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Senior Member
Join Date: August 10, 2001
Location: Austin, Texas
Posts: 1,160
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More mass murder in Sacramento :(
Well, this past weekend was a doozy - I turned 31 on Sunday - on Saturday, my wife and I were borrowing my cousins '99 4Runner and I got in an accident in it  Sunday we just relaxed and did nothing so we missed this story:
Appologies if this has been posted - I didnt see it.
A few things:
1. The Hiway 50 and Zinfandel - that is about a block from the apartment I lived in 2 years ago and I also worked at 2 big companies right there.
2. This seems to be giving momentum to the handgun licensing laws that were stalling out a week ago.
3. They make it a point to point out that he had armor piercing ammo.
And this one - I think I should put this on my application for my CCW permit 
Quote:
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``He told those two individuals he would not harm them,'' said Sacramento County Sheriff Lou Blanas. ``But ultimately, he shot the man anyway.''
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Yeah - dont buy into the whole "go along" stand your ground and fight back.
Quote:
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/partners/docs/016791.htm
Gunman's short, horrific lifeincluded fascinations with guns, neo-Nazism, Timothy McVeigh and Charles
Manson -- and victimization by his mother, according to court records.
BY MICHELLE GUIDO
Mercury News
SACRAMENTO -- Agitated, shirtless under his body armor and holding a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, disgruntled security guard Joseph Ferguson stared straight into the video camera held by a man who would shortly become the fifth life snuffed out in Ferguson's 24-hour killing spree.
``I've taken four victims,'' Ferguson said from the Rancho Cordova home where he held a Burns International Security colleague and his wife hostage for nearly 18 hours before shooting himself to death in a gunbattle with officers. ``That should be enough to last a week in the news.''
In the videotape excerpt released by police, Ferguson spoke about his victims, including former girlfriend Nina Susu, 20, who police suspect was his first and primary target. Police sources said that in other portions of the six-minute tape the killer also railed against his mother, Susan, currently serving a 14-year prison term for sexually molesting him and his younger brother.
The Mercury News has learned that in court files of his parents' divorce -- finalized just last week -- Ferguson's father, Thomas, signed an affidavit in which he said Susan Ferguson had molested all three of their sons, and specified Joseph Ferguson as one of her victims.
Police would not talk about what Ferguson said about his mother on the videotape, but one source said ``he did not speak about her lovingly.''
Also during the tape, Ferguson said he wanted to kill as many police officers and other people as possible and vowed he wouldn't be taken alive.
``Either a bullet to my brain or the (expletive) cops will kill me,'' he said, in a carefully edited, 30-second version of the tape law enforcement released Monday. The edited version made no mention of his mother or his victims.
Ferguson commended himself for putting on ``one hell of a show.''
After making the tape, Ferguson shot the 28-year-old colleague-cameraman, Nikolay Popovich, to death, kidnapped his wife -- who witnessed the carnage -- and stole the couple's 1997 Nissan Altima. He dumped the terrified and shaken woman not far from her home and ordered her to deliver his videotaped message to the police.
Then he sped off to meet the fate he predicted.
A high-speed running gunbattle ensued. Dozens of law enforcement officers, tipped by three women in a car who spotted the fugitive and followed him, chased Ferguson in their cars and returned fire. Ferguson had an arsenal -- including pipe bombs, AK-47s and other semiautomatic and fully automatic weapons with armor-piercing bullets.
In the frenzied seconds of the chase and gunbattle, an order came over the police radio: Ferguson was to be ``stopped at all costs.'' Hundreds of rounds were fired by Ferguson and police.
When he shot himself once under the chin about 11:40 p.m. Sunday, police were relieved.
``His passion and penchant for violence made me horrified at the prospect of harm that was going to fall on the citizens of this community,'' said Sacramento County sheriff's Capt. John McGinness. ``This is our worst nightmare because this guy is a psycho with a lot of guns and sophisticated armor.''
After the rampage, a picture emerged of the gunman.
He was a troubled and hateful youth molested by his own mother. The court files of his parents' divorce confirms that Susan Ferguson pleaded no contest to 20 counts of unlawful oral copulation. He was fascinated with neo-Nazism, Timothy McVeigh and Charles Manson. With his father's help, he amassed a large arsenal kept in a homemade, underground bunker neighbors said also was used as a target range.
Until last week, though, Ferguson never had so much as a brush with the law. But events began spinning out of control quickly.
His parents' divorce became final Wednesday, and he was suspended from his job Thursday for taking an ax to ex-girlfriend Susu's car.
On Friday afternoon, a Burns supervisor called the FBI to report that Ferguson had made general threats of violence and that the company was taking disciplinary action against him, said Special Agent Nick Rossi. An agent called Susu on the job Friday afternoon, and she confirmed that Ferguson had talked to her about ``problems with the company and the possible threat he posed.'' But Susu was unable to tell the FBI anything specific about who Ferguson might be targeting -- other than herself -- and because he had no criminal record, the FBI didn't investigate further.
``We had general threats being made and that's where it was at the end of the day Friday. The tragic thing here is before anything could be done Saturday, he struck,'' Rossi said. ``The unfortunate reality is that information about disgruntled employees who are upset is not uncommon. If he had said, `I'm going to kill so-and-so,' that's one thing. But he didn't.''
Ferguson spent most of the day Saturday target-shooting at a local gun range where he was taking a security course, police said.
And on Saturday night, he began his murderous rampage, starting with Susu.
Sacramento law enforcement officers -- still reeling from the case of immigrant shoemaker Nikolay Soltys, who killed seven members of his family including an unborn fetus and eluded authorities for 10 days -- were working around the clock again to stop the second multiple killer this shaken capital city has seen in three weeks. By late Sunday, CHP, sheriff's and police officers were riding two to a car for extra protection.
The final chapter of Ferguson's brief, angry life came after he fled the couple's home where he apparently had been hiding since about 3 a.m. Sunday.
Police said they believe that at 9 p.m., Ferguson shot and killed the co-worker he forced to videotape his message, then left the home with the man's wife and dropped her off unharmed several miles away.
``He told those two individuals he would not harm them,'' said Sacramento County Sheriff Lou Blanas. ``But ultimately, he shot the man anyway.''
Ferguson fled in the couple's car but was spotted about 11:30 p.m. CHP officer Martin Tapia and his partner, Nick Salmeron, gave chase, while a hail of bullets streamed from Ferguson's car. Tapia was shot twice in the arm and was listed in good condition Monday.
Dozens of officers descended on the area of Zinfandel Drive and Highway 50 and chased Ferguson more than a half-mile to the intersection of Zinfandel Drive and Folsom Avenue, where Ferguson spun his car and hit a light pole.
He then jumped from the stolen vehicle, ran around to the back and kept shooting. A motorist at the intersection was hit in the side by an armor-piercing hollow-point bullet fired from one of Ferguson's AK-47s, as he sat in his car waiting to make a turn, police said.
Within seconds, Ferguson was back in the car, where he shot himself.
His 24-hour rampage was over.
The spree began about 11:20 Saturday night, when police found Susu and Marsha Jackson, a 32-year-old single mother of three in a guard shack at the city Corporation Yard where they both worked for Burns Security. Another Burns guard, George Bernardino, 48, was slain at a marina moments later. John Glimstad, 19, an employee just hired at the city-run boat dock, also was killed. Police said Glimstad had just started working nights at the marina so he could take morning tennis classes.
More than an hour later, Ferguson handcuffed another former co-worker to a tree at the Sacramento Zoo and fled in her car. Sacramento Police Chief Arturo Venegas Jr. said Ferguson spared the woman because ``he thought she was just a nice person.''
Before dawn, he was at the home of his fifth victim, preparing to leave his final, profane message for posterity on a shaky videotape.
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September 12, 2001, 11:16 PM
