Cops: Murder-Suicide At Houston Mall

Before Security Guards Could Respond, Man Kills His Girlfriend And Himself

(CBS/AP)  A man shot his girlfriend and then killed himself as she was opening a lingerie store in a Houston mall Tuesday, police said.

The man apparently confronted the woman as she was opening the security gate over the store in the Greenspoint Mall, a few miles from George Bush Intercontinental Airport, said Houston Police Lt. Albert Mihalco. The store showed signs that the two struggled before the woman was shot in the head.

The man apparently killed himself, Mihalco said.

According to the Greenspoint Management District, the situation started when the boyfriend of the female mall employee called, threatening to harm her. The woman, who worked at Body Luxuries, called mall security, but her boyfriend arrived before security could get there, CBS News affiliate KHOU reports.

Once he confronted the woman inside the store, the man pulled the security gate back down, barricading themselves inside, said Jocklynn Keville of the Greenspoint Management District.

Most stores were still closed when police received a report of a shooting just before 10 a.m. According to KHOU, witnesses reported hearing two gunshots.

Mall employee Deborah White said she was about to raise the security gate that covered the Ashley Stewart store where she worked when a security guard ran down the mall corridors, pounding on gates and doors and telling everyone to evacuate.

"I just left my coat and got out," White said. About a dozen people left the mall with her, mostly store employees, she said.

[bhappy2-2]

Guns DO NOT make you safer. They make you LESS SAFE.

Posted by MyIDonCBS

Mine make me safer. Just remember, its my second amendment protected firearm that defends your first amendment right to tell me I don''t need one.

[bhappy2-2]

Two questions if I may:

1) Do you feel any safer with your gun/s?

2) How does the rest of the world survive without all the guns that we have in the USA?

I have always wondered about question 2.

Posted by Keithle1

1. Yes, I do.
2. Who knows? They can''t defend themselves against the evil in society that would do them harm.

[yoopermom]

I just love how people blame a gun for killing a person. I don%u2019t see anyone blaming the weight bench bar the professor used to kill his wife or the water or floor used to kill little Riley. Maybe it is the people making CHOICES to kill people that are to blame.

[kindrox]

Keithle1

My wife and I own a retail business which she normally runs but I occasionally do to. We close at 7pm (well after dark) and it is a long, dark walk through a secluded area to get to the car, and while the area our business is in is good, we are next to a bad area of town.

Your damm right I feel safer with my hand on my gun as I walk to my car with the day%u2019s cash from my business, and my wife feels safer yet.

[slim1h2o]

jennmarie620 at 08:17 AM : Nov 28, 2007

I think the incident happened so fast, no one had a chance of getting there in time.

BTW,, was security in house, or were they a security company, responding to the call, from another location?

[jennmarie620]

... the issue of this story is not gun rights or gun control - but how a man with a gun was able to enter a mall AND why mall security did not respond quicker when they were informed that this young woman had been threatened and was in immediate danger.

[keithle1]

When things go bad in a relationship for whatever reason, some men turn to violence. They don''t like to see it end or see their ex going out with other men. Ask "The Juice" about that. Men always shoot themselves after they shoot their girlfriend/wife/family/co-workers, etc.

Too late to turn back now when it comes to guns in the USA. Everybody, their idiot cousin, their cat & dog & hamster has a gun. Homeless people are probably packing these days.

Two questions if I may:

1) Do you feel any safer with your gun/s?

2) How does the rest of the world survive without all the guns that we have in the USA?

I have always wondered about question 2.

[michellem99-2009]

Who allow gangs to be in the home,school,workplace,on the street in the 1st place. There are prisom gangs. Gangs have been in this nation from the start. They are all walks of life,all ages,both genders,all skin colours. Think about it.

[kindrox]

I mean really, an FBI study (Jounal of Criminal Law and Criminology) in 1995 found that private citizens used guns about 2,500,000 million time each year, or about 5000 times a day, to defend themselves. The vast majority of the 5000 don%u2019t result in a shot being fired, as criminals decide to be somewhere else.

So if your statistic *For every self-defense use of a firearm in the home, there are 11 suicides, 7 homicides and 4 unintentional shootings.* to be true, there would have to be 5000*(11+7 4)=110,000 deaths per DAY, or 40 million gun deaths per year.

As are about 30,000 total gun deaths per year in the USA, your statistic would say that only 30,000/22=1363 people per year ever defend themselves with a gun. Just about completely opposite what the FBI says is the truth.

[kindrox]

I love gun bashers. Many of your results are staged in that they selected a sample of people prone to prove the desired result. I.e. study the homes of gang members and just like you might expect, guns claim a lot of lives in the families studied.

And of course it stands to reason, if a home does not have a gun, the non-existing gun is not likely to accidentally kill someone. And of course if you don%u2019t have a gun, suicide by another method will have to do.

What your studies don%u2019t address are things like Japan having 2 times our suicide rate yet very few are done with firearms (they use other means) or that kids in gangs are likely to get shot and that women in violent relationships in a relationship with a gang member are likely to be homicide victims.

And they don%u2019t explain why gun a control city like Washington DC is the murder capital of the world and they don%u2019t explain why states with the most gun ownership are not the most crime ridden states and they don%u2019t explain why the states with the least gun ownership are not the safest.

Take two middle class white folks in a normal burb house, and none of your studies apply to us.

[myidoncbs]

A few more facts:

In the United States, regions with higher levels of household handgun ownership have higher suicide rates.
-Injury Prevention, February, 2002

To the extent that homicide frequently occurs spontaneously among young men in public places, it''s the carrying of firearms, rather than their ownership, that is the immediate proximate cause of criminal injury.
- Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1980

In 2001, of the 111 Minnesota homicide victims:
24% were murdered by a member of their nuclear family
63% were murdered by another family member or friend or relative
ONLY 6% were murdered by strangers

I don''t have time right now to look up any more, but this should give you the idea. Guns DO NOT make you safer. They make you LESS SAFE.

[myidoncbs]

Someone asked for facts. Here are a few that gunownerdan won''t like:

For every self-defense use of a firearm in the home, there are 11 suicides, 7 homicides and 4 unintentional shootings.
-Journal of Trauma, August, 1998

Instead of conferring protection, keeping a gun in the home is associated with an increased risk of both suicide and homicide.
-Archives of Internal Medicine, 1997

Among high-income countries, where firearms are more available, more women are homicide victims. Women in the U.S. are at a higher risk of homicide victimization than are women in any other high-income country.
-Journal of American Medical Women''s Association, 2002

A disproportionately high number of 5-14 year olds died from suicide, homicide and unintentional firearm deaths in states and regions where guns were more prevalent.
-Journal of Trauma, February, 2002

States with the highest levels of gun ownership had, on average, 9 times the rate of unintentional firearm deaths compared to states with lowest gun levels.
-Accid Anal Prev, July 2001

Between 1988 and 1997, the suicide, homicide, and unintentional firearm death rates among women were disproportionately higher in states where guns were more prevalent.
-Journal of Urban Health, March, 2002

[kindrox]

I live in Texas. I don%u2019t have a pickup truck and I don%u2019t have a shotgun in my car. I (and my wife) do have our CHL licenses and we do pack hand guns.

If I was in the mall, and I personally saw what was going down, and I was in a position to help the lady, I would have. But I am not a policemen and I don%u2019t rush in as people rush out. People need to take responsibility for their own safety because at the end of the day, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

My wife and I are responsible, trained, and capable of standing up for ourselves should it ever be needed. What will the unprepared do in their moment of need? Be another morally superior but dead statistic?

[myidoncbs]

Oops. I got cut off...

lyndajean asked, "How did this poor excuse for a man enter a mall with a gun? I may not be from Houston, but if anyone did that here, they''d be thrown in jail..."

Texas is a virtual heaven to gunownerdan. EVERYONE there carries weapons with them everywhere. That''s EXACTLY what Dan says will make the world "safe"-- if everyone carries a loaded gun with them all the time. Can you imagine how many extra people will get killed when someone starts shooting, then all the bystanders pull out their guns and start shooting, too?

In Texas, they drink beer while driving their pickup trucks down the road with a loaded shotgun on the rack over the window behind the driver. This is NOT just some stereotype. I''ve lived there. I''ve seen it with my own eyes.

[kindrox]

The fact of the matter is, if women get guns to "protect" themselves, their odds of being killed by gunfire INCREASE substantially.


Please substantiate with actual facts.

[jetranger7]

You all should of been at that mall, back in December of 2003 Jan-2004 when Halliburton/KBR was leasing that mall for space to process and deploy people to IRAQ. There was some tempers flying around there then,, over some serious issues,, surprised it didn''t happen then,,,

[jetlizhan]

jennmarie620:
did i say i blamed her for her own death? read again, as i most certainly did not. i just wish she''d left the premises for her safety, because this guy was abusive. you will not have any luck in picking an argument with me; i stand by my comment. go pick on someone else missy.

[Krazcarl]

we all have met brain deads that have done this if you get out of the house at all they know what will transpire after the act so they take thier own lives..drag thier corpse to the town sguare and burn it like they used to in the old days...

[gunownerdan]

"We live in a world where more and more women are unaccompanied at odd hours, or they are vulnerable in dangerous places - a world where restraining orders are often ineffective and the police cannot be counted upon to arrive in time, if at all. In such a world, women must be able to protect themselves. In terms of both deterrence and lethal force, guns are among the most effective tools available for self-defense." -- Mary Zeiss Stange, "Guns, like abortion, are a matter of choice"

a-human-right.com

[lewiston14]

Your kidding right. In this day and age they hire more then 2 security guards for the whole mall least they loose profits. They could have been at the other side of the building. Where is you American sense cutting into corporate profits by hiring extra guards.