Gunman in Carlsbad school shooting was carrying jack-o'-lantern as he opened fire, wounding 2 students [Updated]

A gunman dressed in black and carrying a Halloween jack-o'-lantern or can of gasoline wounded two students at an elementary school in Carlsbad, Calif., before being tackled by construction workers.

Ed Willins, who was nearby when the incident occurred, said he saw the workers tackle the gunman. "They were on him immediately," he told The Times. "They administered a little street justice on him before the cops got there." 

Shortly after noon, the gunman rolled up to Kelly Elementary School in his car, said Lt. Kelly Cain of the Carlsbad Police Department. Armed with a .357-caliber handgun, Cain said, the assailant stepped onto the sidewalk next to the playground and started firing "wildly."

Two students suffered "non-life threatening" graze wounds and were being treated by doctors, officials said, and the bomb squad was called to examine a propane tank found in the gunman's car.

After the shooting, parents were notified and came to pick up their children at the school, located in an upper middle-class neighborhood with tall trees and a spacious park.

[Upated at 3:24 p.m.: Construction worker Carlos Partida said he saw the suspect firing his gun at the children. He said the gunman appeared to be reloading and trying to leave the scene when he jumped in his truck and rammed the man, knocking him down.

“My reaction was to get him. Get him away from the kids,” he said. Partida said he and two other construction workers held the gunman down until police arrived.

The two children were airlifted to Rady Children’s Hospital. Witnesses said they did not appear to be seriously injured as they were taken to the aircraft and that one of them even waved to onlookers.

It was an emotional scene outside the school as parents arrived to pick up their children. Many were sobbing. “I looked in his eyes and it was scary,” one little girl said of the gunman.]

Cain said the gunman, described as a white male in his 20s, has given three names, one of them a woman's name. Witnesses said the gunman was "ranting" and may have mentioned the president.

[Update 11:20 p.m.: Authorities late Friday discredited initial reports that the gunman ranted about President Obama during shooting. They identified the alleged gunman as Brendan L. O’Rourke, 41.

O'Rourke was booked on six counts of attempted murder and numerous weapons violations, police said. He is being held at the San Diego County jail in Vista.]

-- Tony Perry in Carlsbad, Calif.

Photo: A woman comforts a distraught woman after a lone gunman came on to the campus of nearby Kelly Elementary School in Carlsbad, Calif. Credit: Hayne Palmour IV / North County Times

 See more photos here.

Comments

[Christina]

I am a 21 year old student with no kids of my own, but I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for saving the lives of innocent children. The world is in desperate need of more people like you.

[Rader13]

Heroes - Ordinary people doing extra-ordinary deeds. Bravo to these ordinary people who probably saved some lives!

[A.R.]

And I suppose now the nutjobs will want to arm the students? How do these delusional gun nuts get away with murder? Time after time - day after day - guns are killing innocents. And the answer is more guns? Following that logic we'll all be dead in a few years. A collective Darwin award to all gun nuts killed defending their non-existent right to be stupid at our expense.

[Tama Raw1]

We should be thankful to brave men like Carlos Partida and his co-workers who risk their lives to save others especially our own children. This heroic act should be in the headline and the six o'clock news! They should be rewarded and recognized by at least the San Diego City Council and the San Diego PD. Without their presence of mind and willingness to confront evil, this would have been another potential disaster in our public schools.

[Pilot Shop]

Michelle: You are wrong. Easy access to firearms is not the cause of these incidents. They happen because of poor education, stupidity, malice, or mental disease.

You can kill people with knifes, broom sticks, bottles, screwdrivers, cable, spears, arrows, baseball bats, rocks, cars, gasoline, nails, and much more. Do you realize that you only need imagination to make a gun that can kill people? do you want to criminalize thinking?

[Blaine H]

Tea Partier? Can you say Stereotyping???

[travis]

Sounds like this guy is having real mental difficulties maybe accompanied by schizophrenic delusions. It may be obvious in stating this but I don’t think a person unaided by psychotropic drugs or manifestations of a mental disorder would behave in this manner.

[dozer]

If they would relax gun laws, law abiding citizens can deal with the crazies.

[Wendy]

Are you people serious? What kool-aid are you all drinking? We don't need more gun laws--he broke a zillion laws as it was doing what he did. How would more gun laws control lawless people? Guns exist. There is no way to go back 500 years and pretend they were never invented. Therefore, even if they were completely criminalized, they would still be sold on the black market. If that gunman had been reasonably certain that someone in the vicinity was also carrying a gun, however, he never would have attempted such a stupid stunt at all. Yay, undocumented workers? As if you have to be illegal to be a good Samaritan? Who says he was even illegal, just because he has a hispanic name? Don't you think that is a little bit racist, as in all people of Mexican descent are illegal? Oh, someone thinks Obama's name was mentioned, therefore must be a Tea Partier? You know, the only people who are actually wreaking havoc at these Tea Party events are anti-Tea Party crashers who show up pretending to belong there to purposely act like jackasses and give them a bad name.

All I can say is that I am SOOOOOOOOO glad I don't live in California. As far as I'm concerned most Californians are a different species. You people--or whatever you are--make me sick.

[Jim]

God bless Carlos Partida and his fellow construction worker for taking this murderor down. I Hope they beat the living crap out of him.

[Freddy G. (Phoenix, Az.)]

Wow, all thanks to you Mr.Carlos Partida for being there and... being the angel for the Angels! Wussy gunman, welcome to General Population!

[jojo]

Street Justice Excellent...my heroes!!!

[Steve]

Good thing we have decent people putting their time and resources into shutting these mosques down, we can't let this violence continue! Yes, I know it's stupid, that was my point. Chances are if you are killed in this country it's going to be by a Christian and if it's at work or school or random public shooting the assailant is likely going to be white but we sure aren't going to hear about young white males banned from anything.
Let's put some time into figuring out why this happens and how to prevent it rather than focusing on something that really doesn't matter.

[Shane]

@ Michelle:

If someone wants to commit a crime with a gun, they will always find a way to obtain one illegally or legally. One can easily obtain an illegal firearm on the street and stricter gun control laws will not do anything about this.

[tom thumb]

re: marlena: read the article, hes white
re: joe: everyone with a latin name is an illegal immigrant, huh? not racist one bit there. way to needlessly racially charge and politicize an act of selflessness. I am sure you would not have acted similarly in these conditions.

[Reddbeard]

Would have ran over and backed over a few times. Death penalty imo

[Raton]

Sorry Michelle, but you don't seem to understand. We DO need to liberalize the gun laws more; then, this guy would have been popped before he was able to even do what he did. Don't you see that after a long succession of tighter gun laws, we've just ended up back at the old adage "if you criminalize handguns, only criminals will have handguns". I imagine this is a very unpopular view in this left-wing delusional forum, but it's true.

[Heisenberg]

This is the second story I've read in two days about a working-class Mexican American man risking his life to save a child.

Where are all the racist "Mexicans go home" posts now?

Good job, fellas. You're both heroes.

[My Truth Hurts]

The second good citizen news item of the week! First the man who saved the kidnapped girl, and now these guys disarming a lunatic.

My hat is off to these brave and selfless men putting themselves into the middle of it to help these poor children. Our society could used more good men like this.

[Ambergris]

Hey, let's liberalize gun laws some more. After all people seem to have such a hard time accessing guns now adays. How many more school shootings, on the job shootings, crimes of passion, etc. do we need to witness before somebody wakes up and puts in some serious gun control laws?

Posted by: Michelle | October 08, 2010 at 03:54 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We already have serious gun control laws but those media hungry criminals ignore them to get their fifteen minutes of fame.

Will somebody wake up and legislate some mainstream media control laws?

[konasurf]

Do not EVER mess with construction workers. Ever! Way to go, guys! Heroes, man!

[mel counts]

Hats of to the constuction workers. Michelle who posted about gun laws how would you like to have been living in the warsaw ghetto when they came to put you on a train to a death camp. It could not happen in the United States? That is what German citizens also said. I do not like guns either but I want the right to go purchase one if I change my mind. I also think the NRA are a bunch of creeps and crazys.

[rob]

Thay ran him over?? Citizen's arrest with STYLE. We need more citizens who are action oriented, especially with PD arrival times so long.

And for liberalizing gun control- stricter gun control just makes the balance of power shift in the favor of the criminals. Think.

[Jose]

How do those construction workers know what those kids might have done to that guy? Maybe they were asking for it.

[Adrian]

Long live the freedom to possess guns! Keep on, America