United States Government is represented in plush Federal Buildings. From here the island is controlled as a ?non-incorporated territory whbelongs to but is not part of the United StateLiving under US lawaw, Puerto Ricans enjoy unrestricted and duty-free trade with the mainlacommon citizenship, currency, postal and other services, fiscal autonomy and freedom from the US federal taxes.

Sorry to say, yes, yes, yes, it is effectively!!

Back on topic: It is sad to hear these things and even worse for the victims of crimes like this!

Edited by Farstrider
Mentor

Nose Nuggets

Posted
Posted

as much as i hate using Wikipedia as a reference;

Government Republican three-branch government

- Head of State George W. Bush

- Federal Legislative Branch United States Congress

The statutory laws of the United States not locally inapplicable, ... shall have the same force and effect in Puerto Rico as in the United States.

Hey, what ever you need to tell yourself so you can sleep at night. but you don't have to lie to kick it.

Grand Master

MGS4-SS

Posted
Posted
IN Puerto Rico?s capital, San Juan, among the dilapidated colonial-style buildings and cobbled streets, the United States Government is represented in plush Federal Buildings. From here the island is controlled as a ?non-incorporated territory whbelongs to but is not part of the United StateLiving under US lawaw, Puerto Ricans enjoy unrestricted and duty-free trade with the mainlacommon citizenship, currency, postal and other services, fiscal autonomy and freedom from the US federal taxes.

Sorry to say, yes, yes, yes, it is effectively!!

Back on topic: It is sad to hear these things and even worse for the victims of crimes like this!

Its just a colony, and no, it isn't the "US." It never was, it isn't now, and it will never be.

All the US gives us is the citizenship and the postal services.

And no, we don't have freedom from the US federal taxes, fiscal autonomy is a lie, duty-free was officially over last year.

Grand Master

MGS4-SS

Posted
Posted
soooooo your head of state is our president. your legislative branch is our congress. so yout subject to all presidential directives and all US laws, right? but its not part of the US?

It is a colony, I've said it a thousand times already. Its property of the US, but its not the US nor in the US.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • You've tried DuckDuckGo and Brave Search, now get serious with SearXNG

      By Skyfrog · Posted

      For some reason I suddenly have the urge to go shopping at Sears.
    • You've tried DuckDuckGo and Brave Search, now get serious with SearXNG

      By Nas · Posted

      So I did a quick test based on 3+ different public instances from the litany at searx.space ... and it spins everything rather differently. It seems that SearXNG is a meta-search engine (queries multiple search indexes rather than only Google's or Bing's or Wikipedia's or Reddit's) that operates in two modes: > public instances ... each instance opens itself to outside users who piggyback on its cached search history; this instance's own identity becomes known/tracked but end-users are hidden similar to an anonymization proxy; this instance's querying of major search indexes may be API based [rated limited, blocked, etc.]). > private instances ... your private install/instance that itself queries multiple (configurable) search indexes of crawled web content; every major Search Engine associates all traffic to your private instance (so your traffic is tracked via network usages) but client-side tracking (your own browser/computer specs) is flushed because it's a "server" doing the querying rather than your browser. My test asked the same 1 question to the 3+ engines and they all returned vastly different results: some had CAPTCHA failures against Google, some had failures against Wikipedia, and the actual results were also different -- some had auto-complete enabled, others returned a wikipedia highlighted excerpt despite the Wikipedia failure (hinting at results being cached from previous keyword matching), and others just gave an Are-You-Human non-CAPTCHA loop before returning random results. So this begs the caveat: Search query results will vary based on which instance is used because every instance queries the other search indexes separate (and thus its results are influenced on that instance's aggregate search history and index-access limitations). The major distinctions for SearXNG versus DDG or Brave: > The search UI is 'untracked' since no UI trackers are baked-in which would phone home or lay cookies into your browser (for DDG/Brave usage stats), > There is no 'crawler' that canvasses the Internet to discover fresh content (it leaves that to the major search indexes), > Queries multiple search indexes ("meta-search engine") based on the configurations and usage history of the server instance, > Privacy-friendly due to its ability to shield user tracking via standing up a non-local server instance connectable to major VPN providers: queries would all appear to come from general VPN/Proxy providers rather than your private instance (whether installed locally or on your own VPS in the cloud). PS: I've previously come across specialized search engines of this nature that indexes searches across media assets like YT, OF, etc. SearXNG seems to be a good backbone...if the rate-limiting/captcha/etc. issues were resolved.
    • The Trump administration doesn't want you to use OpenAI's GPT-5.6 without its approval

      By excalpius · Posted

      For a guy who claims to hate Farage and the ignorant, gullible, rightwing racist skinheads sponsored by Putin that his lies represent, you sure are quoting them time and time and time again, mate. I guess you're conveniently ignoring the fact that your country and commonwealth just happened to work much better when it was still part of the E.U.? Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
    • The Trump administration doesn't want you to use OpenAI's GPT-5.6 without its approval

      By ad47uk · Posted

      Do you live in the U.K? Do any of the people here that are against the UK leaving the E.U, live in the U.K? If not then why are you bothered? If you do live here then it is a different thing . Brexit was a good idea, should have done it years before, it was done badly, but the idea was good. You are saying the same thing as remainers do, oh we did what Putin wanted, we listened to the lies and Farage. I hate Farage and never believed most of what he said, certainly did not believe the £350m a week for the NHS. But we did pay a lot of money to the E.U and yes some of it came back, but what is the point of paying it out for only some of it to come back? Get out of the E.U, no money to them and in theory we can use the money to do things in the country. I said in theory, but our governments are a total and complete waste of space. No matter what colour rosette they wear. You and others say it was a mistake and yet the two main parties in the U.K are not looking at rejoining the EU, I wonder why that is? I was not tricked by anyone. Makes no odds now, we are out and have been for 10 years, what we need is a decent government to run the country. All they do is shout at each other like a load of kids and seems to do nothing and make this country more into a police and nanny state. Getting more like China all the time.
    • 4TB TEAMGROUP MP44Q, 2TB T-Force G50, and 2TB WD My Passport SSDs drop to great prices

      By Fiza Ali · Posted

      4TB TEAMGROUP MP44Q, 2TB T-Force G50, and 2TB WD My Passport SSDs drop to great prices by Fiza Ali Prime Day may be over, but there are still worthwhile storage deals available, including discounts on SSDs for shoppers who missed the event or are looking to upgrade their storage solution. Particularly, 2TB Western Digital My Passport, 2TB TEAMGROUP T-Force G50, and 4TB TEAMGROUP MP44Q SSD are selling at great prices with up to 23% off. The 2TB TEAMGROUP T-Force G50 is an M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD with sequential read speeds of up to 5,000MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 4,500MB/s. The drive has an endurance rating of 1,300 TBW (terabytes written) and features a DRAM-less design. The company specifies a mean time between failures (MTBF) of 3 million hours. The drive includes an "ultra-thin" graphene heat spreader that helps dissipate heat without significantly increasing the drive's thickness. It also supports S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, allowing compatible software to monitor drive health and operating status. The SSD is rated for operating temperatures from 0°C to 70°C, with a storage temperature range of -40°C to 85°C. The drive is backed by a five-year limited warranty as well. 2TB TEAMGROUP T-Force G50 SSD: $269.99 (Amazon US) The TEAMGROUP MP44Q is an M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD that delivers sequential read speeds of up to 7,000MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 5,900MB/s. It uses 3D QLC NAND flash memory to provide 4TB of storage capacity for games, applications, media files, and other data. The drive has an endurance rating of 2,000 TBW and an MTBF of 1.6 million hours. The SSD features a DRAM-less design and supports TEAMGROUP's S.M.A.R.T. monitoring software, allowing users to monitor drive health, temperature, and remaining lifespan. For thermal management, the MP44Q also includes an "ultra-thin" graphene heat spreader. It is designed to operate at temperatures between 0°C and 70°C and can be stored at temperatures ranging from -40°C to 85°C. The SSD is also backed by a five-year limited warranty. 4TB TEAMGROUP MP44Q SSD: $478.99 (Amazon US) The 2TB WD My Passport SSD connects via a USB-C port using the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface. It delivers sequential read speeds of up to 1,050MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 1,000MB/s through NVMe technology. In terms of security features, the drive includes password protection with 256-bit AES hardware encryption. The SSD is also designed to resist shock and vibration and is rated to withstand drops from heights of up to 6.5 feet. The recommended operating temperature range is 5°C to 35°C, while the non-operating temperature range is -20°C to 65°C. This drive is also backed by a five-year limited warranty. 2TB Western Digital My Passport SSD: $279.99 (Amazon US) Good to know This Amazon deal is U.S. specific, and not available in other regions unless specified. We only use first-party seller links (at the time of article publishing); ensure that you purchase from a first-party seller link only. Check out Today's Deals on Amazon | or our recent tech deals. Become a Prime member (for Students or SNAP) via Neowin Get Prime Access - Prime for half price (for qualifying Medicaid, EBT, SNAP) Subscribe to Prime Video, Audible Plus, Music Unlimited or Kindle Unlimited via Neowin As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Woland13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Woland13 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      491
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      225
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      147
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      74
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!