Last Updated: July 07. 2011 1:00AM
Police: Grand Rapids shooting suspect commits suicide
Detroit News staff and wire reports
G rand Rapids— Police Chief Kevin Belk says the man suspected in seven shooting deaths has killed himself and two hostages he was holding are safe.
Belk said 34-year-old Rodrick Shonte Dantzler fatally shot himself inside a Grand Rapids home where here had been holding the hostages Thursday night.
Dantzler had released a 53-year-old female hostage unharmed earlier in the evening. Two other hostages had remained in the home.
A manhunt for Dantzler began after four people were found dead in one Grand Rapids home and three were found in another across town. Belk says the dead included two children.
The frantic search included a high-speed chase through downtown Grand Rapids during which Belk says the suspect shot two other people. They did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
The victims, discovered at two locations, were five women, a man and a 10-year-old girl. Four were found at one home and three at another home across town, said the Grand Rapids Police Department.
"This is a rare occurrence anywhere," said Mayor George Heartwell. "A homicide like this is exceedingly rare. It's an awful situation."
One of the victims was a woman who Dantzler had been involved with.
Dantzler fled the scenes in the Town Car, possibly with an unidentified woman.
Later, a car matching that description exchanged gunfire with another car.
Police then pursued the vehicle through downtown, according to news reports. During the chase, a pedestrian was struck by Dantzler's car, reported the Grand Rapids Press.
Police dispatchers said the suspect's vehicle's tires have been shot and he is having trouble controlling the car as it rolls on tire rims.
Sandra Powney, who lives across the street from one of the homes where the shootings happened, said she had seen Dantzler at the ranch house several times. A couple with two adult daughters had lived there for more than 20 years, she said.
"I've seen him there," she said about Dantzler. "He would come periodically."
Powney said she had been at home all day and didn't realize anyone had been killed until police converged on the cul de sac about 3 p.m.
"For a while we couldn't come outside," she said. "They didn't know if there was someone still inside the house."
State Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said records show Dantzler was discharged from the prison system in 2005 after serving time for assault less than murder. He has not been under state supervision since then, Marlan said.
A Facebook page registered under Dantzler's middle and last name showed that he was a tech building engineer who lives in Grand Rapids.
The incident immediately drew responses on Facebook and Twitter, with one woman tweeting, "Ok So Grand Rapids Has OFFICIALLY Became Detroit!"
Detroit News staff writer Francis X. Donnelly contributed.
Judging from the photos that I have seen of grieving relatives and neighbors, the victims are probably white.
ReplyDeleteThe danger of your white daughter entering into interracial relationships with a black man with a racial chip on his shoulder, is that they wont take kindly to her ending this trophy girlfriend relationship.
Sometimes it is more than the girl friend who is murdered, like the whole family.
I have read of this many times. And it looks like it has happened again.
Just as I thought. All the victims are white:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/07/1_hostage_is_released_by_mass.html
White "liberals" will ignore the warning flags and the sociological metrics of young black males dating their daughters just to assure themselves that they are not "racist". In many cases,white Eloi will bend over backwards to make the black suitor feel welcome. Yet the black thug may regard them as chumps at best.
To quote serial rapist of white women Eldridge Cleaver:
"I know that the black man's sick attitude toward the white woman is a revolutionary sickness: it keeps him perpetually out of harmony with the system that is oppressing him.
Many whites flatter themselves with the idea that the Negro male's lust and desire for the white dream girl is purely an esthetic attraction,but nothing could be further from the truth. His motivation is often of sucha bloody, hateful, bitter, and malignant nature that whites would really be hard pressed to find it flattering."
Little red riding hood got eaten by the big bad wolf again. Not as harmless as grandma was he?
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad he didn't just commit suicide.
ReplyDeleteniggaz wake up and leave these white devils alone! let the poor white man keep his poor white trash! sad people had to die... very sad!
ReplyDeleteblack men wake up and smell the KKKoffee!