Gunman in fatal shooting at Alaska hospital dies
Originally published Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 11:01 a.m.
Updated Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 8:18 p.m.
Digg
delicious
Facebook
Mixx
Reddit
Stumble It!ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A worker returned to an Alaska hospital a day after being fired and staged a shooting spree that left one of his ex-supervisors dead and another critically injured before he was fatally shot in a standoff with authorities.
Mike Webb, 55, died about two hours after Joseph Marchetti fired multiple shots just before 10 a.m. inside Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna. The shooting sent people scattering, spokeswoman Bonnie Nichols said.
"People were running for their lives," she said.
Nichols said Marchetti also was shooting randomly through the main corridor before he left the hospital. The hospital's chief financial officer, Jason Paret, heard the first shot and went around a corner to see what was going on, encountering the gunman, Nichols said.
"Marchetti started running after him, but he managed to get away," she said. "As he ran, he was yelling at co-workers that a gunman was on the loose."
Marchetti had worked in the hospital's imaging department until he was fired Tuesday, Nichols said.
Marchetti moved to Alaska a year ago. He previously worked at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, according to Nichols.
Troopers said the assailant had a rifle and a handgun. Afterward, troopers set up a perimeter outside the hospital to contain the suspect, who was ultimately shot by troopers, spokeswoman Megan Peters said. Marchetti was shot in the hospital's north parking lot in a standoff with authorities, according to Nichols.
Three troopers fired their weapons, Peters said. Under department policy, the officers will be placed on administrative leave for three days. Their names will be released Saturday.
Nichols identified the other shooting victim as 57-year-old Margaret Stroup.
Stroup was shot multiple times in the chest and underwent surgery. Nichols said Stroup was listed in critical and would be flown Wednesday night to a hospital in Anchorage, 75 miles to the northeast.
Nichols said the victims are the former supervisors of Marchetti, who worked in the imaging department. Webb was the hospital's information services director and Stroup is the imaging services director.
Nichols called Webb "a very kind man" who was well respected and admired by hospital staffers.
Nichols said she didn't know why Marchetti's employment was terminated.
The shooting, Nichols said, "obviously had something to do with him losing his job."
Local schools were briefly placed in lockdown after the shooting.
In Omaha, Marchetti worked at the medical center from October 2001 to October 2007.
Nebraska Medical Center spokeswoman Andrea McMaster said Marchetti decided to leave the job on his own in 2007 because he was moving.
McMaster said Marchetti did information technology work at the hospital. He helped maintain databases for the hospital's cardiac service line.
No other details about Marchetti's work at the Nebraska Medical Center were immediately available, McMaster said.
Community Discussion
Newsminer.com doesn't necessarily condone the comments here, nor does it review every post. Read our full user's agreement.
Amazing! The very people who's lives he endangered are saving his.
MrsS
ADN reports the shooter and one of the vitims are dead.
Sad, so sad...and the day before Thanksgiving. I feel for the families.
MrsS
My Mom works at that hospital. She called me up and asked if I was OK? Um... Shouldn't the question be if SHE was ok?!? Her and a number of other staffers were relocated to the Fred Meyers while things were brought under control. Not to mention letting people calm down a bit.
Supposedly when the shooting started a lot of people were to leave by their cars in the parking lot, but the gunman came outside too. Fortunately, he did not shoot any more people.
Basically everyone in Soldotna is a bit shook up over the matter. That is a small town, and its hospital is just about the heart of the place (in a central part of town). Lets all pray the remaining survivor pulls through.
I know Arctic_Lynx's mom and lived down there for a bit myself. It will ripple through the community for a long time. I'm glad that shooter didn't shoot more people and I feel sad about the the two victims. I hope Margaret pulls through and the town can begin to heal from the senseless tradgedy. A very sad day for Alaska and our prayers are with you Soldotna.
One less trial, thank you. I feel for the families.
Very sad indeed!
Prayers go out to the families....
I went to Soldotna for the first time this fall. What a wonderful town. It's a real shame something like this had to happen. You're in my thoughts Soldotna!
I hope the Troopers involved are counciled to help them through this. They were forced to take a life to protect everyone. I hope everyone gives thanks and embraces every minute of their lives....it can end so suddenly.
ohhhh- this is why people need so many guns here, I see.
Alaskans need guns so they can shoot horses, dogs, the walls of their apartment, take pot-shots at tourists and murder their co-workers.
yep- there ain't ENOUGH guns here !
I'm an Alaskan and I own many guns, but, you'll never catch me doing any of the things I mentioned above, I never kill more than I can eat.
I never eat what I wouldn't wanna kill (people, bear, wolves, etc...)
dear lost: I wonder what would have happened had everyone in the hospital been armed?
MORE GUNS we need more people with more and bigger guns....maybe they will all kill each other!!!!!!!!!
"I wonder what would have happened had everyone in the hospital been armed?"
The same thing that inevitably happens when you arm a large group of untrained people, more innocent people would have been killed/injured.
Please tell me- when was the last story written about a private citizen saving their own life because they were carrying a weapon?(besides cops), then tell me how many nut-jobs we have read about using a gun like it's 1823......
Dognabber...ditto.
Blessings,
MrsS
Using someones death to promote a warped political view, classy.
Was his job all he had in life.How sad for all.
My deepest sympathy for the affected families.
Dear LostAlaska99712, & Sambreetmeuse,
People who carry concealed guns should (and most do) train with that weapon all the time. And now how to use them properlythey never pull it unless they have no alternative. Often that is enough to defuse the problem. The criminal certainly isn’t going to brag about it and the person carrying the gun wants to remain anonymous. So No, you do not hear about it.
You never hear about citizens saving lives with their guns because the mainstream media CENSORS IT. Just read one of the NRA magazine issues and they are filled with life-saving stories about armed citizens.
Or, find them online. And, it's mostly WOMEN, because they realize that a gun is an equalizer.
Get your nose-ring OUT of the MSM leash.
"American Hunter" or "The Rifleman" Both magazines have a section called "The Armed Citizen" Read it. I hate these type of crimes because the Innocent Victims involved. And it give the media, & politicians ammunition to take our guns. If an armed citizen was in the hospital, it would not have happened at all like it did.
More people still lose their lives by guns than save lives with them.
Why DON'T we just arm every citizen?
Because the U.S. is top in the WORLD for murder by fire-arm, the constitution was written when there were quite a few million LESS people in this country, we have less-lethal technology that our "fore-fathers" could never have scarcely imagined, those amendments are as archaic as the ideas of slavery and not allowing women to vote, almost barbaric.
Americans are SPOILED with the "right to bear arms".
People in Canada, England and Australia seem to be doing just fine having limited rights to own fire-arms, allot less murders too.
Milosovec was also able to exploit a largely unarmed population.
We also have a larger drug/crime problem in our society, so you could be talking apples and oranges with your last blanket statement, FWIW.
"More people lose their lives from guns than those who are saved by them"? How can you tell? Having guns in households prevents crimes. But you will never know how many crimes and how many lives have been saved because the crimes were never committed.
You will never see a headline that reads NO CRIMES COMMITTED IN APPLEBURY LAST NIGHT, because it is not news.
C'mon, take my guns. Just see what happens. But you will need another GUN to do it. How insane can these people be? It's Orwellian.
I dunno, cops carry a gun all the time, yet, they STILL get assaulted.
lol, yeah- I didn't think anybody would have anything to say to that.
LostAlaskan99712,
I will answer your comment. Cops get assaulted because there will always be individuals that have no respect for those that serve others. As for the Cops, they get assaulted because they are trained to act, not react. In other words, no matter how abusive the verbal language gets, they show great restraint. As for when it gets physical, they show a reasonable response to resistance to protect the public welfare. So with all the tools at their command and training, how does a Cop still get assaulted? Just as there or levels of resistance, there are levels of response. A Cop does not have to follow the response in step, but makes split-second life saving decisions to maintain a level of control. In most instances though, a Cop will try the lowest levels of response first in an attempt to prevent injury to the individual they are contacting. They take that "To Serve Others" thing seriously. In the process, they sometimes get hurt themselves, but take it as being part of the job.
Secondly, there are lots of forums you can use for your personal political agenda. This one started out with well-wishes for the victims and their families. May the God of Peace provide the physical and emotional healing for all involved. My prayers go out to the families of those that have lost loved ones at this time.
Tovya, I've been a cop so your "wise" lecture looks pretty funny.
This is a public commenting section and last time I checked we had this little thing called free speech in this country, ever heard of it?
----------
"Cops get assaulted because there will always be individuals that have no respect for those that serve others"
Actually- cops get assaulted because people don't want to go to jail, they can commit the crime but don wanna do the time and they take it out on the officer who just happens to be the one to contact them.
My point- having a fire-arm with them at all times does not "guarantee" that people will not attack them, just like if you were to arm every single citizen of this country- people would STILL attack each-other, even more.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.