Photo by: Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
Tara’s Episode Notes:
2012 Webster, New York, shooting
In the early morning of December 24, 2012, firefighters responding to a fire in West Webster, New York, a suburb of Rochester, were fired upon by 62-year-old William H. Spengler, who was believed to have deliberately set the fire.
According to police, Spengler set his house on 191 Lake Road and the family car on fire in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve, and then armed himself with three guns: a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver, a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, and a .223-caliber Bushmaster AR-15 style rifle. When firefighters arrived shortly after 5:30 a.m., Spengler ambushed them from an earthen berm across the street from his house. Two firefighters were killed, and two others were injured.
Spengler exchanged shots with police, who arrived with an armored truck to remove the firefighters and 33 nearby civilians. Spengler ran after getting shot at and died when he shot himself in the head. His body was discovered nearly six hours later.
Due to the shooting, fire crews were unable to resume fighting the blaze until 11:30 a.m. By then, six other houses had burned to the ground, and two others had been rendered uninhabitable.
The body of Spengler's 67-year-old sister Cheryl, with whom he was living, was found severely burned inside the house. A two-to-three-page typewritten letter written by Spengler was found at the scene. In it, he wrote, "I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down, and do what I like doing best, killing people."
Source: Wikipedia
Tara’s Other Sources:
Democratic Chronicle Article by: Gary Craig
firehero.org: Tomasz M. Kaczowka
firehero.org: Michael J. Chip Chiapperini
Duluth Tribune Article
13wham.com
Democratic Chronicle Article by: Gary Craig
Memorial for Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka
Location: 191 Lake Road
Webster, New York, U.S.
