Shooting at Toronto Downtown Eaton Centre

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Couldn't disagree more. The only thing twitter is good for is that it lets you know something is going down. No one should ever rely on it to figure out what is going on or to answer the W5 questions.

It can go either way. The U.S. intelligence community followed Twitter quite closely during the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran when there was mass censorship going on against protestors of the Ahmadinejad regime. In fact, Twitter was scheduled to go down for maintenance during the revolution and the U.S. federal government ordered them to delay the maintenance as they were collecting tweets.

Similarly, similar attention was paid to Twitter during the Egypt and Tunisia uprisings, as well as during the real-time data collection of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008. Open-source intelligence through social media is often the preliminary groundwork used by intelligence communities nowadays to pinpoint and extrapolate the W5 questions. It is particularly useful in creating a social network analysis to identify groups of people and their level of connections/relationships.

Twitter can, and has been helpful in providing critical data to those who need it. You just need to be able to sort through alot of it en masse and draw trends or patterns from the "citizen journalism" that Twitter is often used for.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Similarly, similar attention was paid to Twitter during the Egypt and Tunisia uprisings

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101
Couldn't disagree more. The only thing twitter is good for is that it lets you know something is going down. No one should ever rely on it to figure out what is going on or to answer the W5 questions.

Often I think the same way about our regular news outlets.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Twitter can, and has been helpful in providing critical data to those who need it. You just need to be able to sort through alot of it en masse and draw trends or patterns from the "citizen journalism" that Twitter is often used for.

Agreed. In your example however, the intelligence community is trained to sort through the information to find facts or know how to spot them. I'm talking about the use of twitter by the general public/media, which wouldn't have that same training or knowledge. It's these type of people who are the majority users of twitter.

[TurnedTheCorner]

The man killed was targeted.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...stigation.html

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

The man killed was targeted.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...stigation.html

I don't know why, but that makes me feel a lot better about this.

[OffsideSpecialist]

An arrest has been made
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ar...383/story.html

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I don't know why, but that makes me feel a lot better about this.

Why, a lot of innocent people were hurt in the name of gang warfare. there's nothing redeemable about this crime or the shooter.

I find myself caring less about trying to rehabilitate this thug that they've caught and focusing around removal from society and extreme punishment.

Bring back the bullwhip, or hack off his gun hand with a rusty blade smeared in human poop.

[howard_the_duck]

What a horrific incident. I work about a block away from the Eaton Centre and am in that food court probably once a week. While I was nowhere near the Eaton Centre Saturday evening it's definitely affected me.

Targeted or not there were 15 shots fired off in one of Canada's biggest shopping centres and innocent people were in the direct line of fire. Who shoots a 13 year old kid?

The level of attention this is getting nationally (internationally as well) is completely justified. Disgusting sequence of events.

[Ozy_Flame]

Glad to know that two of Canada's most wanted criminals have been caught on the same day. And both alive to serve justice.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Why, a lot of innocent people were hurt in the name of gang warfare. there's nothing redeemable about this crime or the shooter.

I find myself caring less about trying to rehabilitate this thug that they've caught and focusing around removal from society and extreme punishment.

Bring back the bullwhip, or hack off his gun hand with a rusty blade smeared in human poop.

I can understand gang violence, it makes sense to me why it happens, even if innocent people get hurt in the process. You can bet that the guy who got killed was almost certainly not innocent. The real victim in this case is the 13 year old who got shot in the head.

I don't understand people 'snapping' and killing a whole lot of people for some obscure reason that almost never makes sense.

[Ozy_Flame]

^^^ FYI, it appears to have been a meeting that went sour. It's not the bat-#### crazy gunman firing from a distance trying to hit a target - they were discussing turf issues, and it got out of control.

I don't want to take the side of the gunman, but it's highly likely hitting other people was not his intention, as I think some people think he just walked in with reckless abandon.

[OffsideSpecialist]

Just heard on the radio that the victim is a crack dealer from Fort Mac

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

^^^ FYI, it appears to have been a meeting that went sour. It's not the bat-#### crazy gunman firing from a distance trying to hit a target - they were discussing turf issues, and it got out of control.

I don't want to take the side of the gunman, but it's highly likely hitting other people was not his intention, as I think some people think he just walked in with reckless abandon.

I don't care about his intentions, pulling out a gun in a heavily populated mall and firing 8 shots is pretty much a) Reckless abandon, b) not giving a crap about what happens.

He might as well have been a crazed gunman. What makes it worse is there was intent, and he intentionally put other people in danger.

Screw him, I know he'll probably wheep and cry and apologize at his trial, I hope that the judge ingnores him and throws him out of society for the maximum.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by OffsideSpecialist

Just heard on the radio that the victim is a crack dealer from Fort Mac

Not shedding tears for the crack dealer victim nor the shooter.

I am shedding teams for the other people.

[Ducay]

Sounds like the shooter did everyone a huge favor (minus stray bullet victims, of course). Gang violence, now 200% more efficient than Canadian justice system.

Originally Posted by cbc.ca

Ahmed Hassan, 24, was charged with cocaine trafficking in January 2010, along with five other people.
He was also charged with obstructing a police officer and possession of stolen goods.
Hassan failed to appear in court on the charges, leading to the issue of two warrants for his arrest.
One of Hassan's co-accused, a 19-year-old man from the Toronto-area, was killed three months later in a Fort McMurray apartment.
Hassan was out on bail at the time for the alleged forcible confinement of another Fort McMurray man, Jama Ahmed Mahamoud, in September 2008.

Hassan was one of six Somali Canadians charged with robbery, assault and unlawful confinement.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by howard_the_duck

What a horrific incident. I work about a block away from the Eaton Centre and am in that food court probably once a week. While I was nowhere near the Eaton Centre Saturday evening it's definitely affected me.

Targeted or not there were 15 shots fired off in one of Canada's biggest shopping centres and innocent people were in the direct line of fire. Who shoots a 13 year old kid?

The level of attention this is getting nationally (internationally as well) is completely justified. Disgusting sequence of events.

Oddly enough, for all the attention it's got to this point, it was actually a quarter page, minor looking story on page 39 of the Calgary Sun yesterday. It was so far back in the paper, and such a small article, that I honestly got to about page 15 and went "Holy crap, the Sun forgot to include the Toronto shooting!".