For the second time in a week someone has fired off a gun in Palo Alto’s residential neighborhoods, and police want to find the culprit.
Officers first responded to four calls reporting multiple gunshots on Feb. 16 at about 3:45 a.m. at the corner of Loma Verde Avenue and Maddux Drive in the Midtown neighborhood, according to police. They did not find anyone, and the bullets apparently didn’t strike any property or people. A resident found several bullet casings near the intersection the next morning, however, and notified police.
Palo Alto police Agent Marianna Villaescusa said a second incident occurred on Tuesday, Feb. 21, at 5:15 a.m. Police received numerous calls about shots being fired in the 4200 block of Los Palos Avenue near Arastradero Road, across the street from Juana Briones Park. Officers arrived in less than one minute after receiving the calls and found several bullet casings at the scene, she said.
Police are comparing shell casings from the two incidents to see if they are connected, she said.
“We don’t know why (the gunmen) are doing it — if they are trying to intimidate someone,” Villaescusa said.
By Sue Dremann
By Sue Dremann
By Sue Dremann
And guns are meant to be safe???
Tighten our gun laws to prevent the next case of this killing someone!
What kind of shell casings were they? The cops should ask residents to report suspicious people who own guns compatible with those casings.
Resident:
How do you know that the gun in question is legal? I personally have no idea, but given that the vast majority of crimes involving a firearm involve an illegal one, tightening the law isn’t likely to do much good.
“The cops should ask residents to report suspicious people who own guns compatible with those casings.”
What? Are you aware of which of your neighbors have guns and what types they are? If you (heaven forbid) have guns, are your neighbors aware of their details? Have you considered that even in the unlikely event the people in this area are fully aware of the firearms owned by everyone else, the gun(s) that fired these casings were very likely brought from out of the area? Is there intelligent life on your planet?
Asking for tips from the public about guns isn’t going to work every time. Asking for tips based on vague suspect descriptions doesn’t work every time either (or even most of the time), but the cops still try. What do the cops have to lose by trying?
Not easy
I feel sure that most guns involved in crimes like this were once legally held and got into the wrong hands.
It is for reasons like this that we need to tighten up our gun laws. http://www.ktvu.com/ap/ap/education/8-year-old-critical-after-wash-school-shooting/nJyzr/
The police haven’t reported what type the cases were. Evidently there were 7 cases recovered from Maddux.
As for those who own guns: parents, go check your guns. My personal guess? A kid who got a parent’s gun and is fooling around.
Okay, we should all know that tightening gun laws WON’T change a thing. The guns used in any crime are almost always throw-aways! They are NOT purchased by the shooter at the local gun shop with his ID and fingerprints (or his own credit card!) They are stolen, used and re-sold to the next person. So throw that theory out the door.
I can’t say how those criminals can be caught, but gun laws don’t stop or detour them in any way.
PS. I don’t own or even like guns, so I am not some gun activist – I just use common sense.
Heeeeeelllllloooooo! It’s not the guns nor the laws that are the problem, it’s the people using them in such irresponsible ways. Sheesh
Rather than hashing out the decades old gun-control argument, lets all try to be a little more pragmatic – keep an eye out for unfamiliar people and cars in your neighborhoods, and try to jot down plate numbers and descriptions when you can.
The first incident was at 4:30am, and from another thread on here, it sounded like someone may have got a description even then. The 2nd one was at 5:15pm – full daylight and everyone awake.
No need to panic (even though it is very scary!) but just keep calm and observe and we’ll have a much better chance of catching this person.
If they would say the caliber of the shells, it would be helpful to know if they were related, and if we are looking at a pistol or a rifle.
Interesting that the Police have not identified the caliber of the weapon(s) used, or made claims that the same weapon was used both times.
Has the Weekly pushed them on this?
Oh, and any chance the shooter was using blanks?
BTW–any chance the EPA gun shot detection system picked up anything?
If guns weren’t so easily available to just about anyone, there wouldn’t be so many guns on the black market:guess where those guns originated. Our society seems to be on a suicide mission. The society with the most stupid, delusional and violent people allows everybody to own an arsenal of weapons.
> If guns weren’t so easily available to just about anyone,
> there wouldn’t be so many guns on the black market
And where do “so many gun” originate?
(Maybe it’s time for this poster to google “gun walker” and “fast and furious”.0
Same thing has been happening up in the hills where we live … near Foothills Park.
Twice in the past month we’ve been awkened in the middle of the night (once at 2 am, once at 4:30 am) by gunfire.
To “by what kind of gun”, Ever hear of Nazi Germany? “are you or your neighbors hiding jews?” Even if you knew from having dinner, going to the range, or a hunting trip, what firearms I owned, that is none of your business to go call the authorities up.
I am convinced, it truly is the PRC (PEOPLES REPUBLIC CALIFORNIA) Just wait till they start handing out the uniforms and send us all to work camps.
they’ll send you to work camps for smokin’ pot. they want to.
My question is, why did it take till last night (Feb.22) for me to learn about these incidents on the 10:00’clock news. If the first one was last
Thursday, I think we should have been notified by the police or perhaps via Palo Alto online as soon as this happened. What happen to safety
and keeping the public informed?
@helene: Actually, the first report appeared on the forum last Thursday.
Ditto. First Maddux incident seemed mixed up with the Colorado 7-Eleven armed robbery. Thurs Feb 16 3:45am vs Thurs Feb 16 6:15am, do I have those times right?
If it were blanks the cops would know, the cases are very different. The only way to have cases which didn’t show as being blanks would be if the shooter were firing wax bullets (a la Cowboy Action Shooting).
Making a semi-auto (implied from the recovery of casings from the location) cycle with blanks requires modifications to the weapon (a way to block the gasses, so the slide will actuate. Those modifications can be reversed, but not in a trivial amount of time (for a handgun, rifles can be much easier to temporarily modify).
It seems quite likely the shot locator was used, since the cartridge cases were found in short order, in the dark/early morning twilight.
TK
SSG, USA (ret)
Unit Armorer
According to an email from Chief Burns being circulated to the Midtown Residents Association, the ShotSpotter didn’t pick up anything because the detectors were too far away to be of any use.
TK – I appreciate the background. I had wondered about blanks too b/c (thankfully) we haven’t heard about the bullets coming down anywhere.
Query: I’ve often seen footage of soldiers and Marines training with red “blocks” on the muzzles of their rifles. Is that what you are talking about with blanks and the gas system?
Thanks for your service!!
The Second Amendment gives Apericans the right to own guns. Since an unusable gun denies the basic purpose of gun ownership, it also gives the right to use them. Denying that right is a taking under the Fifth Amendment.
The police ought to focus their attention on substantial issues, like illegal immigrants, not on harrassing people exercising their Constitutional rights.
As a conceal carry holder, and an avid shooter, Eilleen, this is a big issue! You cannot be shooting in the middle of a residential area. The bigger issue the response, and what this will mean for the 99.9999% of responsible gun owners. (yea unlike the 99% we are actually 99.999%) Having people rat you out because you won guns, is Nazi, and making gun control harder, in a an already ridiculous state is a joke. All these liberals seem to think you can buy a gun in 5 minutes on every street corner. I dare you to go to a sporting good store and try to purchase a weapon, fill out the paperwork, feel like a criminal (purchasing firearms in california is a very emotionless cold process, when compared to other states) and wait your 10 days… its BS and does nothing to keep you safe.
Eileen Wright – your post was convoluted & had some typos. What are you trying to say?
Ronnie – why do you think that the shooters would be outsiders?
Now you all know what we go through. It’s scary, isn’t it? I’m glad the bullets haven’t found a live target.
Yes, the red blocks are blank adapters. They are a metal cage, which fits around the muzzle brake, and there is a steel rod which blocks the muzzle (think Bugs Bunny with his finger in Elmer Fudd’s rifle).
The amount of powder required to cycle the action is pretty small.
If, however, anyone were to fire a live round, the result would be a burst barrel (at the very least). Converting a pistol requires a different barrel, so; as I think about it more, it could, depending on the weapon, be anything from about 30 seconds, to as long as twenty minutes, to swap a blank adapted barrel to a standard barrel.
Thought it was just my imagination and shrugged it off on Tuesday, but I heard several other shots last night as well.
I heard one shot last night around 10:40, but it was a transformer or circuit breaker event associated with a momentary electrical power glitch. I think other neighborhoods may have had a more prolonged blackout, but I saw nothing in the news. At any rate, plenty of things can sound like gunshots if that’s what a person is primed to hear. Shot-spotter systems have algorithms to discriminate firecrackers or backfires, thunder or the garbage truck, but still get false positives.
I have to wonder if the person shooting the firearms is helping to provide cover for another crime (you shoot your gun off on this side of town at X time and I’ll rob the store at the same time—a lot of police already sent elsewhere).
?
Guns are Bad, since too many people have them.
unless someone is really a hunter for meat (but typically hunters just want the thrill from killing an animal. We should not need guns.
Thankfully, no one was killed or injured in these incidents. However, before we over-react to this situation, consider that cars driven by arrogant and irresponsible drivers (common in Palo Alto), also kill people. Before we suggest taking away a right granted by the Constitution, let’s consider banning a far greater danger that isn’t specifically mentioned in the Constitution – the “right” of incompetent individuals to possess and drive deadly weapons. Or are the shallow people of Palo Alto too ignorant and self-absorbed to understand reality?
Sorry, Jim, your argument is flawed. Driving isn’t a right, but a privilege. You’re right about the arrogant drivers, though. Unfortunately, there’s no current test for driver arrogance. Would love to see that – arrogance checkpoints, too :-))
Speaking of arrogant drivers, did you see the People Behaving Badly news segment featuring EPA? It was incredible. I think a cop may have been one of the filmed. Ad rivers, off duty.
im afraid that this may only be the tip of the iceberg
Some people say cars are bad and that we really don’t need them.
But isn’t gun control like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.?
Aren’t most gun crimes committed by people who are already criminals and shouldn’t have been allowed to own guns any way? If big government can’t prevent criminals from obtaining guns by enforcing the thousands of laws already on the books, what makes anyone think that they’d be any more capable of enforcing any new laws?