American Sniper author Chris Kyle shot dead in Texas.
Sheriff Tommy Bryant: “Around 9pm (0300 GMT) they spiked his tyres, the vehicle was stopped and he was apprehended without any scuffle or fight”Iraq veteran and ex-US Navy seal Chris Kyle, known as the deadliest sniper in US history, has been shot dead on a Texas shooting range, reports say.
His body was found at Rough Creek Lodge range on Saturday along with that of his neighbour, Chad Littlefield.
Iraq war veteran Eddie Ray Routh, 25, has been charged with murdering both.
Mr Kyle, 38, wrote the 2012 bestseller American Sniper, about the psychology of a sniper, in which he said that he had killed more than 250 people.
He served four tours of duty in Iraq and was decorated for bravery.
‘The Devil’The gunman opened fire at about 15:30 local time (21:30 GMT) on Saturday, then fled in a pick-up truck belonging to one of the victims, local media reported.
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Start QuoteIt is a weird feeling, seeing an actual dead body… knowing that you’re the one that caused it now to no longer move”
Chris Kyle
What goes on in the mind of a sniper?Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant said Mr Routh then travelled to his sister’s home, telling her what had happened before leaving.
She called the police and Mr Routh was arrested near his home in Lancaster, Texas, more than 70 miles (110 km) from the scene of the shooting, several hours later.
Sheriff Bryant said the motive for the killings was unclear, and was unable to explain how the two men were shot.
Travis Cox, director of a non-profit-making organisation Mr Kyle had helped found, told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Routh was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and that Mr Kyle and Mr Littlefield were trying to help him.
Scott McEwen, who co-authored the book with Kyle, said: “It just comes as a shock and it’s staggering to think that after all Chris has been through, that this is how he meets his end, because there are so many ways he could have been killed.”
Mr Kyle, a former cowboy, is regarded as the most prolific sniper the US has ever seen.
Official Pentagon figures say he killed 160 people, but he estimated the total was 255.
According to army intelligence, he was nicknamed “The Devil” by Iraqi insurgents, who put a $20,000 (£13,000) bounty on his head.
He appeared to show little remorse for his victims.
“Every person I killed I strongly believe that they were bad,” he told the BBC in an interview a year ago.
“When I do go face God there is going to be lots of things I will have to account for but killing any of those people is not one of them.”
I read about it on BBC. Sad day!
It’s too bad and my heart goes out to his family. But I don’t think the best treatment for PTSD is the homeopathic remedy of shooting at the range. I would think strippers might work better, and no one can kill you with one…
May be once has started to kill - you never can stop!!!
I don’t think that’s true at all. I think the problem here is lack of psychological training to line grunts. And a (albeit very successful) SEAL sniper being a bit pompous and callous, ultimately costing him his life…
Once i saw a guy with vivid war’s PTSD syndrome in public place - he was totally uncontrollable and hardly can hear what people around him were trying to say. He behaved too agressive and someone have to call to police.After he has beaten the girl, they juct tied him. Later we have learned the guy was a Chechen war’s wet. A very complicated problem.
The most remarkable thing about 20th and 21st century wars is that even with increasing sophistication and effectiveness in training most soldiers to overcome the natural resistance to killing others, almost none of them ever do it once they’ve left their armed service.
Despite, in many instances and among large forces probably most notably Vietnam in the West and the Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the East, all returning soldiers being trained and primed to wreak havoc with firearms against, among others, unarmed civilians perceived as threats to them.
A good proportion of soldiers coming home from past and current conflicts were and are seriously disturbed by their experiences, and often predisposed to violent rage. But they don’t go on gun rampages.
I’d suggest that the issue is not “Once one has started to kill - you can never stop.” but “What is wrong with the very, very, very few who killed or, probably in many cases didn’t kill, during their military service and who killed after leaving the service?”
I’d also suggest that answering that question about the infinitesimal proportion of those who offend is about as useful as answering the question about why the renegade Los Angeles cop http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/11/us/lapd-attacks/index.html acted as he did in drawing any conclusions applicable to all soldiers or all police.
Common sense and objective statistics tell us that former soldiers and police who, like other nutcases, go on gun rampages or otherwise offend with unjustified firearm homicides are so rare among the vast number of their serving and former compatriots that, whatever it is that motivates them, it was not being trained to kill or being among the very, very small proportion of soldiers and police who have killed in the line of duty.
They are aberrations whose conduct was not formed by being members of armed or police forces, with or without killing. Just like the first time killer aberrations with no military or police training from Columbine to Norway to Tasmania and countless places in between where crazies with guns go on rampages.
An objective assessment must conclude that the probability of a former armed service or police member, with or without killing experience, is far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far less likely to go on a gun rampage than some ****ed up teenager or sub-normal idiot or any other strange person in the miniscule numbers of, perhaps, at most a few hundred at any time out of the seven billion people on the planet.
That said, like many others outside the USA, I still think that its attitude to gun control and something else in its national character results in an unusually high rate of gun crime unlike, say, Switzerland, where guns are also held in large numbers but the rate of gun crime is about one tenth of the the US rate. http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-culture-that-works/
Damn, is this forum f’d-up right now!
In any case, I think the majority of weapons in Switzerland are issued by the government to their ‘peoples-militia’ Army members. Even now, I’ve heard they’ve stopped issuing ammo with the weapons because of a mass-shooting there…