Suspect in gay bar attack dies after shootout

[IDemo]

Updated: 10:11 a.m. ET Feb. 5, 2006

GASSVILLE, Ark. - A teenager wanted in a hatchet-and-gun attack on patrons of a Massachusetts gay bar died Sunday morning at a Missouri hospital after he was critically wounded in a gun battle with Arkansas police, authorities said.

Jacob D. Robida, 18, died at 3:38 a.m. Sunday at Cox-South Hospital in Springfield, Ark., State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said. Robida was injured after he shot and killed a small-town police officer in Gassville on Saturday. A West Virginia woman in his car was killed before the shootout at Norfork ended with Robida's arrest, authorities said.

Robida was shot twice in the head.

After Thursday’s hatchet-and-gun attack at Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, Mass., which injured three people, police said the 18-year-old fled in a green Pontiac and picked up Jennifer Rena Bailey, at her Charleston, W. Va., home.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11146480/

[William769]

1. What a shame.

Major :sarcasm:

[Wcross]

8. Yes it is, No sarcasm.

"Robida was injured after he shot and killed a small-town police officer in Gassville on Saturday"

[terrya]

11. Well, it wasn't like Robida went into a bar frequented by cops...

with a hatchet and handgun and just opened fire or anything....

Zero sympathy for this creep here. Zero. I'm goddamned sick and tired as being seen as a target for these disgusting creeps just because of who I am.

[William769]

14. The only thing that is truly a shame is

That the prick didn't suffer more than he did.

[Wcross]

19. So you don't think killing the cop was a shame? n/t

[William769]

21. Yes it was

The man was only doing his job.

ON EDIT: My response was only directed at the asshole that commited the crime.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Halliburton]

25. yeah me too

this asshole deserves to be taught a lesson for the crimes that he did.

[Wcross]

27. That would have been a righteous ending to the story.....n/t

[Wcross]

24. Just checking.

I hate it that an innocent cop had to die. I wish this punk had never made it out of the bar alive. I know its a touchy subject here but I can't help but think that if one person in that bar had a concealed carry permit this story would have never made national news.

[William769]

28. Just so there is not any doubt in the future.

I am retired law enforcement. From your first post it sounded like you were defending the criminal. If thats not the case I apologize. I wished he had been dealt with also at the bar, but that was not the case.

[Wcross]

31. I was just pointing out the loss of the cop.

What this punk did is indefensible. I would think that knowing there are creeps like this in our society, better security measures would be in place at bars such as puzzles. Nothing says get the hell out better than a 12 gauge shotgun pointed at your head.

[benEzra]

58. Would that be legal in Massachusetts?

I know if I ran a gay bar (or a synagogue, or a mosque), *I'd* want to have a gun on the premises, due to the creeps like this guy out there.

[Wcross]

70. I don't know about Massachusetts gun laws.......

It is clear to any thinking human being that gun laws are only obeyed by those people that obey laws. I would like to hear how gun laws could have prevented this creep from walking into that bar with a gun. I would really like to hear how a gun law preventing the owner or patrons from carrying a gun made this situation "safer" for them. I would think that if a couple patrons or the owner had the means to defend themselves the 63 year old cop in Arkansas would still be alive today.
Where I live the Sheriff HAS to issue you a carry permit unless there is a valid reason NOT to. To the best of my knowledge criminals are exempt from this process. They just buy the gun and let the cards fall where they may.
It would be wonderful if guns had never been invented. Reality is a bitch.

[JerseygirlCT]

56. I agree. Hatred has taken too many victims.

This guy didn't get that way all by himself. As the old song goes, you have to be carefully taught.

[terrya]

2. Oh, well...

Pardon me for not getting weepy and teary eyed about this right now. Or anytime soon.

[zanne]

4. I wonder if it was "suicide by cop"?

Alot of these whackos make sure they take alot of people with them before they commit suicide.

[Kagemusha]

6. If this woman in his car died by his hand, good way to get shot

We'll see what details come out but still, ugly situation

[MADem]

7. He shot a cop, and his passenger, before he was killed

Pity the first cop didn't get him first. I generally think that most people have a spark of goodness, but with that kid, I think my rule has an exception. He just didn't have any redeeming qualities that I could see--not fixable....

[LostinVA]

60. Sociopath...

[BrainRants]

3. Thinning the herd. Good riddance.

It's about time more of these asshole homophobe, white supremacists died for their cause.

Have fun on the other side nazi asshole.

[johnfunk]

18. Evolution in action. Good riddance to a pseudo-human

n/t

[Wise Doubter]

20. "asshole homophobe, white supremacists died for their cause"

Good one

:evilgrin:

[salin]

5. With his quick demise

the story will quickly disappear before anything can really be learned from the whole bloody episode. Senseless death and dying - left with a gaping wound, but little to be learned to prevent more senseless insane rampages.

[Nightflurry]

10. It'd have been better if he lived..

I'm gay and can't stand people like this guy, but I'd rather have seen him on national TV spouting his nonsense at trial. It might've actually awakened some people to what the fundies and hard right-wingers are really like and done the gay community some good in the end.. now he's just someone to feel sorry for.

[zanne]

13. I agree with you, Nightflurry.

It seems he escaped justice. I hate it when somebody like him takes out his whole family first, then kills himself. I think he cheated the families (and the country) out of seeing justice done. It was obvious he wasn't going to let himself be captured alive.

[salin]

15. While I doubt he was a fundy-type, it certainly would put a face to

the real-effect of all of the fundy hate mongering on the airwaves, and political pandering at the ballot boxes (intended to get the vote out by pandering to narrow minded fears) - that is - further enflaming, embolding, and pushing into action some very unstable people who hear the message and are psychologically comforted that their hatred is "normal" (I hear it on the radio/tv), and that their actions will be hailed as legitimate (based on the rhetoric that they keep hearing on radio/tv). So many people are playing into this cycle of hatred - and yet are able to feel that their hands are clean - a real dialogue about the role of those fomenting hate - be it at the pulpit, on radio/tv, or setting up ballot initiatives - needs to be had.

[Nightflurry]

30. Very well said n/t

[LisaL]

39. I do not have any wish to see him on national TV

spouting his nonsense at trial. He probably would have ended up in nice mental hospital and not prison anyway. This way, he is dead, it's done and over, and so I don't have to hear to his lawyer claiming how insane the poor thing was.

[karlrschneider]

42. Agreed. And I'd rather have had him spend the rest of his life in jail.

:grr:

[Nightflurry]

62. Yeah

With a very large cellmate named 'Sally' ;)

[LisaL]

43. Supposedly he was an atheist.

An atheist fundy right winger? I kind of doubt the two go together.

[jbnow]

12. I agree

He's dead, the end.

But it needs to be looked at. Oh hell, maybe if he lived and expressed outrage as these abominations to god (like crazy phelps) he'd be a hero to some.

These times try to use gays to split us, the right presents them as a threat, blames them for our woes. Crazy preachers blame them for tragedy that befalls America.

He was so young and no victims died, wonder how long he'd even be in prison if he lived and what harm he'd do when he got out. There sure is no rehab in prison.

Sick america.

[MrPrax]

47. Probably not...

I am still digesting last week's female!! postal mass killing in Goleta!

So what did you learn about that 'senseless insane rampages'?

Public civility has really gone to hell...

[pretzel4gore]

9. bully brain got smart and shot

too bad he took innocent people with him. watch the pigmedia bury this item: if jacob was outwardly gay (he certainly had xxxual confusion issues) they would trump everything in breathless reporting of every twist and turn; they'd be camped out on the family's porch! but since it's other way, then 'hohum' is all the hogmedia sighs....

[UL_Approved]

16. There comes a time for everything

The boy here wasn't right in the head.

Attacked patrons of a gay bar with a gun and HATCHET.

Runs away, picks up some woman whom he knew,

shoots an officer to death at a traffic stop,

runs more, wrecks, gets in a shootout,

kills the woman that he picked up,

wounds another officer, and is then shot in the head.

Sounds like this kid needed some serious help that he didn't get. In the end he got an acute lead supplement to treat his mental illness.

It occurs to me that as liberals or progressives, we work to enable as many people as we can to have as many freedoms as they can. We don't allow "special" individuals extra rights at the expense of others. This is the kind of abuse (on behalf of the punk that went nuts) that puts the bind in our activities. When you get surrounded by this shit, you turn conservative. Once in a while, you get someone who will not listen or back down for anything. These deranged few respond only to force, and need to get treated accordingly. This is why we have conservatives in the world. But the abuses of mass restriction of rights that stem from these cases are why we have liberals.

[LisaL]

37. He didn't get enough help?

Nothing can help someone quite like two bullets in the head.

[AndyA]

17. What a monster!

I wonder what his parents did or didn't do to turn out such a vicious child?

I do hold parents responsible for the actions of their children. When I hear children screaming at the tops of their lungs in restaurants, and the parents do almost nothing to stop them, when children run through stores unsupervised, when they bump into strangers intentionally because they have no respect, when they jump up and down on seats with dirty shoes where others must later sit, when young drivers speed, cut in and out of traffic, and generally act like an idiot behind the wheel of a car, I blame the parents.

This is part of what's wrong with society today. Everyone thinks their adorable little children are loved by everyone, including strangers who find them offensive and annoying.

I wonder where this kid's parents were when he was growing so much hate inside of him.

[Halliburton]

23. here's his myspace profile

http://www.myspace.com/jakejekyll

what a creep.

[RebelOne]

29. According to his profile he is an atheist.

That puts a real bad light on us atheists.

[LisaL]

38. Oh get a clue. I guess when a christian kills someone, that puts

a bad light on all the christians?
WTF does it have to do with the rest of the atheist, it's not like atheists advocate murder of innocent people.

[mark11727]

54. Read what his "friends" are posting...!

:scared: There's some creepy-ass kids out there, folks.

[Pachamama]

67. That was one very mentally disturbed young man....

Reading the anger, the evil, the hate was really scary....And to think that there are more Robbie's out there....very scary....is this what is happening to our youth in this country? Scary....

[Wise Doubter]

26. I agree with you 100% and then some..

A child is the product of his environment !

If a child is allowed to act without restraint then he will do so as an adult.

It`s all relative.

[TankLV]

45. Then again, sometimes a bad seed is just a bad seed, no matter what the

parents could/would/should have done.

I feel more pity and sorrow for this kids' death than I did for ronnie raygun and will for any of the pukes currently in power.

It would certainly be benificial if we could have studied his particulars to help determine if something different could have been done to change the outcome.

[Withywindle]

68. Well, I don't know....he was 18 after all.

Sooner or later every parent has to deal with the fact that their children are Other People, which has got to be shocking on some level. :shrug: Some parents get a MUCH harder time of that than others.

I did a lot of stuff around his age (no hate-related crap, no violence--but petty crime, drugs, very risky sex, etc.) that my parents would never have condoned, would have been horrified to hear about, and my childhood wasn't particularly fucked-up and I don't blame my parents for it in any way now and I don't think anyone should.

There are other influences involved, and the fact that every individual has his/her own will. You can't blame the parents for everything every badly-messed-up person does, especially when that person is a legal adult. I don't want to speculate about his childhood, because I have no idea, and it seems to be that hateful SOBs can come from any background, because I've known too many from many different backgrounds.

[meegbear]

32. I wish he was alive so they could put him on trial ...

never been to that bar, but I've done door at a gay bar in a blue collar town. Never anything violent, but you gotta be ready for it.

I would have stopped him at the door because would card anyone new who looked young; and be his first victim.

[JMDEM]

33. Isn't there something weird about this story?

Look -- the guy was obviously warped, and his shooting of a small town police officer probably sealed his fate, but...

Doesn't the following seem kind of strange:

1. In the midst of a shoot out he turns and shoots his own partner?

2. He was shot TWICE in the head? How can that happen, unless by sheer luck?

I mean, assuming we aren't talking a grazing blow, any shot to the head is going to take you out right now -- lay you down flat, put you completely out of commission if not dead. So when does the second shot come in? When you are lying dead or half dead on the ground?

This reminds me of that Knight-Ritter reporter who committed suicide in 2004 by shooting himself twice in the head.


No, I'm not trying to defend a cop killer. But when you read stuff like this, your analytical minds should be sharp enough to set off your BS detectors that the true story is probably not what you are reading. What is the true story? Who knows.

[johnnie]

35. Chances are more than one cop opened fire on this filth

I'm surprised he was only hit twice. I don't get giddy over anyone being killed, but this kid was an asshole.

[onenote]

40. An analytical mind

can easily accept the official version of this. This guy went into a bar with a gun and a hatchet and tried to kill people because they were gay. Later, when confronted by the poice,he drove over spike strips set out by state troopers and drove with two punctured tires into downtown Norfork. Robida’s car then careened into several parked vehicles to avoid a police barricade.

An analytical mind suggests this was a seriously disturbed individual. Given what he indisputably did, its not hard to imagine any number of circumstances under which he shot the passenger (although it may turn out that it was a police bullet). And for his getting shot twice in the head...I doubt that the police were taking turns shooting at him, so the possibility of two shots hitting him in the head doesn't cause my analytical mind any problems at all.

Where my analytical mind runs into a problem is with the idea that there would be any reason for the police to falisfy this story.

onenote

[LisaL]

41. How it can happen?

Well, it obviously did. Someone pulled a trigger twice, or two people pulled a trigger once. Two bullets hit him in the head. I mean, I imagine they will do autopsy to verify how many bullets there were, and whose guns they came from.

[Zynx]

44. Semi-automatic pistols can double-tap. They repeat very quickly.

Basically, if the cop could shoot, he could easily crank off multiple on target rounds before the guy hit the ground.

[Deja Q]

34. Good riddance. We don't need such violent filth. Shot in the head too,

good thinking. (I hate it in tv and movies where everybody shoots each other in the chest. That's so 19th century... you know. B.B.V. Before Bulletproof Vests...)

[Jamison]

36. Yep, he won't be missed.

That's one less hardened criminal that our tax dollars will be going to support.

[Trajan]

46. For The Record: Cox South is in Springfield MO, NOT AR

It is a wonderful hospital as well. I tried to get a job there, for months.

They probably wonder where I've gone to ....

[Up2Late]

48. UPDATE: Massachusetts gay bar shooting suspect dies (Reuters)

Massachusetts gay bar shooting suspect dies

Sun Feb 5, 2006 12:19 PM ET

BOSTON (Reuters) - The teenager involved in a bloody attack on three men in a Massachusetts gay bar died early on Sunday morning from wounds sustained in a gun battle with Arkansas police, a police spokesman said. "Jacob Robida died at 3:38 Central Time (0938 GMT)," Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler told Reuters. "His body will now be released to the state crime lab."

Robida, who had fled 1,500 miles to the Ozark Mountains, was shot twice in the head by police shortly after he crashed his car following a 16-mile (26-km) chase, police said. The 18-year-old, who had become the subject of a nationwide manhunt after he was accused of wounding three people with a gun and a hatchet in a New Bedford, Massachusetts, gay bar late on Wednesday, shot and killed a police officer in Gassville, Arkansas who had pulled the Pontiac over for a routine traffic stop, police said.

When the high-speed chase ended and police approached the car, Robida traded fire with police who then shot him through the window, police said. A 33-year-old woman from West Virginia, who police said knew the teenager, was found dead in the car after Robida was shot, police said.

Robida died at CoxHealth Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where he was taken in critical condition on Saturday after being captured, police said. Last week Robida went on a rampage after walking into Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, ordering two drinks and asking the bartender "Is this a gay bar?"

(more at link below)

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=11100494§ion=news>

[HeeBGBz]

49. I think they flew him out of my neighborhood

I heard the ambulance and the air evac is at the bingo hall about a 1/4 mile away. I was wondering what was up.

[geomon666]

50. Sometimes a rabid animal has to be put down. n/t

[superconnected]

63. But., Bush and his colalition of hate is still on the loose.

[MrSlayer]

51. No more then he deserved.

No tears for this scumbag from me.

[Sewsojm]

52. Robida

He got what he deserved, the worlds a better place without this Scumbag!!

[rucky]

53. Let's have a moment of silenceOK, that's enough. n/t

[seriousstan]

55. Good, saved the taxpayers millions. Let God finish the punishment.

[jseankil]

57. His family will probably sue the city

wouldn't be surprised, hopfully in the end it will save taxpayers money.

[Serenades]

59. Bizarre

Did you see his stepdad on TV screaming at the media saying, "He wasn't as bad as you guys keep saying he was!!!" I'm like, errr, he just sliced some dude's head with a hatchet then went on a shooting spree. He's a piece of shit. Fuck em.

[LisaL]

61. I swear, the person can be worst scum on Earth, a serial killer,

etc, and still family members will claim he was a good boy.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

65. and in a sense it may be true

underneath it all we are exactly the same...think of how cute and sweet ALL babies are
..at least before our group of entrepeneurs gets their ugly greedy little hands on them.

I don't like scumbags who disrespect life one bit, but if they live and
learn their errors,then theirs was a life worth living when all is said and done.
(you sort of have to believe in the evoution of the soul for that to make sense)--

The Yogic writings claim even the" Highwayman" can become a Saint.

So little help does our American "Christian" background provide us in understanding
such a wacky far-out staemement like that eh?

...or does it?
wait...
I do believe Jesus Does comment on this!
something like:
"Let those who are without sin cast the first stone"--

pretty serious words.

[Endangered Specie]

64. We won't miss him

Justice served, saved the taxpayers a ton of money... all in all a good turnout

[Zhade]

66. I'm queer...

...and this thread frightens me.

I, for one, am for true justice, not vigilante "let god (sic) sort 'em out" justice.

The guy will not be missed, but some of you should look at your responses. Pretty ugly stuff.

[NuttyFluffers]

69. my sympathy for the victims' families...

unfortunately, i'm not able to work up my universal love up to the level to have sympathy for the young man. but, his poor parents... unless they were hateful assholes and were participant in grooming this outcome.