Phoenix Shooting Rampage: Barking may have led to massacre that left neighbors, dogs, gunman dead, p

(CBS/AP) - Loud barking may have sparked a shooting rampage that left five people - including four members of one family - and two dogs dead at a central Phoenix townhouse Saturday, police said. Police identified the suspected gunman as Michael Guzzo, 56, a next-door neighbor to the victims.

Guzzo died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after apparent massacre, police said.

Phoenix police Sgt. Tommy Thompson said there is "some indication" that barking "perhaps was a problem." But he added that because of the deaths, a motive may never be known.

Phoenix Shooting Rampage: Barking may have led to massacre that left neighbors, dogs, gunman dead, police say

I hope I put this in the right place, I couldn't find it already posted.

So was this guy insane or "driven" insane by the barking of the dogs with no help from the owners or authorities. I think this is a tragic end to the fact that people today have no manners or feeling of community and/or the continual mind bleeping being done by the ones in charge. When he asked the owners to quiet their dogs it wouldn't surprise me to find out they did the opposite "just because". So sad what people are becoming

Lil

reply to post by Lilroanie


I would postulate that this guy had way more deep seated issues and the barking was just the straw that broke the camels back. I've had to deal with annoying neighbors and dogs before and I never went on a rampage over it. My guess is he was dealing with a number of other issues and this just pushed him over the edge.

Driven insane. Barking dogs blow.

Restricted
Driven insane. Barking dogs blow.

A neighbor when I was a kid walked up to a dog playing fetch with some kids and blew its head off.

He would taunt our dog in the fenced in backyard and then scream at us because the dog barked. We used a rubber band around the dog's muzzle to teach it not to bark. Probably saved the dogs life.

I think he was a 'Nam vet just home with PTSD.

reply to post by Lilroanie


What a sad world we live in. Whatever the reason, one just doesn't take out his gun and start shooting. Well, I take that back. I guess these days one does.

Out of control, crazy world.

I can understand being irritated by a dog barking incessantly. But holy cow! Murdering a whole family over it?

People are just snap crackle popping like crazy nowadays, or there it's just easier to spread news at a quicker rate.

Wanna see something really insane? Read the comments on this article on Yahoo about it.

Yahoo Article


Over a thousand replies and I read about half and almost all of them were sympathetic. Barking dogs are awful and we probably all have horror stories about it but what sane person kills 4 people over it and tries to kill more heh. Just another symptom of the breakdown of humanity.

Lil

I make no excuses for mass murder however what can be done about this? I have run into this issue time and time again. Why aren't barking dogs considered disturbing the peace? I managed a large property in the past and got constant complaints on one person for two dogs that never shut up. The police were called constantly and nothing was ever done. So why aren't there laws against this? If you had someone in your backyard making barking noises all night (a human) it would be disturbing the peace.

IMHO if someone is already mentally ill and is going to kill people they are going to take the thing that aggravates them the most and go after it. If the police think it was barking dogs it makes me think there were prior complaints about it. Again no reason to kill people. I think I would have gone after the dogs instead so I wouldn't have to commit murder therefore forfeiting my life.

There's a little yapper behind my house and it barks 24/7. The dog drives me insane but I certainly wouldn't kill anyone for it, not even the dog (although evil thoughts go through my head now and then on what I would do if i had a BB gun). I hate it because on nice evenings, I like to open up my windows to get some fresh air but I can't sleep then because of the stupid little thing.

I can't stand people who throw their dogs outside and just leave them. Poor dogs. My mom has 3 Siberian Huskies and she does the same thing, just leaves them out back in their kennel and she's had the cops called on her several times due to barking. She doesn't care. I ask her all the time why she wants dogs if all they do is stay couped up in a cage for their entire life. I don't get it.

My heart goes out to the family that lost their lives...
Very sad

The comments on there condoning the murderer are just sick. Shows where are society has come.
We do not even know if the dogs barked all the time or just now and then, as that is not even mentioned.

I saw that article earlier today, and it made me angry those responses!

reply to post by Lilroanie


Police aren't exactly brilliant detectives these days. If they have a reason to believe it might have been the dogs, it's because the guy gave them a reason. He probably called regularly.

There is no justification, but just saying,

Absolutely wrong. The man that did this is either mentally ill or a screw came loose and he lost it. It's hard to imagine that barking could cause a man to shoot other people who he associates with the barking. It's hard to imagine somebody doing this who doesn't have prior mental issues. However, barking can be a very annoying thing. Thing is, most people can deal with it in some way. I sympathize with people who have to live with constant barking and don't know how to stop it.

I had to get rid of both my dogs before moving to this house as my dad (the owner) felt it was injust to put barking dogs in a backyard in a tract home.

Irony: I am surrounded by 13 dogs. I live near a train tracks with regular long freight trains moving super slow with horn all the way, and 3 doors down from a fire station. I bet you know what the dogs are doing an awful lot.

I love animals. And I am actually ok with dogs barking when there is something to bark at, that's life, they're going to bark and sirens and train whistles and and people and cats and other dogs and the position of the stars.

But my next door neighbor, until some months ago, had a dog that was different. This dog barked, and I am not making this up, incessantly. It did not bark 'because' of anything. It went YAP! YAP! YAP! YAP! 24-freaking-7 ~20 feet from my window and it was LOUD. People on the phone (I work from home) would remark on it. I couldn't sleep. It never, ever, ever shut up. And the other 2 dogs in their back yard were sparked by it; they barked nearly all the time in response to it, when normally they were just ordinary bark-when-reason dogs. Then the other dogs all around would bark in response to them.

Fortunately I am not homicidal, and I can't think of any 'noise' reason worth killing someone over let alone a family. I go out of my way to save earthworms and spiders so I'm not likely to go murdering dogs let alone people anytime soon.

But there were times... when I was really sleep deprived... when I was slightly ill (partly from the first)... when I was massively stressed out from overwork and pressure situations there... when maybe there were anything from personal or hormonal things going on... that an inability to sleep because of this HORRIBLE barking-dog and it would just trigger some kind of psychosis, which blessedly was completely subdued by the part of my brain that doesn't act out dreams I suppose. I had moments of flash-rage when I wanted to shoot the dog repeatedly, and maybe his owners as well. It was just a flash and it passed, but it doesn't take me a lot of stretch to imagine that someone who has some genuine emotional-mental stability problems, and some high sensitivity to noise (some people [this is neurological] are way more sensitive/upset by noise than others), could literally just lose-their-freaking-mind over it eventually.

The report I read said the guy TRIED, REPEATEDLY, to get it taken care of. No, that does not give him any reason even to shoot a dog or punch a person, let alone to slaughter a family, that's crazy. But this is one of those things like "putting your body outside the sunroof while the car is in motion" and "flipping off strangers in cars in bad neighborhoods over a parking spot." Nobody deserves to die for doing those things. An LEO friend of mine from way back once told me about a variety of bad-endings people had over doing minor stuff (e.g. yelling F-you at someone in a parking lot when that someone turned out to be wired on drugs) that kind of makes you think about how maybe we shouldn't just trust that everyone in the world is a well-balanced, calm, patient, reasonable person.

So it's not fair really to say they 'brought it on themselves.' Because that'd be so wrong. But... they certainly contributed to triggering their own worst-case-scenario. I have been driven to the point of flash-imaginings of extreme violence by the situation, and I am normally pretty stable, patient, etc. so I can imagine that someone who already has some serious existing issues and is highly noise-sensitive could be driven completely over the edge.

denybedoomed
People are just snap crackle popping like crazy nowadays, or there it's just easier to spread news at a quicker rate.

Probably both.

You know, health probably relates to this. How I react to stress (especially noise, to which I am pretty sensitive) is drastically different depending on my sleep status and health. (Pre-Menopause hormones may relate. I can snap from blissfully considering the stars to wanting to scream at my teenager to pondering my grocery list in a matter of 20 seconds. Even I can't keep up with what's going on. Hormones... gotta love 'em...)

Health has pretty significant neural and psychological effects. It would make sense that as the health of our culture devolves at lightspeed in such numbers, that our psychological health is probably devolving at the same rate. The symptoms might just be more people losing their minds over stuff like barking dogs, which nobody healthy would do.

reply to post by Lilroanie


that is one of my pet hates pardon the pun

but i cant stand a dog barking its not so much the dog barking its more

the owner not shutting the dog up that gets my back up

but i dont think i could kill for it (well i know i couldnt)

CoherentlyConfused
There's a little yapper behind my house and it barks 24/7. The dog drives me insane but I certainly wouldn't kill anyone for it, not even the dog (although evil thoughts go through my head now and then on what I would do if i had a BB gun). I hate it because on nice evenings, I like to open up my windows to get some fresh air but I can't sleep then because of the stupid little thing.

I can't stand people who throw their dogs outside and just leave them. Poor dogs. My mom has 3 Siberian Huskies and she does the same thing, just leaves them out back in their kennel and she's had the cops called on her several times due to barking. She doesn't care. I ask her all the time why she wants dogs if all they do is stay couped up in a cage for their entire life. I don't get it.

maybe someone should cut letters out of a news paper and send her a letter scare the heck out of her it worked with my mothers neighbour and his yappy dog

Personal story: I have a low threshold when it comes to irritating noises. There was a rental house behind ours that was being used to sell crack out of. They had a dog that would bark and bark endlessly. Finally I had reached my breaking point and went to go tell those people to shut their dog up or else.

What I found instead broke my heart. It was very, very cold and windy and what I found was a pit bull puppy so wrapped up in it's own chain it could only move it's mouth. No food, no water, not even a scrap of blanket to lay on just cold concrete.

I cut the chain and took the dog home. A few weeks later some guys noticed and said " you stole my dog M - F!". At that point "his" dog bared his teeth and growled like he wanted blood from this guy. I held out the leash in my hand and told him to take him. He came 2 steps forward when the dog lunged at him trying to bite. A few insults muttered under his breath and he turned and left.

We kept Sammy until we had to move and had no choice but to find him a new home.
That broke our hearts too.


I still have a hard time with barking dogs but I carry treats instead so I can make friends. A "hello" bark sounds much nicer than a "get off my property!" kind of bark.

For any one who has to put up with a dog that will not stop barking. Try to make a home made noise activated ultrasonic emitter that sends out frequencies of 23-30KHz at 20-50watts. Just don't use it indoors if you have pets. You could also try a noise activated air pump and a dog whistle.

I think it would be a hell of alot better to hear whimpering then any of the alternatives.

reply to post by CoherentlyConfused


[q] My mom has 3 Siberian Huskies and she does the same thing, just leaves them out back in their kennel and she's had the cops called on her several times due to barking. She doesn't care. I ask her all the time why she wants dogs if all they do is stay couped up in a cage for their entire life. I don't get it.[
[/q]

Now this upsets me to no end. If you think a dog is supposed to live in a crate, don't have a dog.

Well socialized dogs don't bark without reason. I have 2 Rhodesian Ridgebacks and I had a yellow Lab. If my dogs barked you can bet something or someone was amiss.

Dogs don't train themselves. It is the responsibility of the dog owner to teach their dog to be good members of the family and community. My dogs are very obedient to the neighbors I know and trust when I am away from home. Of course all bets are off if I am home, then they suddenly become deaf if my family or neighbors try to get them to do anything.

Dog that are poor neighbors can be a nuisance just like so many other things in life. If you can adapt and block out the sound of trains running in the middle of the night that are so close that your whole neighborhood shakes, or planes that fly so low that you can't hear the person standing next to you, you can block out any annoyance.

Killing a living thing because it annoys you isn't just wrong it is unacceptable and never under any circumstance should be condoned. We stand up and fight back behind stupid little inconsequential annoyances in life, then stand back and don't do or say a word against a corrupt, greedy, evil society that is ripping this planet apart. The next time somebody feels frustrated, angry and feed up with life, maybe they should knock on the door of the real culprits and leave those that in the same boat with them alone.

I am not encouraging anyone to go out and kill anyone, just take your angry and frustration to the right doorstep.