Thursday, January 1, 2009

The Covina Massacre

KTLA NewsDecember 26, 2008COVINA [California] -- Investigators said Friday that they have found another body in the rubble of a house burned down by a distraught man who dressed as Santa Claus and opened fire at a Christmas Eve party before taking his own life.

Coroner's Lt. Larry Dietz says the ninth body was found Friday morning in the gutted structure.Nine people are confirmed dead and two others were wounded, according to authorities. The names of the deceased have not been released, and identification will likely take days because the bodies were so badly burned in the blaze.Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, who had recently been divorced and is believed to have lost his job, knocked on the front door of a home owned by the parents of his ex-wife in Covina around 11:30 Wednesday night, said Police Chief Kim Raney.An 8-year-old girl ran to the door to answer Pardo's knock, police said. He shot her in the face, stepped into the house and began to fire indiscriminately with a semiautomatic handgun.The Los Angeles County coroner confirmed that at least eight people at the party were killed.Pardo's ex-wife, 43-year-old Sylvia Ortega, and her parents, Joseph and Alicia Ortega, are considered among the dead, officials said.Pardo was carrying what appeared to be a large present but was what police described as a home-made pressurized device used to spray some kind of flammable substance."We actually believe he was attempting to create an aerosol or some kind of fume that would ignite later," said Covina police Lt. Pat Buchanan. "We still don't know what set it off."About 80 firefighters battled the blaze, which destroyed the house. They battled flames that soared 40 to 50 feet high for an hour and a half before extinguishing the fire, according to Capt. Mike Brown.The firefighters were initially kept at bay by police who feared that the gunman was still in the area.When the flames were extinguished early Thursday, investigators found three charred bodies in the home's living room area. Later that day, they found five more bodies. Authorities planned to return to the scene Friday to search for more victims.In addition to the 8-year-old girl who was shot, a 16-year-old girl was shot in the back. Both are expected to survive, though there is no word on their current condition.

About 25 people were at the party, according to radio reports.Party goers fled the house on Knollcrest Drive in panic, running to neighbors' homes and frantically calling police. A 20-year-old woman broke her ankle whenshe escaped by jumping from a second-story window.Then, shortly before 3:30 a.m., Pardo's brother summoned Los Angeles police to his Sylmar home -- about 25 miles away from the carnage.Officers arrived to find Pardo dead from a single gunshot to the head, police officials said.

They found two handguns there, and two more in the wreckage of his former in-laws' house.By 9 a.m. Thurday, a pair of Covina detectives had arrived at the tan stucco house in Montrose that Pardo owned and lived in, cordoning it off with tape.Candy cane decorations were affixed to the fence and a holiday wreath hung onthe front door. An SUV and a military-style Hummer were parked in the driveway.The detectives sat in their car awaiting a judge to sign a search warrant for the house.At 3 p.m., members of the Los Angeles County sheriff's bomb squad and other detectives came to the house. They brought out boxes of evidence and several metal cylinders filled with flammable gas.One detective, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to news media, said they had found evidence inside that Pardo had prepared for the attack.Meanwhile, a car rented in Pardo's name was left in front of his brother's house in Sylmar loaded with 300 rounds of ammunition and a pipe bomb. All of that exploded when bomb squad technicians detonated an incendiary device in the vehicle, but no one was injured.

Court records show that Pardo's wife of about two years divorced him last September. He had no criminal record, according to police, but had apparently become angry following last week's settlement of his divorce.Court documents show that his ex-wife got $10,000, the house, her wedding ring and the family dog in the settlement. Bruce Pardo's attorney said Pardo was still trying to pay the $10,000 as recently as Tuesday.Pardo had also fallen behind on spousal support payments after he lost his job in July, according to his attorney.He "was apparently going through a bad time in his marriage," Buchanan said.

Neighbors said that until earlier this year, Pardo lived in the house with his ex-wife and her three children. They were often seen walking their dog through the neighborhood.Pardo was, by many accounts, an unassuming, religious man, who tended to his garden and served regularly as an usher at evening Mass at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Montrose.


Bong Garcia, Pardo's next door neighbor, said he last saw Pardo between 9 and 10p.m. and exchanged brief greetings.Pardo told him he was on his way to a Christmas party and walked down the street dressed in regular clothes, Garcia said.Pardo is thought to have worked in the aerospace industry as an engineer,according to police and acquaintances.


http://www.ktla.com/landing_topstories/?Document-Shows-Santa-Shooter-Lost-House-=1&blockID=170714&feedID=1198

Push a man far enough and this is what happens and two years,well that how long the average marriage lasts these days.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

This tragedy could have been avoided ,in my opinion. I have read on net that he was sued also by his former girlfriend Elena Lucano with whom he had a brain damaged child for child support and she is still alive ;a line about her was saying ,"she was not vindictive " ...and that says a lot about how she managed not to turn Bruce into a monster.

Anonymous said...

If we want to get rid of women's rights every divorce must end like this.

Only when "society" is forced to choose between war on Men's terms or peace on Men's terms will Men be victorious.

Good for Pardo. It is unfortunate that he killed himself, it would have been nicer if he had escaped.

Masculist Man said...

Anonymous,

Only when "society" is forced to choose between war on Men's terms or peace on Men's terms will Men be victorious.

Good for Pardo. It is unfortunate that he killed himself, it would have been nicer if he had escaped.


Here here,agreed.

G M said...

Sad news, but sadly not unsurprising...

Anonymous said...

I don't condone these acts of violence, but I recognize that violent radicals have powerful effects on social tensions.

I suspect the end result of Pardo's rampage will be to strengthen the most radical elements and to weaken the moderates.

However, if feminist extremists manage to push through punitive legislation, they might succeed in recruiting more extremist men even as extremist men show short-term losses.

Anonymous said...

you are absolutely disgusting

Masculist Man said...

you are absolutely disgusting

Not really. Men are tired of women's shit and the shit heaped upon us. If a woman snaps she is given sympathy if a man snaps he is blamed. Let's end the hyprocrisy.

Anonymous said...

http://petertarbatisherekids.blogspot.com/
peter tarbat petertarbat@live.ca

Anonymous said...

You sick sick fucks. He murdered children and then took his own life like the coward he was. This is your brave new world? Go fuck yourselves. Thank God psychos like you and Pardo are in the minority, and I hope when you realise your pathetic campaign against human love and equal rights is doomed, and you go on a killing spree of your own, you are caught before you can off yourself and made to live with what you've done.

You are a sad, sad waste of oxygen.

Masculist Man said...

Fuck you and your judgemental attitude. If this were a woman who did this you along with the rest of the feminists would be championing her just like you did with Lorena Bobbitt and Andrea Yates. Thanks to women like you female criminals serve no time. Let's end the hyprocrisy.

Anonymous said...

Read about his past life and biography. He was a human ticking time bomb. He could just as easily have turned his venom unto his last employer's workplace after being fired.

There was something wrong with this man for years, long before he met his wife, and long before this tragedy. Unfortunately he had the outward charm of a Ted Bundy but inwardly he was not normal.

Look into his past, before he met his wife and see for yourselves. It's too bad his wife didn't because there never would have been this marriage.

Instead, sooner or later he would have erupted somewhere else according to his warped views.

Masculist Man said...

Cite what you are talking about. How about a link?

Anonymous said...

am completely disgusted with SOME of the comments I dated him sometime in the mid nineties. We dated for awhile and I think I knew him pretty well. He asked me to marry him and I said no .. BECAUSE I “saw” this “evil” in him WAY BACK THEN. It was nothing you could point to or explain to anyone & my girlfriends all thought I was crazy to break up with him. He always said and or did things that I thought were VERY strange. He was very nice to my family and friends, but it was ONLY by KNOWING him and watching him that you understand that he lived a facade ALL THE TIME. He was never really “real” with you .. I felt that for someone who was asking me to marry him, we would be closer - “friends”, but it was NEVER that way .. I could go on and on – but really HE WAS ALWAYS SICKO… And I really feel for his mom – she lost her home in the Northridge Quake then again in the fires in 2008. Brad is great too.

I’d look into the death of his dad (some weird comments Bruce used to make about his dads “water theories” and about “Getting him riled up”) I’d also look into the accident with his son – due to some things Bruce said to me about children while we dated-part of the reason we broke up.

He definately had some extreme anger under his facade – and I could “see” it, but never articulate what it was that set off red flags for me. I also believe he took steriods - at that time I think he did. I am surprised that they found cocaine in his blood – he never discussed drugs around me directly, but I assumed (as we dated) that he had a whole “secret” life he was leading outside of our relationship "Something" was just “not right” and it always appeared that he felt he was “Playing” with people & that no one was as smart as him and it was some kind of big internal joke that he was “talking down” to people. I read a few blogs about him being a “big kid” – but the truth is that it was a way for him to feel as if he were “on everyone else’s level”. Forgetting money or whatever (irresponsible) was a "ruse" too becausee he was paying double payments on the Miata – and had so many traffic tickets, that he literally had no money left over. So, he’d always have this "forgetting wallet" thing.

He told me about getting back on JPL after they let him go & he was a cheater as well.

What I have read about his motivation or “triggering event” from people theorizing about this tragedy is just not accurate at all. This was festering for a very long time – and I think the women that say he was a “good guy” just did not KNOW him well.

Also there is some girl who dated him (apparently at the same time as I was) and almost drowned … that was no accident – I am sure. Hey – I remember the girl she worked at the liquor store right off the freeway to sylmar by his dads house. I heard about the trip to Havasu too – I was there with my roommate because Bruce just “had” to go alone.

I blogged this reply after a YEAR of thinking about this asshole … GIRLS – PLEASE PLEASE when you date a guy … if you ever see something not kind or nice about him – RUN!

There is so much more I remember about him and “things” he said or did – HE WAS SICK MANY YEARS AGO - and after seeing his face all over the news last year - I was so thankful that I was NOT with him anymore - and so sad for that family and his mom and Brad - I hope they can recover .. but it has been so tough for them all - so many trajic things for that family.

Anonymous said...

You want to know about 'hypocracy'..!?

The bastards that are posting comments on this 'very' blog are continually hosting a string of crimes, post offensive and remedial drivel (EVEN ON GOOGLE BLOGS) non-stop. They have a good run with media, PARTICULARLY on-line media, and they employ the use of ricin and other military tools here that they should NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO POSESS!

You bastards wanna try and kill me again? Huh!?

Let me quote, I'm sure this will hit home with at least one of you: "One day, your little run will be over.."

Anonymous said...

OMG...I can't believe this! The neighbor's first name is "Bong?"