TN - Gunman opens fire at Knoxville hospital, killing 1 & committed suicide, April 2020

A gunman took a taxi to a hospital Monday and then opened fire, killing a woman and injuring two others before committing suicide, police said.

All the victims were female and current or former employees of Parkwest Medical Center, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said. The attack happened about 4:30 p.m. outside the hospital's discharge area.

Police are still trying to determine a motive, but it did not appear that any of the victims were related to the suspect or that there was any connection between them, spokesman Darrell DeBusk said. Police also didn't think the suspect was ever employed at the hospital.

The names of the victims and gunman weren't released by police because the families haven't yet been notified. Photographs showed a body surrounded by police at the entrance of the discharge area, where vehicles can pickup patients. Yellow crime tape was stretched around the area and police took photographs inside of a van taxi.

Two of the victims were taken to the trauma center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. A hospital spokesman declined to give their conditions, citing federal privacy laws.

Police put the hospital on lockdown as SWAT team members searched each floor to make sure no one else involved with the attack had made it inside.

"The hospital is safe and is being reopened with limitations," Owen said.

Charles Billingsley was taking his sister to a nearby doctor's office and heard the shooting, though he wasn't close enough to see the attack.

"I heard five pistol shots, back to back, and then another and then another," Billingsley said. "I just saw people running from the hospital."

Snipped from http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/19/hurt-tennessee-hospital-shooting/

Rachel Wattenburger aged 40 was murdered. Ariane Guerin aged 26 and Nancy Chancellor aged 32 are in critical condition.

No information on the gunman and why he was there has been released yet.

How very sad. Poor women went to work and get shot.


http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/20/two-dead-in-hospital-shooting-2-others-injured/

Police: Shooter felt tracking chip was implanted
Gunman who killed hospital worker left note saying doctor inserted device

updated 1 hour, 50 minutes ago

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee - A mentally ill gunman who killed a hospital worker and wounded two others was upset with a doctor he thought had implanted a monitoring device during an appendectomy in 2001, police said Tuesday.
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Owen said investigators found a note at Ibssa's apartment in which the gunman said the doctor had implanted a chip that was being used to track the patient's movements.

Medication used for treating a psychological condition was also found at his apartment, but investigators believe he hadn't been taking his medicine, Owen said. Owen said relatives of the naturalized citizen from Ethiopia had him committed for mental treatment in February.

A copy of the book "The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception" was also at his apartment.

more here

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36669143/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Rachel Wattenbarger fondly remembered by family, Parkwest staff

Originally Posted: April 17, 2011

"Rachel Wattenbarger never met the man who killed her.

She did him no wrong. She did nothing more than walk out a door.

Wattenbarger, 40, grew up in Athens, Tenn., and graduated from McMinn County High School and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She had served as a social worker at Parkwest Medical Center for about five or six years, family members said, helping to discharge older patients.

Her father, Ray Wattenbarger, said he cherishes the memory of his daughter and her smile but wants to keep those memories private.

"I have nothing to say," the father said. "It was just a tragedy, and I try not to think about it."

Wattenbarger's co-workers bowed their heads for her during a service at Parkwest four days after the shooting. They'll bow again Tuesday during a moment of silence at 4:34 p.m., the moment the shots rang out."