Saturday July 21, 2012

Colorado rampage claims woman who narrowly missed Toronto shooting

SAN ANTONIO - Among the victims of Friday's mass shooting at a midnight screening of the latest "Batman" movie was an aspiring sportscaster from Texas who missed by minutes being on the scene of another shooting rampage just a month before in Toronto.

Jessica Ghawi, who used the name Jessica Redfield, was killed when a gunman opened fire in a crowded theater in Aurora, Colorado, during the opening moments of the "The Dark Knight Rises," her mother confirmed to Reuters by phone. Her brother, Jordan Ghawi, also said on his website that she had been killed.

Redfield had been commenting on Twitter from the theater moments before the shooting broke out.

"Of course we're seeing Dark Knight, red-headed Texan spitfires, people should never argue with me," she wrote under the Twitter handle @JessicaRedfield. "Maybe I should get in on those NHL talks."

Later she tweeted, "the movie doesn't start for 20 minutes." That was her final tweet.

Just a month before on a visit to Toronto, Redfield, who was in her mid-20s, narrowly missed being on the scene of another shooting rampage. On June 2, Ghawi left the food court of Toronto's Eaton Centre less than five minutes before a man opened fire at the downtown mall.

"I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders' faces," she wrote in a blog post titled "Late Night Thoughts on the Eaton Center Shooting" at the site jessicaredfield.wordpress.com.

"I saw the victims of a senseless crime," Redfield wrote. "I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don't know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening."

In that incident, one man was pronounced dead at the scene, another later died from his wounds, and several o thers were wounded. Toronto police said it appeared the first victim was targeted in the gang-related shooting. FRIEND ADMINISTERED FIRST AID

In Colorado, Redfield and a friend were sitting in the middle of the theater when a device was thrown inside that made a hissing sound, according to a blog post Jordan Ghawi wrote after speaking to the friend.

As the theater began to fill with smoke and shots were fired, Redfield and her friend - identified in the blog as "Brent" - dropped to a prone position, Jordan Ghawi wrote.

"Brent then heard Jessica scream and noticed that she was struck by a round in the leg," the blog said.

The friend began administering first aid to Redfield before he was shot in the lower extremities, according to the blog.

"While still administering first aid, Brent noticed that Jessica was no longer screaming," the blog said, adding the friend saw that Redfield appeared to have a head wound.

Jordan Ghawi wrote that the friend - whom he described as having taken "heroic" actions - then left the building and called Redfield's mother. The friend is in stable condition, Jordan Ghawi wrote.

Jordan Ghawi, a Texas firefighter and paramedic, wrote that he received a "hysterical, and almost unintelligible" phone call from his mother early on Friday telling him his sister had been shot.

Redfield was a budding broadcaster who worked in 2010 as an intern for talk show host Mike Taylor at Ticket 760 Sportsradio in San Antonio.

"She really loved the media and she really wanted to be in it," Taylor said. "She would have been in the business for a long time."

Joe Kinsey was Redfield's boss at Busted Coverage, a sports website she worked for in Denver after moving there from San Antonio.

"Today, just out of college, kids don't have any drive, but she was just the opposite," Kinsey told Reuters. "She wanted to be involved at all times with the world of sports."

"She was full of laughter and she was fun," Kinsey said. - Reuters

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Saturday July 21, 2012

Colorado rampage claims woman who narrowly missed Toronto shooting