Pray for our friends in Omaha (Virginia: school, law, shop)

[montanamom]

So sad, absolutely horrible, what has the world come to..I wish to God the news media would not give this so much coverage though, that tends to breed "copycats". I hope they will take the high road and just give coverage about the victims, and absolutely zero coverage whatsoever about the spineless nut who perpetuated this. These families need all of our prayers this holiday season.

[DOUBLE H]

I live in western Colorado and was just in Omaha recently. There a lot of GREAT people who live there and in Council Bluffs, just across the Missouri River. They are also a strong people. They will get through this.

[GLS]

Years ago when I came to school in Lincoln I was coming from the worst ghettos in Los Angeles, riddled with shootings and nonsensical gang violence.
The values, straightforward honesty, and goodness of the people of Nebraska served as a poultice to help remove the years of anger and abuse I had endured. The loss of innocence that comes with unexplained acts of random violence is painful wherever it occurs, but it cuts me to the soul to see these horrors visited on the people that I revere.

Please accept my empathy for the pain being felt by all the victims families and friends.

[Drehood]

My heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to the family members and friends of the victims. I live about 5 minutes away from the Westroads and it's unimaginable that something like this could happen right around the corner from me. My daughter's grandmother (on her mother's side) works at the Westroads and was there during this horrendous ordeal but thank God she was ok.

My heart goes out to those who have been affected by this unthinkable tragedy.

[mom2toddlers]

I've been parying for everyone affected, including the clearly lost soul who took his own life along with others'. My family just moved here in the last month and I've been wondering if this community has ever had to deal with a tragedy like this before?
I don't blame the media for their coverage..people need to know, and stay clear.(at least immediately after, to let the police, etc do their jobs)
I do hope that at some point they will shift the focus to helping the community heal.

[peggydavis]

So sorry for the innocent victims of this tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are for the families and friends.

My daughter's best friend lives in Omaha. I am worried about her.

[Gunluvver2]

I live down the road in Lincoln. The name of the young man (19/20) was Robert Hawkins. I am not sure about all the details but from what has been said so far he was a High School dropout and had been struggling with keeping a job and having family problems with a split home. He had been fired earlier in the day from his job. One of his friends said he had a history of a hard time keeping jobs.

The weapon was a rifle of some sort and evidently he used it to commit suicide after killing 8 and wounding 6 more. My heart goes out to all the victims of this young man and yes his family members and friends are victims also. What really worries me is the fact that incidents like this usually are followed by copycats that try to post even larger numbers of victims. I just hope that doesn't happen this time.

[mattpoulsen]

I've now seen reports that the shooter was 18, 19, 20, and 21. I believe his actual age was 18. And what Gunluvver said above pretty much sounds like what I've been hearing on the local news and radio.

[ScranBarre]

My thoughts and prayers are with those of you in Greater Omaha during this very tragic and difficult era in your state's history. It's now come to the point where we need to start considering metal detectors at the entrances of every public building.

[tpabes]

The Omaha metro and state has a broken heart, you can see that in some of the coverage, with several spokesmen for the hospital and police were almost in tears. Our prayers and thanks to them also for the job they do. I think the police were there in six minutes.