Random Wisconsin shooting
A 27-year-old veteran of the U.S. Air Force was identified as the shooter by police in the Wisconsin town of Menasha, some 35 miles southwest of Green Bay. After opening fire on the bridge at complete strangers Sunday evening, police said Sergio Daniel Valencia del Toro turned one of his two handguns on himself and shot himself dead.
The only motive police have for the shooting is that del Toro had been in an argument with his former fiancee earlier that evening. It appears that after he left her he went to the bridge and opened fire at people near him. There were about 75 people on or in the vicinity of the bridge, popular with joggers, bikers and strollers, when del Toro started shooting.
Family shot on bridge
Erin Stoffel, 32, saw her her husband Jonathan, 33, shot dead, along with her daughter Olivia. She herself was shot three times, in her abdomen, thigh and her hand, but despite those wounds was able to get her two younger children off the bridge and away from the shooter. She told her seven-year-old son to go get help and collapsed.
When help arrived, Ms. Stoffel was rushed to hospital and underwent emergency surgery. She is expected to survive. The police chief of Menasha, Tim Styka, called her actions “absolutely amazing.”
Also killed in the random shooting was Adam Bentdahl, 31. Friends and family of all the victims are in shock but have commented on what wonderful people each of them were. It is the first mass shooting in Menasha.
Mass shootings in U.S.
The Wall Street Journal said American mass shootings are increasing. “Mass shootings have been on the rise in the U.S., according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation study released in September,” the WSJ reports. “The FBI has identified 160 shootings from 2000 through 2013 that fit its definition of “active-shooter” events.
“There were an average of 16.4 active-shooter incidents a year between 2006 and 2013,” the Journal added. “Up from an average of 6.4 a year from 2000 to 2006. A total of 486 people were killed and 557 wounded in the incidents, the FBI said.”
Del Toro argued with his former fiancee, police said, then got on a bike and rode to the bridge where he began his deadly rampage. The Stoffel family is from nearby Neenah.
