He wanted to know if lead guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and his brother, drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, were onboard.
"The next time I see him, he’s walking behind the bass player and singer right over to Dime," Barns said yesterday. As the band played its opening song Wednesday night, the man rushed across the stage and grabbed Darrell Abbott, firing several shots into his head from a Beretta 9 mm semiautomatic handgun. The gunman, identified yesterday as Nathan Gale, killed three other people and wounded two before Columbus Police Officer James D. Niggemeyer entered the rear of the club shortly after 10:20 p.m. Carrying a Remington 870, a 12-gauge shotgun, the officer circled a stack of amplifiers and saw Gale, who was at the back of the stage holding a gun to a man’s head.
"All of the officers have been trained since the Columbine incident that, if there’s shooting going on, to go in and put the pressure on the shooter," Niggemeyer’s supervisor, Sgt. Jeff Leesburg, said last night. In addition to the band’s guitarist, those whom Gale killed were Nathan Bray, a 23-year-old fan from Grove City; Erin A. Halk, a 29-year-old Northwest Side man who worked security at the club; and Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson, a 40-yearold crew member from Waxahachie, Texas. Wounded in the shooting were Chris Paluska, the band’s tour manager, and John Brooks, a drum technician. Both were in Riverside Methodist Hospital last night, where Paluska was in serious condition and Brooks was in good condition. Many in the crowd of more than 400 heavymetal enthusiasts thought Gale was a crew member, a part of the act or an exuberant fan. "He didn’t pull out the gun until he got to Dimebag," said Brian Kozicki, the club’s lighting director, who watched from the sound booth. People who had known the 25-year-old Gale in his hometown of Marysville described him yesterday as an unstable man who once asserted that the Abbott brothers’ former band, Pantera, had stolen his song lyrics. Some witnesses said Gale fired at Vinnie Paul Abbott but missed and then fired at those who attempted to subdue him. "He probably wouldn’t have shot anyone else if other people hadn’t tried to stop him," Barns said. Mitch Carpenter, an Alrosa security guard working in the parking lot, said he encountered Gale before the concert and asked him to "park his car and buy a ticket or leave." Gale parked behind the building near the band’s bus and was asked to move his car, which he did.
"He had hopped the fence at the patio," Carpenter said. "He was walking really fast toward the stage and I followed him. "I thought he was going to get up there and stage dive or something during the first song. I figured he was just a guy who didn’t have any money to buy a ticket so he got in the way he did.
Alrosa owner Rick Cautela was tending bar when he heard the shots during the band’s opening song, New Found Power. He thought they were firecrackers. "I heard the music stop and heard more pops. I figured the band had stopped and was going to start again when they grabbed whoever had the firecrackers," he said of security workers. "I just kept waiting on customers."
The panic and confusion can be heard in 10 calls made to 911 operators, beginning at 10:18 p.m., seconds after the first shots were fired. "I’m at the Alrosa Villa and there’s a shooting. Someone is shooting the band on the stage," said a female caller.
Kozicki said he took cover in the sound booth and dialed 911 as soon as Darrell Abbott slumped to the floor. He remained on the line with an operator for five minutes, offering details about the chaos and the gunman’s actions. A little more than three minutes after his call to 911 began, he told the operator that police had killed the gunman. Kozicki, a student at Bowling Green State University, called the officer’s action "100 percent in the right."
Niggemeyer had just begun his shift at the 18 th precinct, at Karl and Morse roads — about 2 miles from Alrosa — when the report of a shooting came in. When he arrived at the club about two minutes later, security workers pointed him to the back door. At least five other officers came through another door of the club seconds after Niggemeyer fired. Ultimately, about 60 detectives were at the club, many working overtime. They interviewed about 250 witnesses, putting them on three buses provided by COTA. This is the first time the 31-year-old Niggemeyer, who joined the force in 1999, has shot a suspect. He has a clean record, with many compliments from citizens, said Sgt. Brent Mull, a police spokesman. The division would not release his personnel file yesterday.
Fans of the band created two memorials in front of the club yesterday. Flowers and a bottle of Rogue Dead Guy Ale were among the items on a large rock beside the club’s driveway. A wooden cross with the phrase In memory of the lives lost: RIP December 8 th written on it was leaning against a pole. David Moran, a 29-year-old fan from German Village, was among those who placed bouquets of flowers on the rock.
Columbine’s lessons help police halt club shooter
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Matthew Marx and Kevin Mayhood
Like all Columbus police, Officer James D. Niggemeyer was trained to go straight at the shooter to save lives. Niggemeyer, 31, did just that Wednesday night at the Alrosa Villa at 5055 Sinclair Rd. as he answered reports of shots fired. Armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, Niggemeyer approached the gunman, Nathan Gale, through a door behind the North Side nightclub’s stage. He killed Gale with a shot to the face, according to Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis.
Officially, the training he received is called Quick Action Deployment. But the point when an officer moves in to stop the killing, "I call it ‘hiding behind your bullets,’ " said Columbus police Lt. Dave Wood, head of the SWAT Division and a trainer for his and other departments. Each situation will dictate how officers proceed, said Steve Martin, chief deputy of the Franklin County sheriff’s office. But the basic rule is, "if there’s shooting, you go in with the available resources and confront the violence." Police had received panicked calls Wednesday night that a man was onstage shooting members of the band Damageplan. Gale fired a total of 12 bullets into the four men he killed.
Sgt. Jeff Leesburg, who oversees the third shift of the 18 th Precinct on the North Side, praised them all for a "magnificent team effort" in "getting in there (and) putting themselves between civilians and harm’s way" to stop Gale’s attack in a crowd. When officers arrived, Gale "had a hostage in a headlock. And his eyes glazed as he saw the white shirts and the white hats moving toward him," Leesburg said. Leesburg identified those white hats as belonging to Officers Kevin Ferenz, Ricky Crum, Dave Lares, Jeff Ackley, Bryan Stumph and Jeremy Landis, all of whom approached from the front of the stage.
"It took a lot of discipline to hold your fire until you have a perfect shot. When you’re in that situation, you’re not supposed to think about it. That’s when the training is supposed to take over." Niggemeyer hasn’t spoken to the news media while he undergoes the internal investigation prompted by any officer’s use of force. He’s being called a hero by fellow officers as well as those who were at the concert. But even heroism has consequences, his supervisor said. Dealing with the effects may be tough for Niggemeyer at first, Leesburg said. He speaks from experience, having killed an escaped convict who shot him back while he was a patrol officer. So when he addressed his squad as they began their shift late Thursday night, Leesburg warned them to take it easy on the "hero talk" when Niggemeyer returned — it might make him uncomfortable. Police are trained to use the Remington 870 shotgun that Niggemeyer used in situations that involve crowds.
The lead pellets it fires spray out in a circle about 2-3 inches across at 20 feet — about the distance from Niggemeyer to Gale, Wood said. At 20 yards, the diameter of the spray would be about the height of a man, he said. One shooting drill used in police training involves firing at a man who runs between civilians. Officers have to hit him three times, Leesburg said. Police are trained to consider how far bullets or shot will carry. Before officers shoot, they must consider what’s behind the target, in case they miss or are using a weapon so powerful it will send a bullet through the target and harm somebody behind. Niggemeyer fired "00," or doubleought, buckshot — typically 9 lead pellets per shell — into Gale.
Before the shootings at Columbine, in which students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 other students and one teacher before killing themselves, police were taught to wait for their tactical teams and hostage negotiators before entering. In the chaos of that day, teacher David Sanders bled to death while police outside waited for the command to go in. Although the shooting inside the school was over in 16 minutes, the command to enter wasn’t given until 43 minutes after the shooting started. Some families of those killed later sued the police because of the delay.
All officers receive eight hours of training on such situations: about half with a PowerPoint presentation and half in role-playing and practice in hallways and rooms.
Niggemeyer and his fellow officers had a couple of seconds to ask concert fans who were running out of the building any basic questions: Where’s the shooter? What’s he look like? What’s he wearing? What kind of gun does he have? And once inside, they had to listen for shots and look for blood and the shooter. Looking for cover is not part of the program. "The training is to go directly to the bad guy and stop him from killing people," Wood said. "You have bullets, you have a bulletproof vest and you have a guy killing people."
Click here to go to the QUAD Training Page
