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What They're Saying About: Friday's shooting rampage
Sunday, April 30, 2000 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"I guess the first thought that came to my head was that I couldn't believe it was happening again. Somehow we need to think and understand a lot better about the sick people out there. We need to identify them ... [Baumhammers] needed help. You're torn between the grief you feel for the victims and the families and the frustration of how do we prevent this."
Jim Roddey,
"What can we learn from [Baumhammers]? I would love to be inside his brain. We need to study the Baumhammers of the world to find out what makes them tick."
Dr. Paul Friday,
"Parents should help children understand what happened. It's harder for them to find out through the grapevine and from other kids. They'll feel more vulnerable if they hear it from another child ... adults can present it more proportionally. Tell them that usually violence is associated with someone who feels a great deal of anger."
Donald Zandier,
"This is not a time to hide. This is a time to stand up and rededicate ourselves to Judaism. We must not let hate and terror overrun our lives. ... The veneer of civilization can be thin. We have to stand up for order when there is disorder and chaos. The minute you succumb [to chaos], you're lost."
Rabbi David Greenspoon,
"It really is shocking. There's nothing anyone can do except sit in your living room and watch what's going on in your very own town. It was a sad day for Scott Township and surrounding communities."
Janet Beerhalter,
"My overwhelming feeling is one of anger. I'm angry that somebody would do something that would affect so many lives and hurt so many people. ... And I'm angry at our culture of violence that says pick up a gun and go kill somebody if you can't solve your problems."
Dan Gigler,
"It was an attack against us all, because it sought in its violence to divide us by the color of our skin and the nations of our ancestors. We all must respond to that attack, not with vengeance but with a renewed resolve to reject racism in its every manifestation."
Gov. Ridge,
"This shooting demonstrates how dangerously close we constantly live to the terrible scourge of gun violence. Richard Baumhammers clearly lost control, and because of the easy availability of a powerful handgun, five people are dead. We experience mass shootings in this country at such a breathtaking rate, but we still do so little, either politically or personally, in our own communities to stem the tide of bullets and bodies."
Tarek Rizk of Irwin,
"Pennsylvanians must now join together to condemn all crimes of hate, especially those that result in violence and death. ... If these killings are proven to be motivated by hate, the killer should be punished to the fullest extent of the law."
Attorney General Mike Fisher
"Scott is a bedroom community. It just goes to show you that these kinds of violent acts can occur anywhere."
Craig Stephens,
"The calls flowing out of the Wilkinsburg shooting still continue to this day."
Nancy Wells,
"I feel so sorry for some of the people and their families involved. When something like this happens out of clear blue sky, when you're going out to eat or into a gym, you don't expect anything like this to happen."
James Albert,
"While we don't yet know fully the motivation for this latest carnage, [Friday's] rampage by Richard Baumhammers disturbingly fits a pattern of too many recent hate crimes."
David A. Harris,
Staff writers Jane Elizabeth, Lawrence Walsh, Laura Pace, Cristina Rouvalis, Mark Belko and Rachael Conway contributed to this report.
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