XHonusWagnerX
Moderator
Posts: 12509
Registered: 7-14-2005
Location: pawtucket
Member Is Offline
Mood: hadDCore
|
|
Diamond Darrell murder case update
Police: DIMEBAG's Murder Was Not Motivated By PANTERA's Breakup - Oct. 20, 2005
John Futty of The Columbus Dispatch has issued the following report:
Bleeding from three bullet wounds and pinned beneath a gunman on the Alrosa Villa stage, John Brooks never saw or heard the shotgun blast that saved
his life.
Brooks was among seven people shot by Nathan Gale after Gale stormed the stage of the North Side nightclub with a 9 mm handgun during a DAMAGEPLAN
concert Dec. 8.
As four of the victims lay dying, Brooks became a hostage, held in Gale's grip while concertgoers fled and Columbus police moved in.
"Don't move, don't move," Gale told Brooks, pressing his knees into Brooks' back and holding the gun to his head.
Brooks told police he never saw Officer James Niggemeyer enter the rear stage door with a shotgun and kill Gale with a single shot to the head from 20
feet away.
"Brooks thought the gunman was going to shoot him in the head and then all of a sudden the gunman just let him go," according to a detective's
interview with Brooks, who scrambled off the stage when Gale fell.
The interview summary is included in a 627-page investigative file on the case released yesterday by police in response to a public-records request by
The Dispatch.
The division's Firearms Board of Inquiry reviewed the investigation and determined that Niggemeyer's actions were justified.
Supervisors agreed that the officer acted within division policy.
The documents ? including summaries of 287 interviews with concertgoers, band members, club employees, police officers and paramedics ? fail to clear
up confusion surrounding the order in which victims were shot or explain the motives of the 25-year-old Marysville man responsible for the carnage.
Witnesses agreed that Gale produced the gun when he stepped on stage and that his first target was "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, DAMAGEPLAN's 38-year-old
lead guitarist, who died of three gunshot wounds to the head.
But the band's tour manager, Christopher Paluska, 39, told police he was shot first when he tried to stop Gale from entering the stage.
"Mr. Paluska related he grabbed the guy and this individual turned around and shot him," detectives reported. "After doing this, Mr. Paluska ran to
the side of the stage where someone helped him lie down and he watched as Dimebag Darrell Abbott . . . got shot by the shooter."
Paluska and Brooks, among three survivors of the shootings, did not return phone calls from The Dispatch yesterday.
Brooks, a 34-year-old stage technician for the band, was standing behind speakers on the right side of the stage when Gale advanced on Abbott from the
other side of the stage.
He said Gale shot Abbott, then shot the band's security chief, Jeffrey "Mayhem" Thompson, as they rushed to help the guitarist.
Thompson died of three gunshot wounds.
The others who died trying to intervene were Nathan Bray, a 23-year-old concertgoer from Grove City who was shot once in the chest, and Erin Halk, a
29-yearold club employee from Columbus who was shot six times.
Brooks was shot in the right hand, right thigh and right side as he wrestled with the gunman. He said he remembers Gale shooting someone else as they
grappled.
The other surviving victim, concertgoer Travis Burnett, of Gahanna, said he jumped on stage during the struggle and confronted Gale, who looked up and
said, "Get the ---- out of here." Burnett said he tried to put Gale in "a wristlock," but the gun went off and a bullet grazed Burnett's left forearm.
Burnett fled as "he heard three more gunshots that he believed were aimed at his head."
The band members saw little other than the guitarist being shot.
Bass player Robert Kakaha said "he looked over toward Dimebag and the suspect looked like he was hugging him, then turned to the side and that's when
he saw the gun aimed at his head." Kakaha ran out the club's back door.
Dimebag's brother, drummer Vincent "Vinnie Paul" Abbott, told investigators that he hid behind some amplifiers after his brother was shot. John
Graham, a crew member, jumped on the drummer to protect him, then told him to run out the back door when Gale was reloading his gun.
The gunman walked behind lead singer Patrick Lachman, who didn't realize what was happening until he heard the gunshots.
Lachman jumped off the stage, still holding the microphone, and yelled for someone to call 911.
Gale entered the club as DAMAGEPLAN began its first song. He had scaled a wooden privacy fence that surrounds the club's outdoor patio.
Allison Henthorn, a concertgoer from Centerburg, told investigators she watched three people on the patio encourage the intruder.
"They were basically saying, 'Come on, right on,' or whatever," she told The Dispatch yesterday. "He got about halfway over the fence and they helped
him the rest of the way."
A security guard on the patio approached Gale about entering the club without buying an $8 ticket, saying, "No way, no way," she recalled. Gale "said,
'Hey, what's up?' and walked by him into the club."
Henthorn and the security guard followed Gale, who quickly outpaced them on his way to the stage.
Gale's mother, Mary Clark, told investigators her son's paranoid schizophrenia was diagnosed before he was discharged from the Marines and that he had
stopped taking his medication.
"In 1999 to 2000, Mr. Gale started telling Mrs. Clark 'they were after him' and he felt there were surveillance cameras placed inside the house and he
also started hearing voices," the report states.
Officers who searched Gale's Marysville apartment found no "computers or magazines or compact discs" related to DAMAGEPLAN or PANTERA, the Abbott
brothers' previous band.
However, a compact-disc player found inside the Pontiac Grand Am that Gale drove to the concert contained a DAMAGEPLAN CD.
Several witnesses, including band and crew members, suggested that the shootings might have been motivated by the breakup of PANTERA or a public
dispute between Dimebag Darrell and PANTERA's lead singer, Phil Anselmo.
Investigators dismissed the theory.
"At this point," wrote detective William Gillette, "there is no evidence leading detectives to believe Nathan Gale was communicating with Phil Anselmo
or any other individual . . . in an effort to hurt Dimebag Darrell Abbott."
Among those who were baffled by Gale's motives was the man he wrestled to the ground and held hostage until an officer's shot ended the ordeal.
"Brooks said he kept asking the gunman why he was doing this and to please stop," investigators wrote. "Brooks said he just couldn't imagine why this
guy kept doing this."
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?...
| Quote: | Originally posted by REV.PAULIE
HONUS-as much as i can't stand a great deal of what you really like (for my own reasons that i would never hold,nor impose,against you),YOU FUCKING
RULE!
YOU,HONUS,IS WHAT MAKES THE "EDGE" COOL.
YOUR FRIEND,
PAULIE |
check out my post contributions at www.VinylNoize.com
|
|
|
BDx13
|
|
man, that's a comprehensive report!
are any of you big pantera or damageplan fans?
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
|
|
|
JawnDiablo
Posting Freak
Posts: 12139
Registered: 4-21-2005
Location: 1902666
Member Is Offline
|
|
i liked pantera back in the cowboys from hell / vulgar days.. i just thought D Bag seemed like a pretty cool guy. Great guitar player as well.
|
|
|
Discipline
* DRUNKEN MONKEY *
Posts: 11900
Registered: 9-8-2004
Location: Over here
Member Is Offline
Mood: The Alley Dukes
|
|
I saw Pantera on 5 different tours, they were fucking great. I remember meeting Dimebag at one of those early club shows they did when I was like
15. He was the coolest fucking guy. Really friendly, talked to everybody.
‘Do you know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fucking gun. Straight through your heart.’
|
|
|
XHonusWagnerX
Moderator
Posts: 12509
Registered: 7-14-2005
Location: pawtucket
Member Is Offline
Mood: hadDCore
|
|
I was a huge Pantera fan when Cowboys came out and loved most of the stuff after that. I think that Far Beyond Driven and the last record are way
underrated. I saw them a bunch of times starting at small places and working up to bigger places. I remember one show they opened for SKID ROW! We
talked to Phil outside and he was saying that Sebastian Bach made him ride in his private bus and that it sucked, but Sebastian had really good weed.
I saw them at Club Baby Head, Rocky Point, The Strand, E.M. Lowes and once at Great Woods (Tweeter Center) with Sepultura and Biohazard. That was a
weird show to see at a place that big!
The only problem I had with them was that they totally denied the stuff they did before Cowboys and if you mentioned it to them at all they got
pissed! I asked Darrell about the Power Metal lp and he said "We dont play that shit anymore" and he turned his back on me which sucked! At least I
still have my Power Metal LP!
I've also always (and still) wanted a Dean like Darrell played, but I would settle for a Washburn model. The Pantera LIVE album is also my favorite
live album of all time & the Pantera home videos are hysterical!
I didnt like Damage Plan at all.
I'm going to put on Far Beyond Driven right now! \m/
| Quote: | Originally posted by REV.PAULIE
HONUS-as much as i can't stand a great deal of what you really like (for my own reasons that i would never hold,nor impose,against you),YOU FUCKING
RULE!
YOU,HONUS,IS WHAT MAKES THE "EDGE" COOL.
YOUR FRIEND,
PAULIE |
check out my post contributions at www.VinylNoize.com
|
|
|
JawnDiablo
Posting Freak
Posts: 12139
Registered: 4-21-2005
Location: 1902666
Member Is Offline
|
|
word
|
|
|
Terror Aesthetic
Member
Posts: 273
Registered: 9-26-2005
Location: north carolina
Member Is Offline
Mood: bright eyes felching weakertha
|
|
it was sad to see dimebag playing numetal in that damageplan shit. pantera was a great fucking band that far too many people are too fucking
"underground" to appreciate.
he\'s dead jim - that dumb fucking show
|
|
|
|
![[*]](images/thorp/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
