St. Louis-area firefighter dies in apparent ambush

Firefighters became victims of what appeared to be an ambush Monday
when they were fired upon from a house as they worked to put out a
vehicle fire across the street, police said. One young firefighter was
killed, two police officers were wounded and the house where the shots
were fired later burned to the ground.

It was unclear Monday
afternoon whether the gunman died in the house fire; authorities were
searching the remains of the brick bungalow, St. Louis County police
spokeswoman Tracy Panus said.

"The suspicion is he’s in there," Panus said. "He didn’t get away. We have no indication he got out of the house."

Little
was known about the man who lived in the house in Maplewood, a suburb
just southwest of St. Louis. Neighbors described him as quiet and
reclusive.

Someone began firing shots from the house when firefighters arrived in response to a 5:40 a.m. report of a pickup truck fire.

The
city identified the slain firefighter as 22-year-old Ryan Hummert, son
of former Maplewood Mayor Andy Hummert. Officials said he was shot to
death as he got off the fire truck.

The firefighter had graduated from paramedic training in August and from the fire academy in March.

"He
had been with the fire department for only 10 months but knew it was
his calling," Fire Chief Terry Merrell said as he fought back tears.
"It’s impossible to say in words the emotion and pain we are feeling
right now."

A Maplewood police officer was treated for a gunshot
wound to the shoulder and released, St. Mary’s Hospital spokesman Eric
Clark said. The other officer was taken to another hospital. Panus said
he was expected to survive.

Police evacuated some nearby homes — using armored vehicles in some cases — as dozens of officers surrounded the house.

"They
knocked on my door — bam, bam!" said neighbor Joanna Bedford, who was
asleep when police arrived. "They said, ‘Let’s go. Go right now!’"

The
house caught fire later in the morning. Police rifles stayed pointed at
the house as smoke poured from it, but authorities saw no one leave the
building before it burned to the ground.

By the afternoon, the
house had collapsed, Panus said, and police were using heavy equipment
to sort through the debris. A neighboring home also was damaged by the
fire.

Peter McCreary, a St. Louis County police chaplain, said
his mother lives across the street. The burning truck was in her
driveway, but it wasn’t hers and she didn’t know how it got there.

McCreary
said his mother, 81-year-old Julia McCreary, awoke to what she thought
was a backfiring vehicle. It turned out to be gunfire. Soon thereafter,
police arrived and took her out a back door, carrying her over a fence
to safety.

Julia McCreary told her son that in the two years she
lived in the house she had waved to the man, but that he never spoke to
her.

Sanyoz Rai, who works at a 7-Eleven store nearby, said he
heard three or four shots around 5:45 a.m., then saw a police officer
go to the ground holding his shoulder. Rai said he then saw a
firefighter on the ground behind the truck. He said the body remained
there for an hour before authorities could get close enough to remove
it.

Black and purple bunting was placed around Maplewood City
Hall, where people cried and hugged each other and the flag was lowered
to half-staff.

"I can’t believe someone would do this," said
9-year-old son Nathan Manestar, who came with his mother and brother to
place flowers at the base of the flagpole.

Until further notice AP articles are banned from Cahoots.

Some people just have no idea how the Internet works. I suspect it may be because they’ve never used it correctly or at length. The Associated Press has sent seven DMCA takedown notices to a blog called "The Drudge Retort" after small snippets of text and quotes were used under fair use. Remember, these weren’t entire articles, and the authors linked directly to the AP. From Cadenhead:

The Retort is a community site comparable in function to Digg, Reddit and Mixx. The 8,500 users of the site contribute blog entries of their own authorship and links to interesting news articles on the web, which appear immediately on the site. None of the six entries challenged by AP, which include two that I posted myself, contains the full text of an AP story or anything close to it. They reproduce short excerpts of the articles — ranging in length from 33 to 79 words — and five of the six have a user-created headline.

Here’s one of the six disputed blog entries:

Clinton Expects Race to End Next Week

Hillary Rodham Clinton says she expects her marathon Democratic race against Barack Obama to be resolved next week, as superdelegates decide who is the stronger candidate in the fall. "I think that after the final primaries, people are going to start making up their minds," she said. "I think that is the natural progression that one would expect."

If you follow the link, you’ll see that the blog entry reproduces 18 words from the story and a 32-word quote by Hillary Clinton under a user-written headline. The blog entry drew 108 comments in the ensuing discussion.

Do you see what I did there? I just quoted another article from THE INTERNET. I didn’t quote the entire article, just an interesting snippet. You can choose to follow the link to their article to read the whole thing, click some ads, and make them some good money for their content. On the Internet, anything that matters gets linked to.

And now, AP, you will pay dearly. You will not get any more links or clickthroughs from this site or many others, because you’ve really pissed us off. We happen to like free speech, and we happen to enjoy using copyright law to our advantage. I’d like to remind you that filing false or malicious DMCA takedown requests is illegal under Title 17 of the US Code.