911 calls from Seattle campus shooting released

Associated Press Videos

Seattle Students Remember Classmate

SEATTLE (AP) — One student talks to 911 operators while a classmate attempts to tend to his bleeding neck and chest. Two other callers after witnessing the shooting at a small Seattle university calmly describe their location, the shooter and the chilling scene.

"He walked up behind this guy," the caller said, adding moments later: "There were two people standing there. And this guy walked up behind one of them, lifted his rifle and shot directly."

A day after a lone gunman armed with a shotgun opened fire at Seattle Pacific University, Seattle police released three 911 calls recorded shortly after the shooting. The calls reflect a mix of shock, calmness and swift action by students, witnesses and faculty.

The 911 calls show "the remarkable calm and resourcefulness of students, faculty, and other witnesses," police wrote.

Police said the shooter, who killed a 19-year-old freshman student and wounded two other young people, had 50 additional shotgun shells and a hunting knife. He said after his arrest that he wanted to kill as many people as possible before taking his own life, Seattle police wrote in a statement filed in court Friday.

The suspect, Aaron Ybarra, 26, was ordered held without bail on Friday. He was arrested at the scene after a student tackled him when he was reloading his shotgun, police said.

Students Help Stop Gunman at Seattle UniversityPlay Video

In one of the recordings, a student calls 911 after his classmate runs into a classroom bleeding from the neck. Operators then talk to the wounded student in an attempt to get a description of the suspect.

"There's someone shot. I was hit with shrapnel," the student said. "Looks like birdshot according to the person that is patching me up."

"Someone was hit directly... and immediately fell," he adds.

After the student who died was identified as Paul Lee from Portland, Oregon, students began mourning their classmate, leaving notes, posting a picture and praying at a makeshift flower memorial near Otto Miller hall, where the shooting happened.

Lee's friend and classmate Ben Purcell said he was supposed to meet Lee to study on the hour the shooting happened, but was running late. Lee went ahead to Otto Miller without Purcell.

One Dead in Seattle Campus ShootingPlay Video

"He went over and got shot," Purcell said, shortly after praying at the memorial on Friday. He had learned two hours earlier Lee was the man killed.

"Paul cared about God and people in a special way. And that's what I want to do too," Purcell said.

Purcell also left a note on the memorial. It said in part: "I wish we had gotten together earlier to study, because then you wouldn't have been shot."

Wounded in the shooting were Sarah Williams, 19, who remained in intensive care Saturday, and Thomas Fowler, 24, who has been discharged.

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—Seattle university shooting 911 calls: http://bit.ly/1kNVZdj

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Manuel Valdes can be reached at http://twitter.com/ByManuelValdes

Bob Bergdahl, father of U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, speaks during a news conference as his wife Jani looks on at the Idaho National Guard headquarters in Boise, Idaho June 1, 2014. REUTERS/Brian Losness

By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON Idaho (Reuters) - The father of Bowe Bergdahl, the Idaho soldier released from captivity in a controversial prisoner swap with the Taliban, has received emailed death threats that authorities are investigating, an Idaho police chief said on Saturday.

The first of the death threats sent to Bob Bergdahl at his home near Hailey, Idaho, was received on Wednesday, the same day the city canceled a planned rally celebrating the release of his son, Hailey Police Chief Jeff Gunter said.

"There were four specific emails with death threats given to the FBI and they are looking into it,” Gunter told Reuters in an interview.

Authorities are providing security to Bob Bergdahl and his wife, Jani, but Gunter declined to elaborate on those measures.

Bergdahl's release after being held for nearly five years in Afghanistan provoked an angry backlash in Congress among lawmakers over the Obama administration's failure to notify them in advance. Some of Bergdahl's former comrades have charged that he was captured in 2009 after deserting his post.

U.S. military leaders have said the circumstances of Bergdahl’s capture are unclear, with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging critics to wait for all the facts to be known before rushing to judgment on Bergdahl.

The threats came as Hailey, a tourist community of some 8,000 people in the mountains of central Idaho, was buffeted by hundreds of vitriolic phone calls and emails.

The celebratory spirit that infused Hailey a week ago with news of Bergdahl’s release turned to apprehension as an onslaught of angry messages were directed at city officials, businesses and friends of the Bergdahls over a hometown rally to mark his freedom planned for June 28.

As many as 15,000 supporters and protesters were expected to descend on Hailey for an event that would have overwhelmed the resources and infrastructure of the remote mountain town and potentially risked public safety and property, city officials have said.

Residents of the close-knit community have been surprised and dismayed by an angry backlash that seemed to fault them for seeking to aid the Bergdahls in a time of need, Gunter said.

“We’ve always come together in tragedy or crisis, whether it be fire or one of our own being a prisoner of war. Whatever the problem is, the community will be there to help the people experiencing it,” he said.

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Paul Tait)

Death threats made against Bergdahl’s family

The father of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has received several hate emails, an Idaho police chief says.
Federal agents investigating

PARIS (AP) — Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has told people treating him at a U.S. military medical facility in Germany that he was tortured, beaten and held in a cage by his Taliban captors in Afghanistan after he tried to escape, a senior U.S. official said Sunday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss what Bergdahl has revealed about the conditions of his captivity.

The official said it was difficult to verify the accounts Bergdahl has given since his release a week ago.

Bergdahl, now 28, was captured in June 2009 after he disappeared from his infantry unit. He was held for nearly five years by Taliban militants.

The New York Times reported Sunday that military doctors at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany say that while Bergdahl is physically able to travel he's not yet emotionally prepared to be reunited with his family. He has not yet spoken to his family.

Bergdahl was returned to the U.S. military in exchange for the release of five Taliban militants from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The deal, which the White House brokered without consulting Congress, ignited a political firestorm that shows no signs of abating.

Lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, who initially praised Bergdahl's release, quickly backed off amid questions about whether he was a deserter who walked away from his post and an outcry over the exchange. Some of Bergdahl's fellow soldiers maintain that Americans died during efforts to find and save him.

On Wednesday, Bergdahl's hometown of Hailey, Idaho, abruptly canceled plans for a welcome-home celebration, citing security concerns. And on Saturday, the FBI said Bergdahl's family had received threats that are being investigated by federal, state and local authorities.

Oh, no. Russia is mad at us again.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has vowed to punish the U.S. for imposing sanctions over his nation's invasion of Crimea. After being included on the list of targets for sanctions, Rogozin released rapid-fire statements last month in which he:

• objected to the Pentagon using Russian equipment to launch U.S. military satellites
• promised to block the sale of Russian RD-180 rocket engines to U.S. space launch company United Launch Alliance (ULA)
• threatened to terminate "cooperation" with the United States on the International Space Station -- presumably by denying U.S. astronauts rides to the ISS aboard Russian rockets
• mocked America's too-early termination of its space shuttle program, quipping: "I propose that the United States delivers its astronauts to the ISS with the help of a trampoline."

So I guess you could say that relations between the United States and Russia are not particularly strong right now. And with the U.S. lacking a single operating spacecraft certified for manned spaceflight, this poses something of a problem.

But fear not. The U.S. Air Force is searching for a solution.

An end to outsourcing national security
Commenting on the impasse, Air Force Undersecretary Eric Fanning said it's time for the U.S. to "explore ways to mitigate our reliance on the RD-180." (That's the Russian engine that ULA partners Boeing (NYSE: BA ) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT ) use to power the core stage of their Atlas V rocket.) Responding to Rogozin's threats, the Pentagon set up a committee under retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Howard Mitchell to recommend options to deal with the RD-180 issue. It quickly came up with the obvious one.

We need a new rocket engine.

One made in the U.S. of A.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel agrees. In recent testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, Hagel said, "I don't think there's any question" but that the U.S. needs to begin building its own heavy rocket engines.

Why? Because the Pentagon says our dwindling supply of RD-180 rocket engines means that in just 22 months, space launches will become "not supportable."

How to fix the problem
So how will we ensure America's continued access to space? Fanning believes developing an alternate engine via a "public-private partnership" between the Air Force and private industry may be the way to go. The good news is that several American companies -- publicly traded entities that you can invest in -- are already hard at work developing alternatives to the RD-180.

The better news is that you really only need to know three of them.

Photo: ATK.

Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK )
Space-tech specialist Alliant builds the solid-fuel rocket boosters that help lift America's rockets into space. Alliant's boosters were used on the space shuttles, and have been chosen to power NASA's shuttle replacement, the "space launch system," or SLS. Alliant was also chosen as one of a handful of companies working on ways to improve the affordability, reliability, and performance of our boosters, for use on the SLS as a new "advanced booster."

NASA expects the improved design to generate "more thrust than any existing U.S. liquid- or solid-fueled boosters," enabling the launch of up to 143-ton payloads aboard the SLS. The space agency plans to execute the first SLS test flight as early as 2017, sending an unmanned spacecraft into lunar orbit.

Orbital's Antares. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Orbital Sciences (NYSE: ORB )
In 2010, NASA named Orbital as one of several space tech companies permitted to compete for development work on a new heavy-lift rocket engine to power the SLS. The company's biggest rocket engine today is the Antares, used to lift Cygnus unmanned spacecraft to the ISS on resupply missions. Antares is only capable of lifting payloads of 5,000 kilograms, however. That's barely a quarter of what's needed to get even an Atlas V launcher into low-earth orbit.

Orbital is due to merge with Alliant later this year, combining two strong players in space tech into one -- and potentially accelerating the rocket development efforts of each.

Testing the cutting-edge JX-2 engine. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

GenCorp (NYSE: GY )
Arguably the company to beat in this race, rocket tech shop GenCorp has assembled a rocket-science powerhouse by combining its own Aerojet operation with what used to beUnited Technologies' Rocketdyne. The new Aerojet Rocketdyne manufactures the RS-25 rocket engine, which powered space shuttles for 30 years. In fact, GenCorp now owns an entire family of proven, half-built, and still-being-worked-out rocket engines, from the RS-25 to the RL-10 to the new RL-60 and J-2X (designed to power the upper stage of SLS launches).

It's also possible (GenCorp did not respond to a request for comment) that GenCorp could build the RD-180 itself. According to some media reports, United Technologies purchased engineering design plans to build the RD-180 from the engine's maker, Russian engineering company Energomash. If those plans, and the rights to build the engine, passed from United Tech to GenCorp when it acquired Rocketdyne, then GenCorp could be in a position to begin manufacturing RD-180s on its own, should Russia follow through on threats to embargo future RD-180 sales.

Foolish final thought
Or not. Domestic manufacture of RD-180s may be a pipe dream. But even if it is, one thing's for sure: Russia's threat to cut off our RD-180 supply has upset the comfortable apple cart upon which ULA was lounging. Now there's a mad scramble of competing companies offering competing ideas for how to regain U.S. space launch independence.

Innovation has been unleashed, and going forward prices will fall, and dependence on Russia will vanish.

Indian minister says rapes happen 'accidentally'

New Delhi (AFP) - A minister from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party has said rapes happen "accidentally" in the latest controversial remarks by a politician amid renewed anger over attacks against women.

Ramsevak Paikra, the home minister of central Chhattisgarh state who is responsible for law and order, said late on Saturday that rapes did not happen on purpose.

"Such incidents (rapes) do not happen deliberately. These kind of incidents happen accidentally," Paikra, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which also rules at the national level, told reporters.

Paikra, who was asked for his thoughts on the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in a neighbouring state, later said he had been misquoted. His original remarks were broadcast on television networks.

The remarks come days after the home minister of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh state said rapes were "sometimes right, sometimes wrong".

The minister, Babulal Gaur, gave the remarks on Thursday at a time of growing outrage over the gang-rape and murder of the girls, aged 12 and 14, in northern Uttar Pradesh state late last month.

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demonstrators argue with a policewomen during a protest against the rec …

Modi, whose party came to power in a landslide election victory, has so far stayed silent over the rapes and has not addressed the politicians' comments.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav faced severe criticism for his perceived insensitivity over the attacks on the low-caste girls, who were found hanging from a mango tree after being sexually assaulted multiple times.

Yadav's father Mulayam Singh -- leader of the Samajwadi Party -- was also the target of public anger in April when he told an election rally that he opposed the recently introduced death penalty for gang-rapists, saying "boys make mistakes".

Women's groups have slammed the comments, saying they were evidence that politicians were unable to stem sexual violence because they lacked respect for India's women and were ignorant of the issues.

Politicians also came under fire after the fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December 2012, a crime that angered the nation and shone a global spotlight on India's treatment of women.

India brought in tougher rape laws last year after the Delhi attack, but they have failed to stem the tide of violence against women across the country.

At the time, several politicians sought to blame tight jeans, short skirts and other Western influences for the country's rise in rapes, while the head of a village council pointed to chowmein which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.

Rapes happen 'accidentally,' Indian minister says

Stoking anger over attacks against women, a ruling-party minister claims "such incidents do not happen deliberately."
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