8 relatives shot dead, some while sleeping; 3 kids survive
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lt. Michael Preston, of the Ross County Sheriff’s Department spoke to the media on Union Hill Road that approaches a crime scene, today, in Pike County, Ohio. Shootings with multiple fatalities were reported along the road in rural Ohio this morning.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Crime scene investigation vehicles drove up Union Hill Road as they approached the location of a reported multiple shooting, today, in Pike County, Ohio.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Media and emergency personnel stood at the perimeter of a crime scene as investigation vehicles drive up Union Hill Road, today, in Pike County, Ohio.
This aerial photo shows one of the locations being investigated in Pike County, Ohio, as part of an ongoing homicide investigation today. Several people were found dead today at multiple crime scenes in rural Ohio, and at least most of them were shot to death, authorities said. No arrests had been announced, and it’s unclear if the killer or killers are among the dead. (Lisa Marie Miller/The Columbus Dispatch via AP)
PIKETON, Ohio » Eight members of a family, including a mother sleeping in a bed with her 4-day-old baby next to her, were fatally shot in the head today, leaving their rural town reeling while a search was launched for whoever’s responsible.
Three children, including the newborn, survived the grisly killings, which left seven adults and a teenage boy dead in four homes in Pike County, Attorney General Mike DeWine and county Sheriff Charles Reader said. The economically distressed county in the Appalachian Mountain region has 28,000 residents and is 80 miles east of Cincinnati.
DeWine said there were no indications any of the dead killed themselves, and Reader said if the shooter or shooters are at large, they should be considered armed and “extremely dangerous.”
“There may be more than one, there may be three. We just don’t know at this point,” DeWine said.
Some of the victims were in bed, indicating they were shot while they were sleeping, authorities said. The victims were identified as members of the Rhoden family, but their names weren’t released.
“It’s heartbreaking,” DeWine said. “The one mom was killed in her bed with the 4-day-old right there.” Besides the infant, a 6-month-old and 3-year-old also survived unhurt, authorities said.
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Law enforcement officials said they met with relatives of the victims at a church tonight and death notifications were being made to other relatives. They said more than 30 people had been interviewed as part of their investigation.
A motive isn’t clear, authorities said, but they urged other members of the Rhoden family to take precautions. Authorities said it appeared that the family was targeted and that there was no specific threat to the community, but Reader advised area residents to lock their doors and stay alert tonight.
Many still went about their business, grocery shopping or eating out or sipping drinks on their front porches. At the Pike County Dogwood Festival in Piketon, roughly 10 miles from the crime scenes, families with children in balloon hats walked among crafters and rides, slurping lemon shakes and snack-stand foods.
Longtime resident Harold Kunkle said attendance seemed much lower than expected, and he attributed that to news of the shootings.
“Everybody’s nervous, not knowing what to expect,” said Kunkle, 81.
The first three crime scenes were within a couple miles along a sparsely populated stretch of road, while the eighth body, a man, was found in a house farther away.
Authorities didn’t release any information on whether multiple weapons were used or whether anything was missing from the homes.
Area resident Goldie Hilderbran said she lives about a mile from where a shooting took place. Hilderbran said a mail carrier told her this morning that deputies had stopped her from delivering mail in the area they’d blocked off.
“She just told me she knew something really bad has happened,” Hilderbran said.
Gov. John Kasich, campaigning in Connecticut for his Republican presidential bid, said his office was monitoring the situation in Pike County and the search for whoever is responsible.
“But we’ll find them, we’ll catch them and they’ll be brought to justice,” he said.
The FBI in Cincinnati also said it was monitoring the situation and offered assistance if needed.
Peebles High School temporarily imposed a precautionary lockout this morning after authorities notified the superintendent about the shootings a few miles away, according to Regina Bennington, secretary to the superintendent for the Adams County Ohio Valley Schools district. The school later resumed normal operations.
Piketon is the site of a Cold War-era uranium plant that was closed in 2001 and is still being cleaned up.
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Associated Press writers Dan Sewell and Lisa Cornwell in Cincinnati and Mark Gillispie in Cleveland contributed to this report.
41 responses to “8 relatives shot dead, some while sleeping; 3 kids survive”
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Gun enthusiasts will not want to hear this, and will disagree; but, I believe the solution to all this madness is the repeal of the Second Amendment. It is time for this nation to join the civilized nations of the world and eliminate guns from our society. Enough is enough!
Sure thing.
Creating an armed criminal underclass to prey on the law abiding is just what the doctor ordered.
That’s pretty much what we have now right?
you have the choice to arm yourself to protect yourself. if you choose NOT to that is your choice.
No, according to HELLER VS DC. the 2nd Amendment has been interpreted by SCOTUS to mean the right of an INDIVIDUAL to bear arms.
Please tell us how we are going to get all the criminals in our country to surrender their unregistered weapons? “repeal of the Second Amendment” – criminals don’t know or care about the “Second Amendment”.
You are correct, they will not surrender what they have. I think maybe the idea might be to choke supply. It’s well established that one major way guns get into the hands of criminals is by using those with no record to purchase firearms and then sell them off. So, by choking new supply, you eventually, you bring the numbers down as authorities confiscate from criminals.
The above shooting probably doesn’t fall into the scenario of protection or criminal activity (like drug running), but rather just a sick person.
Guns don’t have an expiration date. Properly maintained, they can outlast the owner and longer.
People can get guns even by “choking new supply”. They can steal them from other bad guys, steal them from the police and military, even go to Mexico or Canada and buy them there. Some people can even make them. Then, even a black market will come into being with smugglers bringing guns into the country and selling them.
“choking new supply” will only hurt the good guys. The bad guys will get guns and it will be open season on the law abiding innocent people.
Strongly support
JustBob: I’m not even a gun enthusiast, and I still don’t want to hear it.
Study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, points to the armed citizen as possibly the most effective deterrent to crime in the nation! Wright & Rossi questioned over 1,800 felons serving time in prisons across the nation and found:
81% agreed the “smart criminal” will try to find out if a potential victim is armed.
74% felt that burglars avoided occupied dwellings for fear of being shot.
80% of “handgun predators” had encountered armed citizens.
40% did not commit a specific crime for fear that the victim was armed.
34% of “handgun predators” were scared off or shot at by armed victims.
57% felt that the typical criminal feared being shot by citizens more than he feared being shot by police.
Professor Kleck estimates that annually 1,500-2,800 felons are legally killed in “excusable self-defense” or “justifiable” shootings by civilians, and 8,000-16,000 criminals are wounded. This compares to 300-600 justifiable homicides by police. Yet, in most instances, civilians used a firearm to threaten, apprehend, shoot at a criminal, or to fire a warning shot without injuring anyone.
Based on his extensive independent survey research, Kleck estimates that each year Americans use guns for protection from criminals more than 2.5 million times annually. 7 U.S. Department of Justice victimization surveys show that protective use of a gun lessens the chance that robberies, rapes, and assaults will be successfully completed while also reducing the likelihood of victim injury. Clearly, criminals fear armed citizens.
Source: TEN MYTHS ABOUT GUN CONTROL
Wrong, he is almost patently refuted. Which you conveniently don’t mention.
The Florida State professor even goes so far as to describe Dr. David Hemenway, director of Harvard’s Injury Control Research Center and author of more than 130 articles and five books in Economics and Public Health (a total that includes two decisive rebuttals to Kleck and several surveys), as “a man named David Hemenway… who is also untrained in survey methods.”
Rather than confront the significant, multidisciplinary research showing that the false-positive problem is ubiquitous when measuring rare events, Kleck pretends the problem is negligible, and links us to a 1998 “rebuttal” where he references surveys that have nothing to do with rare events. As Dr. Hemenway has extensively detailed, suggesting that false negatives could somehow outweigh false positives is indulging in fantasy.
Kleck also ignores the fact that his results repeatedly fail tests of external validity. In our original article, we mention that Kleck’s data would require, impossibly, that gun owners use their gun in self-defense in more than 100 percent of burglaries. Kleck’s data also suggests that every year hundreds of thousands of criminals are shot by law-abiding citizens. But where are the hospital records to validate this claim? Kleck insists, with no medical knowledge and without citing a single study, that the vast majority of these criminals never seek hospital treatment, a claim scoffed at by medical professionals.
Kleck concludes his article by saying we “have not offered any new criticisms” and, like Dr. Hemenway before us, do “not once cite the one thing that could legitimately cast doubt on our estimates—better empirical evidence.” However, had he read the second page of our column, he would have seen that the entire point of our article was to highlight new empirical evidence debunking Kleck’s claims.
Here are the facts Kleck missed: According to his own survey more than 50 percent of respondents claim to have reported their defensive gun use to the police. This means we should find at least half of his 2.5 million annual Defensive Gun Uses (DGUs) in police reports alone. Instead, the most comprehensive nonpartisan effort to catalog police and media reports on DGUs by The Gun Violence Archive was barely able to find 1,600 in 2014. Where are the remaining 99.94 percent of Kleck’s supposed DGUs hiding?
It would be disappointing to see any professor relegated to using falsehoods and ad hominem attacks in a desperate attempt to preserve the tattered remains of his thoroughly repudiated research. Yet, such tactics are particularly deplorable when they are used in service of a gun-worshipping culture that regularly generates tragedy on a massive scale.
Since you didn’t comment on my first sentence I take it that you didn’t seem to disagree about the study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice which points to the ARMED citizen as possibly the most effective deterrent to crime in the nation?
Concerning the second sentence of my post, irrespective whether someone tried to refute Klick’s study, whether truly accurate or not, I would like to see some credible sources listed rather than some excerpt you copied and pasted straight from some guys Facebook rant which is exactly where I found your source to be upon my attempt to search your statement.
Nonetheless, there are still far more positives to arming citizens that outwigh the few unfortunate events where the mentally ill go on shooting rampages and the few careless parents where children find unlocked guns in the house. I welcome you to read the TEN MYTHS ABOUT GUN CONTROL –> http://people.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm
dragon, let’s not forget that the people sampled, all 1,800 of them (which is a statistically very small sample size considering the size of all convicted felons), but, consider that even though they reported fears, they still committed the crimes. So, guns were really not a deterrent.
Ho Hum…another day in the USA. This week’s mass murder brought to you by Ohio. I’m glad we’re all numb to this now and accept it as the norm.
At the end of the day, a large portion of Americans in a certain political party don’t give a **** about anyone but themselves. 21 school children were gunned down in a bloody day. 3 firefighters were gunned down that same week. Nothing has changed. We simply do not care at all about anyone but ourselves. That’s America’s real moral decline.
you are right. if my gun will protect me and my family from the bad guys, why should i care about people like you who think taking my gun is going to prevent all these shootings. there are 350 million guns in the hands of the public right now. sure, lets just scrap the constitution and take these guns away. most will not turn in their guns. who is going to take my gun? you? i dare you to try. but i bet you don’t have the guts.
How many times have you used your gun to protect you or your family?
How many times has your house burned down and you still have fire insurance?
Sarge, I get the analogy. But, fire, homeowners, malpractice insurance only cost me money. However, guns, per the CDC show that on average 60 toddlers shot and killed themselves every year for the past 5 years. I can look up stats on other accidental shootings and deaths if you want. How many accidental deaths were caused by fire insurance…zero.
How many guns protect the regular killings of innocent children due to incompetent gun owners?
How many guns protect random bystanders who get hit by stray bullets from gangs who acquire their weapons through dubious means, including theft from incompetent gun owners who cannot be bothered to properly secure their property?
How many guns protected those from the mentally deranged who acquired weapons because certain people think it’s a bad idea to have mental health professionals talk to the cops about the dangerous behavior of their patients?
If we gave a **** about anyone else, we’d actually enact policies that make it harder for certain people to get firearms. Instead, we literally don’t care when school children are gunned down in mass. Because America’s real moral rot comes from people like you who don’t give a **** about anyone but yourself.
Actually Sarge, I know several people who’ve have had fires on their properties and are super happy they had good fire insurance. Several burned to the ground and their insurance cut them big checks.
“How many times have you used your gun to protect you or your family?” – ONE time is enough to value having a gun. There are likely hundreds of thousands of dead, injured, or raped people who wished they had a gun when the crime was committed against them.
I would be totally devastated if my family needed me to protect them and I couldn’t because the criminal was armed and I wasn’t.
So, the answer is zero, correct?
As a society, there are 30,000
Sorry, 30,000 gun related, deaths in the US annually. 30,000, and you haven’t protected your family a single time. Let’s say there were 2,000 protected, and that is high, well, then at what cost. As a democratic society, are 30,000 more important than 2,000?
advertiser1 remains an unrepentant liar and/or a buffoon. He was recently given an extremely simple task to prove two of his ridiculous assertions, yet he failed miserably.
On the issue of private ownership of firearms, advertiser1 habitually attempts to score debating points by asking someone if he has PERSONALLY used a gun to to defend himself or his family. If pressed to the wall, advertiser1 will readily admit many incidents of self defense with guns exist, yet he consistently tries to validate his argument by asking that question. You can remind advertiser1 as many times as you like that this Star-Advertiser comments section remains an anonymous one, that unless a fellow poster cares to (foolishly) identify himself with a real name, home address and phone number, NOTHING regarding personal deeds or misdeeds can be taken at face value. Nothing. Yet he still asks.
By the way advertiser1, if you’re still here, we in the U.S. live in a republic, not a pure democracy. It would help if you took to heart the difference.
Now what about that little task you were asked to fulfill. Need more time? If so, then how many years?
advertiser1 – You are a total idi*ot. As long as there are criminals or crazies running around with weapons, I find it necessary to “level the playing field” to protect myself and my family and even people around me. I haven’t had the need to protect anyone yet but, heaven forbid, it may come about. If it does, I doubt that criminal will wait for me to go out and get a gun.
If you don’t want one, that’s your business. I don’t tell you what to do and I do NOT want you to tell me what to do.
Nobody in my family or people I know have had “gun related deaths” because I am a responsible gun owner. If others are not, that is a shame. There are more irresponsible car drivers than gun owners.
The only reason this made the news is that the vics are probably all white.
Had this been run of the mill black on black massacre, no one would have bothered to take notice – – sure as heck not our lily white editorial staffs.
You mean like the gangland killings daily in Chicago, Obama’s adopted home?
What does “Obama’s adopted home” have anything to do with any of this discussion? That is, what does the fact that his residency have to do with anything?
You may recall that Obama was the great community organizer in Chicago. He is badly needed back home.
Very funny, thos. This is the first white victim/perpetrator (?) story under which you and your fellow white killers don’t count club members have bothered to post.
Ah yes, America.
Let’s enact a law to deal with transgender people in bathrooms despite the police stating there are literally no problems prior to the law….but let’s not even remotely consider even the most mundane firearms control measures such as collecting data or increasing communication between mental health professionals and the police.
Apparently the non-existent threat of transgender people in bathrooms causing a problem is far worthy of legislation than the numerous innocent people killed and injured by firearms weekly. Like that woman who failed to properly secure her pistol resulting in her child killing himself accidently. Apparently transgender people relieving themselves or even washing their hands is much bigger problem (despite the police again stating there were no problems) than regular accidental killings of children due to incompetent firearm owners failing to act responsibly to secure their property.
choyd, it’s hardly in good taste nor appropriate to exploit the tragic murder of eight human beings to champion transgender rights or politics. Neither is it appropriate nor really persuasive to compare this incident with the Newtown Massacre when you don’t yet have the slightest idea of the motive or the background of the killer or killers.
It’s also silly to inject the transgender bathroom use issue into a rant about accidental firearms deaths. You may or may not care, but criminal and civil penalties already exist to deter firearms misuse accidental or otherwise.
So? My point is that the modern Republican party is a total joke when it comes to actually governing anything. Actual problems aren’t even remotely considered by them, but placating religious fascists is. Small government is just a line they feed to ignorant voters, when in reality they want a massive theocratic regime to stamp out as much liberty as possible. God, how can any Libertarian even remotely consider the GOP to be a welcoming party these days?
You don’t think it’s screwed up how the GOP legally forbids various Federal departments from doing firearm studies, but will move in a single day to engage in banning transgender from using bathrooms otherwise appropriate for individuals? Even Donald Trump thinks North Carolina went too far.
It’s not silly at all. It shows just how utterly broken the Republican party is in how it prioritizes its ideals. Children dying every day from incompetent firearm owners is LESS of a priority than making people like Buck Angel use the women’s bathroom to wash his hands.
Agree with the part about the transgender bathrooms but eight people shot in the head including a sleeping infant pretty much precludes anything but murder.
Now, about gratuitous stump-thumping:
thos: “The only reason this made the news is that the vics are probably all white.”
Cojef: “(Chicago) Obama’s adopted home?”
Sarge22: “Obama was the great community organizer in Chicago.”
The never-let-a-good-tragedy-go-to-waste crowd will not be denied.
Point of order: No one under the age of 16 was killed in this Ohio incident. Three young children were spared death.
Who knows could have been another family member shooting up the family.
Took time out to pray for the family, living and dead! No harsh words and criticism from this corner. We do not know the answer or motives! We do know death occurred. We are unable to correct what had gone wrong. We are sadden that this brutality has left our world reeling with many unanswered questions. We pray the authorities will be able to find the murderers and justice be serve. In the interim, we pray for peace and love prevail among the living!
Thank you WizardOfMoa, for the most appropriate comment for this article.