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Robert Findlay Smith Kills 3 People At Alabama Church

Robert Findlay Smith is a seventy year old from Birmingham Alabama who opened fire at a Alabama church potluck that left three people dead. According to police reports Robert Findlay Smith was sitting at a table and according to witnesses suddenly stood up and pulled out a gun and began firing. Robert Findlay Smith would allegedly murder Walter Rainey, 84, Sarah Yeager, 75, who would die at the scene and Jane Pounds, 84, who died of her injuries the next day. Robert Findlay Smith who worked as a gun dealer was arrested and has been charged with the three murders

Robert Findlay Smith More News

A Vestavia Hills man is now formally charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of a man and two women during a church potluck supper Thursday night.

Robert Findlay Smith, 70, is charged in the slayings of Walter “Bart” Rainey, 84, of Irondale, Sarah Yeager, 75, of Pelham and a Jane Pounds, 84, of Hoover.

The charge against Smith is capital because two or more people were killed in the shooting. He was booked into the Jefferson County Jail at 3:33 p.m.

District Attorney Danny Carr announced the warrants. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims’ families and friends along with the entire Vestavia Hills community,’’ Carr said.

Robert Findlay Smith, described by police as the “lone suspect,” was taken into custody after police were called at 6: 22 p.m. to an active shooter at the church. He was held in the Vestavia Hills City Jail overnight and will now be transferred to the Jefferson County Jail where he will be held without bond.

Smith lives near Cahaba Heights and police blocked off his roadway for much of Friday afternoon while they carried out a search warrant at his Sicard Hollow home. Public records show Smith is an ATF licensed firearms dealer, with a business called Original Magazines 2 at 4128 Sicard Hollow Road, which is also his home address.

Authorities have not disclosed a motive in the shooting, and court records don’t list any prior violent crimes for Smith. He received a DUI in 2016, and went to driving school.

Robert Findlay Smith pleaded guilty and received a $465 fine to DUI in Chattanooga on November 2005 case in which he was also charged with possession of a handgun while intoxicated. That charge was dropped.

Smith in 2008 sued Samford University and UAB police Officer Jeremy Burchfield, A UAB police officer who detained him on Samford’s campus. The suit said Smith was illegally detained in 2007 for carrying a firearm on campus and impersonating a police office by carrying a badge. He claimed in the suit there was no evidence of that and the allegations were fabricated by Samford and police.

His lawyer argued that “Many of Plaintiff’s customers are law enforcement personnel and merchants who sell firearms in Jefferson County and outside of Jefferson County throughout the state.”

He won a jury verdict with damages of $29,000 against Burchfield.

Last night’s incident happened during a “Boomers Potluck” dinner that started at 5 p.m. at the church. There were about 25 at the dinner in the parish hall.

Robert Findlay Smith was sitting alone, and a longtime church member approached him and invited him to sit at a table, said the Rev. Doug Carpenter, who founded the church in 1973 and retired in 2005. He identified himself to victim Rainey only as “Mr. Smith” and refused to join them.

He then pulled out a handgun and shot three people, Carpenter said.

Jim Musgrove, a church member, hit the shooter with a chair and wrestled the gun away from him, Carpenter said.

“It was extremely critical in saving lives,’’ said Vestavia Hills police Capt. Shane Ware. “In my opinion, he’s a hero.”

No one at the dinner knew “Mr. Smith,” who claimed he was a former member. “We’re trying to figure out who he is,” Carpenter said.

Law enforcement radio communications during the active shooter situation indicated that police were familiar with the suspect, knowing where he lived and what he drove.

Ware said he could not yet comment on any prior possible involvement with the suspect.

“Any past interactions involving this suspect are currently being investigated by numerous agencies,’’ Ware said. “It would be premature for me at this time to go into that topic.”

“The suspect has previously attended services at this church but as far as the motive behind this, it’s still being looked into by many agencies,’’ Ware said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to speculate.”

“At some point he produced a concealed handgun and began shooting, striking the three victims,’’ Ware said.

“The suspect acted alone,’’ Ware said. “There is no threat to the community.”

https://www.al.com/news/2022/06/70-year-old-man-charged-in-vestavia-hills-church-shooting-that-killed-3.html

Payton Gendron Arrested In Buffalo Mass Shooting

Buffalo police have identified Payton Gendron as the eighteen year old teen killer responsible for a mass shooting that left ten people dead in the New York city. According to police reports Payton Gendron who is from Conklin New York drove hours to Buffalo where he went to a predominantly black area and opened fire striking thirteen people and killing ten. Payton Gendron was reportedly dressed in camouflage, wearing a black helmet and heavily armed. Apparently the teen killer was live streaming the mass shooting. Needless to say Payton Gendron is in a world of trouble and as of yet no motive has been announced other than the Buffalo police are investigating the mass shooting as a hate crime

Payton Gendron To Plead Guilty To State Charges

Payton Gendron More News

Ten people were killed and three others wounded in a “racially motivated” mass shooting Saturday, by a young man in military-style gear who was toting an assault rifle, and livestreaming the mayhem at a Buffalo supermarket, authorities said.

The shooter — identified by law enforcement as 18-year-old Payton Gendron — drove from “hours away” in Conklin, New York, to the Tops market on Jefferson Avenue, in a predominantly black neighborhood, officials said.

Eleven of the victims were black and two were white.

“We are investigating this incident as both a hate crime and a case of racially-motivated violent extremism,” said Stephen Belongia, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo field office said during a press conference.

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia gave a more blunt

“This was pure evil. It was a straight-up racially motivated hate crime,” he said.

Payton Gendron arrived at the market at around 2:30 p.m. He “was very heavily armed. He had tactical gear on. He had a tactical helmet on,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said.

Payton Gendron also had a camera to livestream the shooting, Gramaglia said.

The gunman opened fire in the parking lot, killing three people and injuring a fourth, he said.

He then went inside the store, where he encountered a longtime “beloved” security guard and former Buffalo cop, who tried to stop him, Gramaglia said.

The guard’s bullet couldn’t pierce the attacker’s armor, he said.

Payton Gendron opened fire on the guard, killing him, Gramaglia said, before allegedly working his way through the rest of the store.

Buffalo cops confronted the shooter, who at one point put his gun to his own neck before authorities were able to talk him into surrendering, officials said.

Erie County District Attorney John Flynn vowed to arraign the shooter on a charge of first-degree murder “within the hour,” he said Saturday evening, refusing to identify the attacker by name.

“I don’t want to give him any celebritism right now. I don’t want to do anything that puts any attention on him,” Flynn said.

“The shooter was not from this community. The shooter traveled hours to this community to perpetuate this crime on the people of Buffalo,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said.

The bloodshed occurred in the middle of a Saturday afternoon when many people were doing their grocery shopping.

The store’s operation manager told the Buffalo News she thought she heard 70 shots.

She saw the shooter and said, “He looked like he was in the Army.”

Two people who saw the gunman leaving the store described him as wearing camouflage attire with a black helmet.

“He was standing there with the gun to his chin. We were like what the heck is going on? Why does this kid have a gun to his face?” said witness Braedyn Kephart.

Kephart said the man dropped to his knees, ripped off his helmet and let go of his gun and then was tackled by police.

One regular shopper at the market told a local television station that he knew several of those killed.

“I lost three people today that I know and talk to five, six times a week. One, a friend of over 30 years, another a friend of 20 years. This is insane,” the man said.

The supermarket chain tweeted a statement saying it was “shocked and saddened by this senseless act of violence.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul tweeted that she was “closely monitoring the shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo,” her hometown. She said state officials have offered help to local authorities.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden had been briefed on the shooting.

“He will continue to receive updates throughout the evening and tomorrow as further information develops. The president and the first lady are praying for those who have been lost and for their loved ones,” she said.

https://nypost.com/2022/05/14/multiple-people-shot-at-buffalos-tops-friendly-market-in-ny/

White Teen Killer Murders 10 In Buffalo Mass Shooting

Buffalo New York police are saying that a white teen who is eighteen years old is in custody for a mass shooting that left ten people dead. According to police reports the teen killer, who is not from the Buffalo area, opened fire at a grocery store in a predominately black community striking at least 12 people leaving ten people dead. Witnesses would say that the teen killer was dressed in full camouflage wearing a black helmet and armed with a rifle. Buffalo police are saying that the latest mass shooting is considered to be a hate crime. This story is still breaking.

Payton Gendron has been identified as the person arrested for the Buffalo Mass Shooting

Payton Gendron to plead guilty to State Charges

Buffalo Mass Shooting More News

Ten people were killed in a racially motivated mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo on Saturday by a suspect in tactical gear who was livestreaming the attack, law enforcement officials said during a news conference.The suspect is in custody in the shooting, which occurred Saturday afternoon at a Tops Friendly Markets store.Investigators are reviewing a purported manifesto posted online in connection with the mass shooting, two federal law enforcement officials told CNN.

The shooting is being investigated as a hate crime and the FBI is assisting, said Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI Buffalo field office, at the news conference

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia identified the shooter as an 18-year-old White male who is not from the Buffalo area but “from hours away.” Officials have so far not named him.

The suspect drove to Buffalo to the Tops market heavily armed, wearing tactical gear, and had a camera where he was livestreaming what he was doing, Gramaglia said.He shot four people in the parking lot of the market, Gramaglia said. Three of those individuals died and one survived, Gramaglia added.He will be arraigned on charge of murder in first degree Saturday evening, said Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn.The killing spree in Buffalo is yet another entry to America’s growing list of hate-fueled mass shootings.And the violence adds to the year’s growing toll of mass shootings in the United States, which stood at 197 as of Saturday afternoon, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive and CNN define a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.Experts consider easy access to guns a root cause of the violence, and open-carry states lower the barrier for people to own and carry guns in public. But the spike in violence since summer 2020 has been general, across cities and states with lax and strict gun laws, with progressive and conservative prosecutors, as well as Republican and Democratic mayors and governors.

The suspect walked into the market and began shooting at customers in the store, Gramaglia said.A supermarket security guard, a retired Buffalo Police officer, “fired multiple shots at the suspect,” but the suspect’s tactical gear protected him from the officer’s shots, Gramaglia said.The suspect fatally shot the security officer and continued going through the supermarket, working toward the front of the store, where he encountered Buffalo police officers.The suspect put his gun to his own neck, at which point two Buffalo officers talked him into dropping his gun and then took off some of his tactical gear and surrendered to police, officials said. Police arrested the suspect and transported him to Buffalo police headquarters.”This is the worst nightmare that any community can face, and we are hurting and we are seething right now as a community,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said. “The depth of pain that families are feeling and that all of us are feeling right now cannot even be explained.”

Tops Friendly Markets released a statement following the shooting, saying it’s “shocked and deeply saddened.””We appreciate the quick response by local law enforcement and are providing all available resources to assist authorities in the ongoing investigation,” the statement said.

Roberto Carlos Silva Jr Facing Death Penalty For Sonic Shooting

Roberto Carlos Silva Jr who opened fire at a Sonic restaurant is now facing the death penalty in Nebraska. According to police reports Roberto Carlos Silva Jr would go to a Sonic restaurant driving a U-Haul van through the drive thru lane and would open fire killing two employees and injuring two others. Roberto Carlos Silva Jr would also throw a number of incendiary devices through the window. Of course with the mugshot of Roberto Carlos Silva Jr (posted above) he was quickly dubbed the Smiling Shooter.

Roberto Carlos Silva Jr More News

The Sarpy County Attorney’s office announced Monday that the county will seek the death penalty when prosecuting the suspect of the November 2020 shooting that left two restaurant employees dead and another two seriously hurt.

Roberto Carlos Silva Jr. of Omaha is now facing first-degree murder charges in the Nov. 21, 2020, attack on the Bellevue Sonic Drive-In near 15th Street and Cornhusker Road. Authorities say he “threw an incendiary device, ignited materials in a rental truck and opened fire,” wounding four employees, two of whom died.

Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said during a news conference Monday afternoon that extensive investigation revealed new information that fit the aggravating circumstances necessary for a death-penalty sentence.

“I took these procedural steps today because I intend to seek the death penalty in this case,” Polikov said in a news release Monday. “I based my decision on the initial investigation as well as new information we received after the case was initially filed, which fit the aggravating circumstances necessary to seek the death penalty.”

Polikov said this was the first time in his 22 year career as County Attorney that he had sought the death penalty — a decision he said he didn’t come to lightly.

“I will tell you that there are nine circumstances outlined by statutes that are aggravating circumstances and the evidence we have, we haven’t presented in court so I don’t want to get into the details of why we think that a number of those nine aggravators are applicable to this case,” Polikov added.

The list of aggravators identified by Polikov’s team won’t be released to the public until the case is filed in district court, which could take weeks or months.

In total, Silva now faces more than a dozen felony charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of first-degree arson.

Polikov’s new filing also includes three new counts of attempted first-degree murder for the three employees who escaped the attack uninjured. It also includes three new counts of use of a firearm to commit a felony.

“Even though there’s a lot of charges in this, I don’t feel it’s a case where we’re over-charging or trying to force anything from the defendant,” Polikov added.

If Silva is convicted in the shooting, a jury or three-judge panel will determine whether those aggravators are present. A three-judge panel makes the final decision about whether the death penalty is warranted following a conviction.

Polikov’s team says victims and family of victims had been notified about the update in Silva’s case, and that they understand why these steps are being taken. 6 News reached out to the families of several victims, but have not received a response at this time.

Since jailed for the attack, Silva has also been charged with attacking another inmate and is facing a felony charge of escape and three misdemeanor assault charges related to an Oct. 7 incident at the Sarpy County Jail, where he allegedly threw cups of feces and urine at corrections officers.

He has been moved from the Sarpy County Jail to the Tecumseh state prison.

https://www.wowt.com/2022/01/24/sarpy-county-seeking-death-penalty-november-2020-sonic-shooting/

George Banks Pennsylvania Death Row

George Banks was sentenced to death by the State of Pennsylvania for thirteen murders committed during a mass shooting. According to court documents George Banks would open fire at his home killing eight people including five children. George Banks would leave his home and shoot and kill a man who was working across the street. George Banks would travel to another location where he would shoot and kill four more people including his girlfriend and their child. Banks would shoot and kill two more people in the home bringing the total to thirteen. George Banks would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

George Banks 2021 Information

Parole Number: 6946F
Age: 79
Date of Birth: 06/22/1942
Race/Ethnicity: BLACK
Height: 5′ 10″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: LIGHT
Current Location: PHOENIX

Permanent Location: PHOENIX
Committing County: LUZERNE

George Banks More News

The first call was chilling enough: Two lay shot on a Wilkes-Barre street.

But as Robert Gillespie headed to the scene where George Emil Banks began his massacre 35 years ago this week, the scope of the situation began to mount as the bodies piled up. Gillespie was on Interstate 81 when the next call from a detective informed him of a second crime scene, in Jenkins Township.

Four shot dead.

When Gillespie arrived in Wilkes-Barre, he learned that not only were the two there shot outside a home on Schoolhouse Lane — one fatally — but eight more bullet-riddled bodies were inside.

Four were children. The two youngest were 1.

Decades later, Gillespie can still see them.

“You never forget seeing a child that has been brutally murdered,” said Gillespie, the former Luzerne County district attorney who prosecuted Banks.

Thirty-five years later, Gillespie and Al Flora Jr., one of the attorneys Gillespie battled in the courtroom over Banks’ culpability and competency, reflected on the details and aftermath of the murderous rampage Banks wreaked on the Wyoming Valley on Sept. 25, 1982.

Banks gunned down five of his own children and eight other people on Schoolhouse Lane and in a Jenkins Township trailer park in the largest killing spree by a single mass murderer in Pennsylvania history. Most victims were shot at close range.

After a highly publicized trial that lasted just under two weeks, a jury from Allegheny County found Banks guilty of 13 counts of first-degree murder on June 22, 1983. The next day, the panel returned 12 death sentences and one life sentence for the murders.

For the prosecution, the outcome was bittersweet.

“We had done nothing but work toward it for a year and there was some pride, but no pleasure, in hearing the jury actually assert he should be put to death,” Gillespie said. “But if there was ever anyone who deserved the death penalty, in my opinion, it was George Banks.”

Yet Banks, inmate No. AY6066, was never executed. Now 75, he remains on death row at Graterford, a maximum-security prison in Montgomery County.

He is a distant shadow of his former self.

First violent crime: 1961

It wasn’t long after Banks was discharged from the Army that he committed his first serious violent crime, the shooting of an unarmed tavern-keeper during a robbery in 1961. He was sentenced to six to 15 years in prison, then was hit with additional time when he briefly escaped in 1964.

Despite the escape attempt, Banks was granted parole in 1969, and his sentence was commuted by Gov. Milton Shapp in 1974.

After prison, Banks was hired by the state, first by the Department of Environmental Resources, then as a guard at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill in Harrisburg.

Weeks before the murder spree, Banks was suspended from prison-guard duty after he locked himself in a guard tower with a shotgun and threatened to kill himself. Fellow guards also had complained Banks had been talking about committing a mass killing.

He was placed on involuntary sick leave and was supposed to see a psychologist on Sept. 29, 1982, but four days earlier he embarked on the unprovoked killing spree that defense attorneys have long argued was a product of paranoid delusion.

The night before the killings, Banks was at a birthday party in Wilkes-Barre where he drank beer, played darts and fawned over a woman’s T-shirt that read “Kill Them All and Let God Sort It Out.”

Banks and the woman switched shirts, and he donned it underneath military-style fatigues the next morning when he methodically began walking through his home firing an AR-15 rifle.

When the rampage ended hours later, Banks had killed 13 people at two homes — seven children, his three live-in girlfriends, an ex-girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend’s mother, and a bystander in the street. Five of the seven children were his own; he has fathered at least seven.

Banks holed up at 24 Monroe St. in Wilkes-Barre, where swarms of police tried to convince him he should give himself up because his five children were alive and in need of blood. A phony radio broadcast was played to support the ruse. Banks finally surrendered after a four-hour standoff.

‘A delusion’

Flora last met with Banks in 2010.

That year, after numerous rounds of appeals, Luzerne County Senior Judge Joseph Augello ruled Banks was too mentally ill to be executed, describing the inmate’s mindset as a “tossed salad of ideas and beliefs.”

Augello wrote that Banks is not competent to be executed “because he has a fixed, false belief, a delusion, that his sentence has been vacated by God, the governor and (former President) George W. Bush. He believes he is in prison illegally, and he should be going home. He should be out there ministering to the people, but there is a conspiracy against him.”

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling in 2012.

At trial, Banks’ bizarre behavior was a constant obstacle, Flora recalled. He refused to cooperate with Flora and fellow defense attorneys Basil Russin and Joseph Sklarosky Sr., who had hoped to have him declared not guilty by reason of insanity.

Banks took the stand in his own defense, then delivered a rambling account of the shootings. During that account, he showed jurors the gory photographs of his victims that his attorneys labored to keep out of trial. Banks, who is bi-racial, then claimed he had only wounded the victims and said racist police officers had fired the fatal shots to frame him.

Prosecutors argued Banks’ motive was based on his fear of losing control over his extended family.

The trial attracted such a throng of attention from relatives, onlookers and national media that presiding Judge Patrick J. Toole instituted a lottery for courtroom seating.

Gillespie said Toole was clear on courtroom decorum: There would be no emotional outbursts from relatives of Banks or his victims.

And while not an outpouring of emotion, Gillespie acknowledged he had to hide tears from the jury at one strenuous point during the proceedings, when a child victim’s young brother testified about reporting the murders to 911 using a phone covered with blood and brain matter.

“No child should ever have to see that and tell a whole bunch of strangers what had happened,” Gillespie said.

Locked in isolation

Flora, who long has fought to have Banks declared incompetent, said the case is now considered closed, and Banks is destined to die in prison.

“Being locked in a cell 24 hours a day and being in isolation will have a profound effect on someone,” Flora said. “George has significantly deteriorated. He is severely mentally ill … and there is likely no treatment for him.”

Gillespie, now in private practice in Hazleton, said he never thought of George Banks as a victim, but as a misogynist who hid behind claims of a racial divide. But, Gillespie conceded, he was smart.

“I thought that George Banks was a very intelligent person,” Gillespie said, noting that during one of his first encounters with Banks, the mass murderer draped himself in a blanket so a psychiatrist couldn’t discern reactions to his analysis.

But Banks’ hatred also defined him, Gillespie said.

“He hated women, ” Gillespie said. “He cared for his sons, but he had no feelings at all towards his daughters or stepdaughters. He was, quite frankly, a cold-blooded killer.”

35 years later, mass murderer George Banks remains on death row