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April 20, 2000 |
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2 killed, 3 hurt at Ventana Lakes
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Judi Villa and David Madrid |
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Mike Rynearson/The Arizona Republic An unidentified woman at the shooting scene is consoled by a Peoria police officer and a neighbor as she awaits word on her husband's safety. |
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| A rifle in one hand and a pistol in the other, he burst into a meeting of his former Peoria neighbors Wednesday and shot five, leaving two dead. Richard Glassel had a score to settle with his former homeowners association, police said - a dispute over landscaping. Police said that when Glassel, 61, stopped firing, possibly to reload, five men helped overpower him. The shooting took place just after 2 p.m. at the Ventana Lakes Yacht Club in Ventana Lakes, a retirement subdivision northwest of Phoenix. It came a day after a man opened fire at a tenants meeting at a Michigan senior-citizens apartment complex, killing two women and critically wounding another. And it took place on the eve of the anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado. At midnight Thursday, Glassel appeared before a judge in the Madison Street Jail where he was denied bail for two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder. Asked where he lived, Glassel said, "I don't have an address." Witnesses said Glassel opened fire and did not stop shooting until his gun jammed. People ran out of the building crying, "There's been a shooting! Somebody is shooting!" Peoria police said Glassel was a former resident of the neighborhood. His wife, Susan L. Glassel, could not be located initially, police said, and was said by neighbors to have been missing for months. Police said this morning that they had located Susan Glassel in Simi Valley, Calif. Police said the gunman drove up in a U-Haul moving truck that they later searched for explosives. None was found. |
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Emmanuel Lozano/The Arizona Republic |
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| Glassel killed Esther LaPlante, 58, who was attending her first meeting as the group's secretary-treasurer, and Nila Lynn, 69, wife of board member Duane Lynn, who was unhurt. He also shot Paul Ettinger, board vice president, in the chest. Ettinger, 69, is in intensive care at St. Jospeh's Hospital and Medical Center. Walter Sergeant, board president, was unhurt, but is reportedly so distraught he does not remember what happened. Another board member, William Cigoy, did not attend the meeting. As he fired, Glassel also wounded Gilbert McCurdy, 64, who is in good condition at John C. Lincoln Hospital-North Mountain, with wounds to his foot. Charles Yankowski, 69, who was hit in the thigh, was treated and released from John C. Lincoln. "It's hard to believe," resident Anne Guardiani said. "There's too many nuts in the world." Glassel had a running dispute with the homeowners association that began with a disagreement over landscaping in front of his home in the 20600 block of North 104th Avenue, witnesses and neighbors said. Attorney Curtis Ekmark, whose Scottsdale law firm has represented the Ventana Lakes property owners association, said it filed an injunction against Glassel in 1998. Ekmark said the group's property manager hired the firm after Glassel harassed landscapers working on medians and sidewalks near his house. The situation did not improve. "He had signs outside his house posted on his garage that said, "Stay out,' "Keep off,' "Private property,' " said Phyllis Deal, who lived across the street from Glassel and described him as otherwise courteous and polite. Glassel picketed the center last summer, shouting for people not to buy homes in the area. Bill Zant, a member of the board who did not attend Wednesday's meeting, said other members would show up with signs saying, "We love our community." Zant said Glassel tried unsuccessfully to sue him for harassment after that incident. |
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The people Glassel fought with may not have been the gunman's victims. Residents said a board election last March changed some of the membership. Deal said Glassel left his house last November, after lenders foreclosed on his property. She said Glassel's wife had already left. Glassel demolished the house on the inside before he left. Deal said she returned from a vacation to find a Ryder truck outside Glassel's house and people walking in and out, loading things onto it. Deal and another neighbor walked through the open door to check on things. "I could not believe it," Deal said. "It was torn apart, down to the wallboard. The plumbing was torn out. It looked like a buzzsaw had been put on the studs on the walls. The carpet had been all torn up and one of the toilets was gone." Deal said the cabinets in the kitchen, bathroom and closets looked as if they had been cut in half with an electric saw. Donald McLean, a former board member, said it didn't surprise him at all to hear who the shooting suspect was. "I know all of them on the board," he said. "They're all good citizens. Nobody in their right mind would have done that." Others never figured they would see crime-scene tape and flashing lights at Ventana Lakes. Joyce McGuiness had planned to sit in on the meeting, she said, but changed her mind at the last minute because she wasn't prepared. "I decided to play cards instead," she said. "I heard people say, "They have him, they have him, but he shot people!' " |
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| Contributing to this article were Beth DeFalco, Beverly Ford, Laura Trujillo, Brent Whiting, Shaun McKinnon, Judd Slivka, Yoji Cole, Stephanie Paterik, Karina Bland, Connie Sexton and Carlos Miller. * * * Reach the reporter at Tessie.Borden@ArizonaRepublic.com or (602) 444-7479. |
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| Major shooting sprees in the Valley * April 19, 2000 -- Two are killed and three wounded in a shooting at a Ventana Lakes property owners meeting in north Peoria. * April 22, 1992 -- Two are slain, including a pregnant woman, and three others are shot and wounded at a Smitty's restaurant in Tempe. Shooter killed himself. * March 15, 1992 -- Four people are killed, three at an east Phoenix mobile-home park, in a shooting rampage. * Aug. 10, 1991 -- Nine people, including six monks, are killed at a Buddhist temple near Luke Air Force Base. * Nov. 12, 1966 -- Four women and a child are killed in a Mesa beauty-school shooting. |
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Copyright 2000, Arizona Central
Related articles • 1. Violence begets violence (4/22/2000) • 2. Heroes stop rampage (4/20/2000) • 3. Suspect known in neighborhood for bad temper (4/20/2000) • 4. Violence mars community's quiet lifestyle (4/20/2000) • 5. Violence by seniors likely to escalate (4/20/2000) • 6. Good folks, nice neighbors become violence victims (4/20/2000) • 7. Gunman told victims he was getting even (4/20/2000) • 8. Home foreclosure racket causing violence (4/20/2000) • 9. Complex's shooting puts homeowners groups in spotlight (4/20/2000) • 10.. 12 millions dollars for faulty buildings (4/15/2000) (Association lawyer Curtis Ekmark) • 11. Owners groups - ogres or godsends? (4/15/200)
Homeowner associations: Witnesses & Experts and Victims of political, legal and judicial corruption and abuse, including several of the victims mentioned in the above AHRC article, are available for broadcast interviews, government hearings and investigations. Please call, write or email requests to American Homeowners Resource Center. |
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The American Homeowners Resource Center P. O. Box 97 San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693 Telephone: (949) 366-2125 Website: http://www.ahrc.com Email: ahrc@ahrc.com © 1992 - 2000, AHRC News Services |
