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A 97-year-old, an elderly wife and husband: These are the 11 victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre
Thousands of people jammed an intersection amid light rain for a vigil Saturday evening for the victims of a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue earlier in the day. The gathering included prayers and singing in memory of those killed and wounded.(Oct. 27)
AP
The Jewish congregants were there to celebrate life, but were met by death. Most never had a chance.
Just before 10 a.m. Saturday, suspected gunman Robert Bowers, 46, burst into the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh and, yelling ?All Jews must die,? killed 11 before himself being wounded and taken into custody.
The list of those killed Saturday included middle-aged brothers, an elderly husband and wife and a grandmother nearing 100.
Many of them were there for a naming…
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Right now a story from Time: These Are the Victims of the Jacksonville Madden Tournament Shooting
Condolences to the families and best wishes for the full recovery of those injured.
One was a championship-winning video game competitor with a young son. The other was a rising competitive gaming star who was just getting started.
The Jacksonville Sheriff?s Office identified competitive video game players Elijah Clayton, 22, and Taylor Robertson, 28, as the two victims who passed away when a gunmanopened fire at a live video game tournament in Jacksonville, Fla. They were known best in the gaming community by their aliases Trueboy and SpotMePlzzzz, respectively.
Police said the suspected shooter was David Katz, a 24-year-old video game competitor from Baltimore, who opened fire at The Landing shopping center in Jacksonville, where players competed in EA Sports?s Madden NFL 19 championship series. The horrific mass…
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The Life and Death of Georgia Sheriff Deputy Kyle Dinkheller
In my research for the series Defining Black Lives Matter, I found some articles about Blue Lives Matter. I was going to include the following in a part of the series, but decided that this needs its own post. It is about Georgia Sheriff Deputy Kyle Dinkheller. First, please watch the video. When I first watched it, I fell to my knees sobbing. It’s one of those painful things that we need to watch to see what humans do to other humans, and should remind us of the precious gift of life.

Convicted cop-killer Andrew Brannan
Andrew Brannan was convicted of the 1998 murder of Laurens County, Georgia sheriff deputy Kyle Dinkheller. Deputy Dinkheller was 22-years old when he was murdered. Dinkheller pulled Brannan over for driving 98 mph. Brannan used a M-1 carbine rifle. At the time, Brannan was 49 years old when he deliberately shot Officer Dinkheller 9 times, the last shot being in the eye.
Brannan was found the next day. He had been wounded in the stomach. He was taken alive.
Officer Dinkheller left behind an expectant wife and 22-month-old daughter when he died on January 12, 1998. Deputy Dinkheller’s son was born in September 1998. Read the rest of this entry
Umpqua Community College Shooting Victims
Victims of the Oregon community college shooting.
Top row from left to right:
Lucero Alcaraz, 19; Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18; Treven Taylor Anspach, 20; Sarena Dawn Moore, 44;
Bottom row from left to right:
Professor Lawrence Levine, 67; Lucas Eibel, 18; Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59, and Jason Dale Johnson, 34.
The names and/or condition of the wounded have not been released.

Butterfly tears by Dandelion Lion
Putting Victims on Trial
Shannoninmiami submitted the following comment:
“Yahtzee,
That is such an awesome idea- videos of the victim before the killer &co vilify them. but then I remember xena telling me a long time ago, that the victim is not on trial,
they don’t need to defend themselves! isn’t that some BS??@!! because I remember thinking of course, that makes perfect sense or THEY WOULDN’T BE the VICTIM, they’d be the DEFENDANT!that’s true technically but things have changed. the media & the legal profession seem to be devolving into game show like entertainment sources. the ones who used to respect & speak for the victims aren’t really doing that in certain cases.
victims aren’t treated as victims. but in order for a dead victim to have a fair chance at justice they gotta be the victim.Maybe we need a sort of special victim’s defense team who can speak out on the victim’s behalf and counter attack the killer’s allegations.
look at cases like Mike Brown & Trayvon where racist character assassination is used as a defense for murder, literally.
it seems anything goes, even fantastic stories of dead teenagers with super human strength and magical powers”
Thank you Shannon, for bringing up this subject. Today, the media and internet have changed things to where many people no longer think logically. In fact, the double-minded man is revealed more today because of the internet, and we see this when people place victims on trial.
I would like to share a portion of how I came to understand that victims are not on trial.
On December 1, 1958, Our Lady of Angels School in Chicago caught fire, killing 93 children and 3 nuns. Some of the children that died were my age. I remember seeing the photographs of those who died on television and in the newspaper that my dad brought home with him from work. So many children.
In my child, inquisitive mind, I asked my Sunday School teacher if the children had done anything wrong to die so young and by fire. My thoughts were somewhat along the lines of Santa Claus giving presents only to children who were good.

Victims of Richard Speck
The next I remember hearing of massive death came by Richard Speck, who on July 13, 1966, killed 8 nursing students in Chicago. There was talk in the beauty shops and meat market. Rumors were passed about the immorality of the nursing students and some people disagreed that White nursing students should have shared living quarters with nursing students from the Philippines. It left me puzzled. How could those nursing students be responsible for their own deaths and why accuse the lone survivor, who was from the Philippines, of conspiring with Speck? Read the rest of this entry