Michigan – Beyond Highbrow

Wolverines in the Upper Midwest

Repost site.

This post was split off from an earlier post that got too large, California Wolverine Rediscovered After 85 Years. This particular post will deal with the question of wolverines in the Upper Midwest. Until recently, wolverines had been extinct in the Upper Midwest for 85-200 years.

However, one was photographed recently in Michigan. Furthermore, there have been some tantalizing sightings in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and even a few in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri in recent years. It is distinctly possible the wolverines may be reclaiming some of their historical territory in the Upper Midwest. If so, this is fascinating indeed.

Wolverines in Michigan

In 2004, a wolverine was photographed in Ubly, Michigan, 90 miles north of Detroit. They were extirpated from Michigan almost 200 years ago. DNA testing of this wolverine showed that it was from Alaska. How it got from Alaska to Michigan is anyone’s guess. On March 14, 2010, this wolverine was found dead in Sanilac County, Michigan, south of where it was originally sighted in Ubly.

There have been other sightings in Lower Michigan. In November 1958, a wolverine was seen near Cadillac, Michigan by a boy who was deer hunting.

A wolverine was sighted around 1998-2000 in Tawas, Michigan.

In August 2009, a wolverine was spotted by motorists twice in short period of time just outside of Alpena, Michigan which is on the shore of Lake Huron in the far north of the Thumb near the Upper Peninsula.

In November 2009, four people spotted a wolverine outside of West Brach, Michigan in the north of the Thumb south of Huron National Forest.

These wolverines could have come down from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan because there are wolverine sightings there. Or possibly they could have come from Southern Ontario near Port Huron, though that area is densely populated. There is known to be a population in Ontario, albeit in the northern part.

The sightings on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan have been in Delta County, Tahquamenon Falls State Park and the Keweenaw Peninsula. I assume that the Upper Peninsula population came from Ontario, possibly across the St. Mary’s River, if it freezes over in wintertime.

There was also an unverified wolverine sighting in the UP on November 21, 2001 at 3 PM, crossing Highway M-64 1 mile south of Silver City in Ontonagon County, Michigan. In August 2008, a wolverine was spotted in the UP in the garden of the Big Bay Lighthouse on Lake Superior.

A forest road in Delta County, Michigan. This road is in Escanaba State Forest. A wolverine was sighted here in an unverified sighting sometime between 1999-2004. During this period, there was about one wolverine sighting a year in Michigan, all from the Upper Peninsula.

The forests here have been changed massively from 100 years ago, when most of the White Pine was logged off. I assume what we have here is Eastern second-growth forest coming back in after the old growth was logged off. This second-growth explosion is fueling an increase in wildlife numbers, especially deer, all over the East Coast.

Tahquamenon Falls in Tahquamenon Falls State Park. This area is located at the far east end of the UP near Ontario. The town of Paradise is nearby, as is Whitefish Bay. If the St. Mary’s River is frozen over, wolverines may well come down from Ontario to the UP. The part of Ontario near Sault Saint Marie is pretty sparsely populated. An unverified sighting of a wolverine was reported here in 2002.

Wolverines in Minnesota

In the late 2000’s, there was rash of wolverine sightings around Babbitt, Minnesota, which is near Ely in the far northeastern part of the state near Canada. A tiny lynx population has recently also been confirmed there. The sightings around Babbitt appear to be genuine. Babbitt is surrounded by the Superior National Forest, and there are frequent sightings of bears and even wolves in the area, even inside city limits.

In addition, there was one documented sighting in Northeastern Minnesota in 1965, but details are lacking. In 1974 there was a report of a wolverine in a hay field in North-Central Minnesota, near the North Woods. There was also a sighting on Koochiching County on the Minnesota border with Canada in 1982. That sighting was deemed credible.

In early 2008, there have been reports of dog and horse kills in and around Rollag, Minnesota lately. Certain things about the killings indicate that a wolverine may be doing this. Rollag is far to the north, getting up near the North Woods. It is east of and not far from Fargo, North Dakota.

There is also a report of a wolverine captured on a security camera in 2005-2006 at a Ford dealership in the town of Zumbrota in Southeast Minnesota. This land is very much prairie.

In 1991, a baby wolverine was seen dying by the side of the road on Highway 232 near Lake Nichols close to Cotton, Minnesota. The motorists did not know how rare it was or else they would have kept the carcass. In 1999, a wolverine was spotted by a canoeist in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota on the border of Ontario, Canada.

In November 2004, a wolverine was seen eating a gut pile from a dead deer near Askov, Minnesota.

In 2005, a wolverine was spotted in the Tamarack National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

In Summer 2006, a fisherman fishing in the Narrows between Big and Little Cut Foot Sioux Lakes in Northern Minnesota saw a wolverine. He was able to watch it for 15 minutes until it caught his scent and left.

In Summer 2008, a wolverine was spotted in the forest of Eagles Nest, Minnesota, south of Ely and north of Tower. In Fall 2008, a hunter spotted a wolverine in the Black Brook Swamp east of Camp Ripley, Minnesota.

In 2010, a deer hunter saw a wolverine in Douglas County, Minnesota. Another wolverine was photographed near there five years later. In July 2010, a wolverine was seen by a motorist at night on US 53 ten miles south of International Falls, Minnesota. In Summer 2010, a wolverine was seen outside of Chisholm, Minnesota near Superior State Park.

In July 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing Highway 232 near Lake Nichols close to Cotton, Minnesota.

On January 12, 2012, a wolverine was spotted somewhere in Southern Minnesota. Someone went out to their car late at night, and a wolverine was by the garage. Tracks were found the very next day.

On July 12, 2012, two hunters saw a wolverine while driving on the Dick’s Parkway road 13 miles south of Warroad, Minnesota. The GPS location was given as 48 42.131, -95 20.566.

On October 20, 2012 at midnight, a wolverine was seen on someone’s driveway in Ham Lake, Minnesota.

At 6 PM on On October 13, 2013, a wolverine was seen in the Superior National Forest crossing Pike Lake Road on the east side of Pike Lake between Lutsen and Grand Marais, Minnesota. This is seven miles from Lake Superior.

On June 6, 2014, a wolverine was spotted in Jordan, Minnesota in a corn and alfalfa field. It was running away from a neighbor’s elk ranch. Two men observed it for a full two minutes. The areas consists of open farm country with some random tree lines.

On June 13, 2014 at 2:30 in the afternoon, a wolverine was seen crossing Road 327 in Watowan County, Minnesota. It was seen two miles east and six miles north of Saint James, Minnesota on the Watowan River.

On April 30, 2015, two wolverines were seen running, one behind the other, just east of Rush City, Minnesota in the Saint Croix River Valley.

In May 2015, a wolverine was photographed by a trail cam in Douglas County, Minnesota. I have seen the photo and felt that it was interesting but inconclusive. I showed the photo to a wolverine expert, and he also said it could be a wolverine, but it was unclear enough so it was inconclusive.

Old State Route 52 north of Zumbrota, Minnesota. It’s hard to believe that wolverines inhabit such terrain. Wolverines are recolonizing their old habitat on the US prairie. Why?

Many have questioned whether wolverines were actually common in prairies or if prairies merely served as population sinks. It is looking more and more like prairies are a natural home for wolverines, strange as it may seem. If these reports are accurate, it means that wolverines are re-colonizing Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and possibly also Iowa, which is fantastic news!

Prairie Island (Sioux) Indian Reservation near Zumbrota, Minnesota. Is it possible that wolverines in the past preyed on the vast buffalo herds of prairie, perhaps especially on dead buffaloes?

Wolverines in Wisconsin

The occurrence of the wolverine in Wisconsin is rare but documented.

On an unknown date, a wolverine was spotted on Peshtigo Brook Fire Road where it joins Kitzinger Road near Gillett, Wisconsin.

In May 1978, a wolverine was spotted by a boy and his father while walking along the Oconto River in Oconto County eight miles west of Crooked Lake, Wisconsin. The boy was able to observe it for one minute.

A man grew up in Land O’ Lakes in far Northern Wisconsin on the border with Michigan in an area known as the North Woods. This is an area of very thick, wild forest and swamps. There are many wolves, bears, and possibly wolverines in this part of Wisconsin.

In 1982, the man saw three wolves in his front yard. In 1990, he and his friends treed 22 different bears in a single day while training bear dogs. They also had a frightening standoff with a wolverine on that day. From about 1983-1995, when he engaged in frequent deer hunting, the man saw one or more wolverines every year.

In September 1990, a wolverine was seen several times over two weeks. The last time the man saw one was in 2006 near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. All sightings took place between 1983-2006 in the North Woods approximately between Rhinelander and Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin. The bear density in this region is said to be incredible, or at least it was 10 years ago (Bangs 2009).

In the early 1990’s, a wolverine ran in front of a man’s car in Marinette County, Wisconsin.

In 1998, Jeffrey Wiitala saw a wolverine in Taylor County, Wisconsin while trout fishing on the Big Rib River at a distance of about 25 feet. It paid no attention to him and leisurely lumbered off into the brush.

A wolverine was photographed on top of a woodpile in Green Lake County, Wisconsin in recent years. The disposition of the photo is unknown.

There are also recent sightings in the Black River Falls area and to the north in Wisconsin from 2000-2007.

A 2003 sighting in Lafayette County in the far south of the state was regarded as credible by the the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

In 2004-2005, a wolverine was spotted in Niagara, Wisconsin in the fall on opening day of deer hunting season.

In Winter 2006, Mary Ann Ludwikowski of Weyerhauser, Wisconsin. In addition, Mary Ann found a dead wolverine roadkilled in her driveway. She gave it away to a man.

In October 2007, Ludwikowski and Sheri Bodecker of Weyerhauser, Wisconsin about 2 miles west of Weyerhauser. It crossed Hwy 8 and proceeded to run northeast through a large field. The wolverine that crossed the road in front of us was on a full run, but it frequently turned to look at us. We watched it run through a 40 acre field for about two minutes.

In 2010, a roadkilled wolverine was found by the side of the road in Green Lake County, Wisconsin.

In November 2010, a father and son saw a wolverine while sitting in a deer stand north of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

In March 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing Highway 53 between New Auburn and Bloomer, Wisconsin.

On July 29, 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing the highway on US 20 east of Sac City, Wisconsin.

On November 25, 2011, a deer hunter saw a wolverine run by his blind south of Gillette, Wisconsin.

In Fall 2011, a wolverine was seen twice in a one week period by two hunters in northern Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, one mile south of Brown County. Over the next year, a wolverine, suspected to be the same one as before, was seen in area.

On November 6, 2012, a wolverine was spotted by a man and his girlfriend hunting deer on their farm in Buffalo County, Wisconsin. They observed it for half a minute. A wolverine had been seen in the area 20 years before in the early 1990’s.

In July 2013, a wolverine killed a woman’s two cats at a home at in Wisconsin at Highway 53 and I-94 Highway 9 miles form Eau Claire and 6 miles form Osseo. A few days later, a neighbor came within three feet of a wolverine. Three weeks before, a nearby tavern owner said he had seen a wolverine on a county road. Around the time the woman’s cats vanished, neighbors in the vicinity started seeing their pets disappearing. Before the cats were killed, it had been eating the woman’s cat food for some time.

On August 28, 2013, a man saw a wolverine running away from a trash bin at a gas station in Elk Mound, Wisconsin.

On June 13, 2014, a wolverine was seen in a field only two miles north of Independence, Wisconsin.

North Dakota

There have been a few unverified sightings of wolverines in North Dakota recently.

In 1988, two wolverines were seen along the Little Missouri River in the Badlands of far Western North Dakota by a very experienced fur trapper.

In 1992, a man saw a wolverine in Central North Dakota while hunting sharp-tailed grouse. It was about 50 yards away.

In 2004, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine near Minot. The observer watched it for a good five minutes.

On June 23, 2013, a wolverine was seen in the Turtle Mountains in far Northern North Dakota on the Manitoba border.

In February 2015, mailmen spotted a wolverine on their route near Rugby, North Dakota. That is 50 miles east of Minot and 60 miles south of the Manitoba border with Canada.

South Dakota

There have also been wolverine sightings in South Dakota in the past 60 years. There was a verifiable wolverine sighting in the south-central portion of the state in 1961 (Aubry et al 1967). From 1998-2016, an 18 year period, three wolverines were seen in Lake County, South Dakota. One was an adult and two were juveniles. The adult was severely mauled by people’s dogs.

On July 12, 2012, someone saw a wolverine near Nisland, South Dakota on the Belle Fourche River in Western South Dakota 25 miles from the Wyoming border. Their neighbor had seen a wolverine shortly before the sighting. People 10 miles northwest of Nisland said that they had seen a wolverine earlier.

Wolverines in Iowa

A female wolverine was shot dead by a farmer on May 21, 1960 in a cornfield in central Iowa (Haugen 1961). No one quite knew how she ended up in Central Iowa. She was infected with Trichinella spiralis, a parasite. (Zimmerman et al 1962). However, one report said that this wolverine had been transported into the state in 1960. There were reports around 1995-2000 of a “black animal” going from north to south through eastern Iowa killing dogs. It may have been a wolverine.

Five different people spotted a wolverine in Southwestern Iowa in 2008.

A wolverine was seen in Mid June 2010 near Canton, Iowa near the Maquoketa Caves.

In 2011, a bowhunter spotted a wolverine in Southeastern Iowa.

In July 2011, three people spotted a wolverine walking across County Road V68 1/4 to 1/2 mile north of Highway 3 in Fayette County, Iowa. It was headed in the direction of the Wapsipinicon River. This is 10 miles north of Fairbank, Iowa.

On July 31, 2011, a wolverine cub was seen on the deck of a house in the hills north of Sioux City, Iowa.

In mid-July 2102, a wolverine was photographed in Fonanelle in Adair Country in Southwestern Iowa; however, it is not known what happened to the photograph.

Wolverines in Nebraska

Incredibly enough, there have been a number of wolverine sightings in Nebraska in recent years.

It makes sense because wolverines are native to Nebraska, at least in the more mountainous parts to the north. In the Hall of Nebraska Wildlife in the University of Nebraska Natural History Museum, there is a mounted specimen of a wolverine that was shot on Scott’s Bluff, Nebraska in the 1880’s. That area is in far Western Nebraska on the North Platte River only 20 miles from the Wyoming border. This part of Nebraska borders on Southeastern Wyoming, which is known to have wolverine populations.

In particular, wolverines have been repeatedly sighted in and around Antelope and Knox Counties in far Northeastern Nebraska near the Missouri River and the South Dakota border. This area is near Louis and Clark Lake and the Santee Sioux Indian Reservation.

In this area, there have been many sightings along the Verdigre and Niobrara Rivers. For instance, in Summer 1998, a number of people spotted a wolverine near Verdigre, Nebraska. One was seen chasing a deer out of a draw in the middle of a hay meadow.

In April 2012, a fire and range ecologist spotted a wolverine running away after a cedar burn operation in a steep area near Scotia on the North Loup River. This is about in the dead center of Nebraska.

On October 29, 2014, a wet wolverine that seemed to have been swimming somewhere was seen in a pasture in Central Nebraska near Doniphan between Hastings and Grand Island. This is quite close to the Platte River where it may have been swimming. The area is between Lincoln and Platte, Nebraska.

There has also been one sighting north of Gordon in Northwestern Nebraska on the headwaters of Wounded Knee Creek near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This area is east of the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, now the scene of a famous fight over selling booze to Pine Ridge Indians.

Wolverines in Missouri

Incredibly enough, there have even been wolverine sightings very close to Missouri.

On October 28, 2011, a man spotted a wolverine emerging from a cornfield and crossing State Highway E just south of Highway 13. This is hilly farm country. This area is in Eastern Nebraska not far from the Missouri River and is close to the place where the borders of Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri all meet. There are a number of good sightings in both Nebraska and Iowa, so it is possible, though bizarre, that wolverines may exist in Western Missouri.

Grey Wolves in Massachusetts and Michigan!

The first grey wolf in 94 years was seen recently in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. It was a lone male. The UP, Minnesota and Wisconsin all have healthy populations. The Black Bear and wolf populations in Minnesota have shown dramatic increases in recent years, and there is now a healthy population of over 25 lynx in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for the first time in 30 years.

In other great news along similar lines, an Eastern grey wolf, the first in 160 years, was detected in Massachusetts. It killed over a dozen lambs before the farmer shot it to death. The killing was probably justified, but it is unfortunate that the first wolf in the state in over 150 years got shot to death. There will probably be more wolves coming to the state after this one, though.

References

Aubry, K. B., McKelvey, K. S., and Copeland, J. P. 2007. “Distribution and Broadscale Habitat Relations of the Wolverine in the Contiguous United States.” Journal of Wildlife Management 71, 7: 148-158.

Bangs, Ray. 2009. Personal communication.

Haugen, A. O. 1961. “Wolverine in Iowa.” Journal of Mammalogy 42: 546-547.

Zimmermann, W. J.; Biester, H. E.; Schwarte, L. H.; and Hubbard, E. D. 1962. “Trichinella spiralis in Iowa Wildlife during the Years 1953 to 1961.” The Journal of Parasitology, 48:3:1, pp. 429-432.

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True Crime: Joseph Edward Duncan III

Originally posted as a repost from the old site in 2008. I recently looked over this old piece and I was surprised at how good it was. I think it’s time for a re-run. Feel free to comment. Warning: long, runs to 28 pages.

On August 27, 2008, Joseph Edward Duncan III was sentenced to death by a federal court in Idaho after being charged with ten federal charges for the homicide of Dylan Groene, age 9, in Montana in 2005. He served 13 years on death row, but he died on March 28, 2001 of glioblastoma, a brain tumor, before he could be executed.

I don’t know any of the principals in this case, but Thrillseekerman knows Steve Groene and Chris Groene, Doperman knows Chris Groene and not Steve, and Sexmaniacman knows Steve Groene but not Chris. T-man went to elementary school with Steve Groene and his brother, Chris Groene. Steve Groene is the father of Shasta Groene, Dylan Groene and Slade Groene. I called Thrillseekerman, Doperman, and Sexmaniacman to get their recollections of these two guys, who I never really knew. Their recollections are at the end of the article.

Joseph E. Duncan III broke into the victims’ house on May 15, 2005, tied everyone up, and then bludgeoned Slade, 13, his mother Brenda, 39 and his stepfather, Mark McKenzie, 37 to death with a claw hammer. He took Dylan and Shasta so he could torture and molest them.

Police who came upon the scene were stunned by the sight. There was blood and gore everywhere, and the faces were nearly unrecognizable. One officer who came upon the scene was so shocked by the sight that he quit police work for months afterward. An APB went out for Shasta and Dylan.

Duncan took them in a stolen 2000 Red Cherokee jeep with Missouri license plates to a very remote campsite in the Lolo National Forest in Montana and kept them there for a few weeks, having sex with both of them and torturing Dylan. He made a video of the crimes, and the video was shown to jurors and those in the courtroom. He raped Shasta and forced Shasta and Dylan to perform sex acts on each other.

May 2005: Murder of Dylan Groene in the Lolo National Forest, Montana

“The devil is here, boy, the devil himself. The demon couldn’t do what the devil sent him to do so the devil came himself,” Duncan yells in one of the videos. “The devil likes to watch children suffer and cry.”

Duncan cracks sick jokes through the videos.

In one video, Duncan jokes, “They kidnapped me – they won’t let me leave.”

In another video, he cracks, “I shouldn’t be taking pictures of you pulling up your pants like that, young man – people might think I’m a pervert.”

In another video, Duncan asks the kids about their wishes. Dylan says he just wants to go home.

One video showed Duncan raping and torturing Dylan in various ways. At one point, he took Dylan into an old shack, where he forced Dylan to perform a sex on him and whipped him with a belt. Then he told Dylan to stand on a bench, hung a wire around his neck, and masturbated as he watched Dylan nearly die from hanging. “Then Jet took him down and said, ‘Wake up, wake up, wake up,'” Shasta Groene said in a police interview.

She said Dylan screamed when he woke up because he thought he had been in heaven. Duncan then offered the half-dead Dylan an opportunity to watch his “death” by hanging on tape. A little while later, he forced Shasta to drag the half-dead Dylan through the campfire with a rope around his neck, burning him horribly. Then Duncan “accidentally” shot Dylan in the stomach with a shotgun.

Dylan was alive and possibly could have lived for a few hours, though his guts were hanging out. Duncan decided that there was no way to save him, so he shot him in the head. It was later determined that he probably did not shoot Dylan “accidentally” after all. After Dylan was dead, Duncan chopped his body into little pieces and filmed himself forcing Shasta to throw the body parts on the fire. Then he forced Shasta to pick the body parts out of the fire and filmed that too.

Whew. Wow. Whoa.

This must set some sort of a record for evil, but I’m not sure. The FBI did say that this was the first time that they had ever heard of anyone murdering adults just to get at kids, so it does set a depravity record in that sense. Details of whatever he did to Shasta have not been made available yet, but she was definitely raped. Normally, in this sort of thing, the name of the living kid, Shasta, would be kept secret, but her name was already out there as an APB Amber Alert, so the cat was out of the bag.

I guess you are wondering why no one heard all this mess up in the mountains. The makeshift campsite is at the end of a very remote logging road. It’s a one-hour drive down a terrible road to get to the remote site at the bottom of a cliff. It seems like hardly anyone ever goes there.

There are a lot of remote places out in the Western forests where you can stay for weeks at a time and not see another human. One article said the video was shot at a cabin, but I think it was just a campsite. They also went to various other campsites and drove long distances while Duncan bragged to Dylan and Shasta about killing the kids’ Mom, brother, and stepdad.

July 2, 2005: Arrested in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho with Shasta Groene

Later, on July 2, 2005, Duncan went back to a Denny’s restaurant with Shasta in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, where she was immediately spotted by a resident who went in and told the manager who then wisely called 9-11. It was 1:30 AM and the cops pulled in with their lights off. Duncan saw the cops and took Shasta into the bathroom with him. He came out later and the police quickly surrounded the table and asked him to come outside. Shasta was taken back to her father her Mom and stepfather were dead.

Steve was briefly considered as a suspect but then they cleared him. They told him that he failed a polygraph, but lots of innocents do. They also suspected Steve’s eldest son, 18. They gave him a polygraph also and told him he failed too. Good thing neither one gave a fake confession in the midst of those interrogations.

The son was also into drugs – I bet meth – had a significant criminal record, and was most recently in jail for burglary. He said that that imprisonment was going to make him go straight.

Brenda Groene and Mark McKenzie were also drug users, but they were primarily recreational users. Brenda was a good mother. Initially, drugs were thought to be involved in the murders. Meth and pot were found in the systems of both Brenda and Mark. The couple ran with biker types who are in abundance in this area. Brenda had a criminal record for possession of drug paraphernalia and had served time for this offense.

Robert Roy Lutner was an original suspect in the case since he had a criminal record for relatively minor offenses and owed Mark and Brenda $2,000. They thought he killed them over the financial dispute. Further, he had visited them on the evening of Sunday the 15th, when the murders occurred. He turned himself in immediately, passed a polygraph, and was let go.

After he took the kids, Duncan was spotted in a sporting goods store with them in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, asking for directions to Libby, Montana. An APB went out but they were nowhere to be found.

Soon before he was caught, a video camera caught Duncan and Shasta entering what looks like a 7-11 about 40 miles outside of Coeur D’Alene. The girl looks mad and has her arms folded angrily across her chest. They buy something, get back in a red jeep, and leave. This footage was not discovered until later. Soon afterward, they were caught at the Denny’s in Coeur D’Alene.

Police discovered that the man was Joseph Edward Duncan III, a 43 year old fugitive sex offender from Fargo, North Dakota. He had recently been charged with molesting a 7 year old boy he knew who lived near him. He was born, one of five in a military family, in Fort Bragg, Virginia, in 1963. His parents soon moved to Tacoma, Washington, where he grew up. He was described as lonely and displaced in high school, especially after his parents’ divorce in 1979. He soon dropped out of high school. He engaged in sex at age 8 with two of his sisters. They apparently initiated it. What this had to do with his later offenses, I have no idea.

1975: Age 12, Arrested in Tacoma, Washington for Rape of a 5 Year Old Boy

He committed his first serious offense at age 12, when he raped a 5 year old boy, but he was not caught. In this way, he resembles Ted Bundy, who probably committed his first homicide of an eight-year-old girl who delivered the papers in his neighborhood at age 14. Bundy was never charged with this offense.

1978: age 15, Arrested in Tacoma, Washington for Rape of a 9 Year Old Boy

By age 15, he was charged with raping a 9 year old boy and sent to juvey. There he admitted that he had bound and raped six boys already.

1979: Age 16, Had Already Raped 13 Young Boys in Tacoma, Washington

He later said had already raped 13 younger boys by the time he was 16.

1980: Age 17 Arrested in Tacoma, Washington for Auto Theft

The following year, he was arrested for stealing a car.

1980: Age 17, Sentenced in Tacoma, Washington to 20 Years in Prison for Rape of a 14 Year Old Boy at Gunpoint

At age 17, he was arrested, charged and sentenced to 20 years in prison (apparently as an adult) for raping a 14 year old boy at gunpoint. The tortures that he put the boy through were similar to those seen on the Dylan Groene tape.

At the time, he was diagnosed as a psychopath, or antisocial personality disorder under the current rubric. In my opinion, knowing little about his upbringing, he is a pure psychopath. This condition is largely genetic. They are just born bad from seemingly Day One. This condition is impossible to treat, though some of them burn out and often descend in alcoholism and depression in their 40’s. Duncan is clearly not one of those.

He was paroled 14 years later at age 33 and sent to a halfway house in Seattle. A man named David Woelfert had testified at the parole board that Duncan was no threat whatsoever. He had loaned Duncan $3,000 and had found a place for him at the halfway house. Woelfert was also homosexual, and for a while, Duncan and Woelfert had a gay relationship. It looks like Woelfert was conned too. In 1996, Duncan was released from the halfway house.

1996: Sentenced in Seattle, Washington to One Month for Parole Violation

Almost immediately after his release from the halfway house, he violated parole by using marijuana and possessing a firearm. He was given 30 days and released.

July 6, 1996: Disappearance and Subsequent Murders of Carmen Cubias, 9, and Sammiejo White, 11, in Seattle, Washington

Apparently soon afterwards, 9-year-old Carmen Cubias and her 11-year-old half-sister, Sammiejo White, went missing from the motel where they were staying with their homeless family. A while before, Duncan was living only three blocks away from the motel where they vanished. These girls later turned up dead, and they were definitely killed by Duncan.

The girls were last seen by their 16-year-old brother at 8:30 pm on July 6, 1996 after they left the Crest Motel in Seattle, where they were staying with older and younger siblings and their mother. The girls were used to be out at all hours and knew their way around the neighborhood very well.
They said they were going to the Taco Time where they were going to bum some spare change so they could eat and get some money for a pack of cigarettes for their brother. Apparently they never made it.

It turns out that Duncan has confessed to Shasta Groene that he killed two little girls in Seattle. He made the same confession to investigators, but he said he did not know their names. At the time of their disappearance, Duncan was living and working in Bothell, Washington, where the girls’ bones were found almost two years later in February, 1998, by a transient staying in an abandoned barn. They had both been murdered violently, but the details could not be ascertained. But both of their skulls had been crushed.

After Duncan was arrested for the Idaho killings, a woman came forward and said that she had worked at the Quality Food Mart in Bothell that summer. That summer she repeatedly saw a man she now says was Duncan come into the store to buy stuff accompanied by a frightened little girl, who she now identifies as Carmen Cubias. Once again, we see that Duncan kept his victim alive for a long time, molesting and possibly torturing them before killing them.

When talking to investigators, Duncan revealed enough details of the crimes, without confessing, to convince the cops that he killed the two girls. After he confessed, his lawyer convinced him to clam up about any other crimes he may have committed.

March 26, 1997: Disappearance and Murder of Deborah Palmer, 7, in Oak Harbor, Washington

On March 26, 1997, Deborah Palmer, age 7, disappeared on her way to school in Oak Harbor, Washington, about 50 miles away from Seattle. Palmer disappeared while walking the two blocks from her Kettle Street apartment home to school.

Duncan had an appointment in Seattle to take a polygraph test at an unknown time. Oak Harbor would have been a 1 1/2 hour drive away. Palmer may have been killed in Deception Pass State Park, near where her body washed up.

The week before, around March 19, Duncan had tested positive for marijuana, which would have violated his parole. Eleven days later, he quit his Bothell job, stole his girlfriend’s car, and fled his Seattle home for California to visit his father in Pahrump, Nevada. That was the very same day that Deborah Palmer’s body washed up on a Pacific Ocean beach seven miles away from Oak Harbor, and the story was all over the news.

She had been raped and strangled. The previous day, Deborah’s backpack and jacket were found at a gravel pit. There is no direct evidence linking Duncan to this homicide. There are also suspicions that a family member was involved.

April 1997: Disappearance and Murder of Anthony Martinez, 10, in Beaumont, California

After he fled to California, he killed again. This time, he took off from his Dad’s house in Vista and went to Beaumont, California, where he approached 10 year old Anthony Martinez and his brother who were playing in alley behind their home. He asked them to help find a lost cat, and they declined. Duncan then put a knife to Anthony’s throat and shoved him into a white car.

On April 19, Anthony’s nude body was found in a shallow grave 110 miles away in the desert near Indio, California. He had been raped and beaten to death and his skull had been crushed.

After his arrest in the Idaho killings, Duncan confessed to interrogators that he had killed a little boy in California. He also quite closely resembled the composite drawing of the suspect in the Martinez case. Cops then looked into the Martinez case and amazingly found a match for a thumbprint on the duct tape used to bind Anthony’s body and Duncan’s prints.

August 27, 1997: Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Parole Violation in Kansas City, Missouri

In May, Duncan was back in Northern California. On June 2, he met Dr. Richard Wacksman (see below) at a coffeehouse in San Francisco. At this point, he seemed to have been living on the streets. Four months later, on August 27, 1997, Duncan was arrested by the FBI at his sister’s house in Kansas City, Missouri for a parole violation and sent to prison for three years.

At the hearing for the parole violation, a Fargo, North Dakota doctor, Dr. Richard Wacksman, testified that Duncan was not dangerous anymore and that upon his release, he could stay at Wacksman’s home in Fargo. The parole board disagreed and sent him away. Upon his release on July 21, 2000, he moved to Fargo, North Dakota, but I believe it was not long before he started killing again.

After his release, in 2000, he visited Wacksman at his home in Fargo. The neighbors found out about it and confronted Wacksman. Duncan did not return to Wacksman’s home, and Wacksman soon moved to Florida. Duncan then visited Wacksman numerous times at his Florida home, where Duncan liked to scuba dive.

I do not think this Wacksman fellow is a bad guy. Psychopaths are often very charming and have the ability to convince all sorts of decent people that they are really ok, including Dr. Wacksman. However, it should be noted that Wacksman, while married and with family, was bisexual. It seems certain that Wacksman and Duncan had a homosexual relationship.

After he moved to Fargo, Duncan began attending North Dakota State University there, working on a BA in Computer Science. He would have graduated in May 2005, but he decided to go on a homicide spree instead. At the university, he worked in software development for both the college and a local business called iCat.

He also worked as a teaching assistant at Edmonds Community College where he taught introductory programming courses. He frequented at least one Korean Personals site where he said he was looking for “something more than just sex.” At the time, he was also taking karate lessons at the university (photo from his karate class in Spring 2003). While Duncan was living in Fargo from 2000-2005, I believe that he did not stop killing.

February 12, 2001: Disappearance and Probable Murder of Steven Earl Kraft, Jr., 12, in Benton Township, Michigan

On February 12, 2001, Steven Earl Kraft, Jr., age 12, disappeared while walking his dogs between 8-9 PM about 1/2 block from his home. The dogs were found later, but Steven is still missing. Duncan may have been involved in this kidnapping and probable homicide.

On April 21, 2001, Duncan set up his Jazzi-Jet gay website on the Pridesites gay website. Although the links have been deleted, on one page he was shown in a black dress and makeup talking about how much he liked to get fucked in the ass. Oh, well.

Duncan talked about how much gay sex he had in Walla Walla Prison, getting screwed by 50 different guys in there, getting gangbanged once by seven guys, being the “queen of the prison,” and being owned by a great big Black inmate named “Al”, all while posing in suggestive gay poses. On another deleted photo, Jazzi-Jet was once again done up like a woman. In one picture, he was masturbating, but you couldn’t see that very well. He touched up one of the pics to make it look like he has breasts.

On February 12, 2002, Duncan created this online resume. He was obviously highly intelligent and it looks like he was also a good computer programmer (I never could figure out Java programming myself). In March 2002, he created this page of a fake Time Magazine and Duncan praising Arnold Schwarzenegger.

July 12, 2002: Disappearance and Murder of Russell Turcotte, 19, in Grand Forks, North Dakota

Russell Turcotte, age 19, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa, was last seen at a truck stop in Grand Forks, North Dakota, on July 12, 2002, after spending the night with friends in Fargo, North Dakota. He was returning to his home in Wolf Point, Montana from a Rainbow Gathering in Michigan.

Surveillance cameras have now revealed that Duncan was at that truck stop hours after Turcotte was there. Turcotte was hitchhiking with a backpack home on a desolate stretch of Highway 2 west of Grand Forks at around 2 AM. I believe he was picked up by Duncan and taken to a side road near Grand Forks Air Force Base. He was probably raped there. He was then taken to Devils Lake, 90 miles west of Grand Forks, where his partially nude body was dumped and covered with brush. His possessions vanished, probably tossed into one of the area’s many rivers and lakes. His skull had been crushed.

The previous day, his mother had wired him some money. He was living with a girlfriend and running low on cash. Months later, in November 2002, his skeleton was discovered by a rancher in a clump of trees.

Objections have been made to the notion that Duncan committed this crime. First is that he would have had to drive 85 miles north from Fargo to Grand Forks and then another 90 miles west to dump the body.
However, I believe that since 1997, Duncan had started killing quite a ways away from where he lived. His first two killings seem to have pretty close to where he lived. The Seattle girls were abducted while Duncan was living in Bothell, 20 miles away.

Deborah Palmer (assuming he killed her) was killed in Oak Harbor, 30 miles from his home in Bothell, and her body was found nearby. He’s clearly capable of driving 80 miles away from his home to kill someone. Similarly, Beaumont was about 85 miles away from his father’s house in Vista where Duncan was staying.

Anyway, the surveillance camera had Duncan at the truck stop within hours of when Turcotte was there, so the distance question seems to be ruled out. Furthermore, July 12 was a Friday, so Turcotte was last seen on a Friday night. I believe that Duncan picked him up hitchhiking about 2 AM on the morning of Saturday, July 13 and killed him soon afterward. At some point he drove 90 miles east to dump the body.

Duncan was a college student at this time and was probably working too. It’s certainly possible that he had the whole weekend off. He had lots of free time and was always traveling to the Lakes Country in Minnesota to go scuba diving. Also, Turcotte’s skull had been crushed in the same manner that Anthony Martinez, Sammiejo White, Carmen Cubias, Slade Groene and Mark McKenzie had been dispatched.

Another question about the Turcotte killing is that Turcotte seems old for Duncan’s tastes. However, it has been pointed out that the 19 year old looked very young for his age. A photo of him taken before his death seemed to belie that, but another picture taken by his girlfriend shortly before he died showed him very thin, unhealthy, and quite young-looking.

Hunter Bear, an American Indian retired university professor and leftwing activist, had a webpage up about Turcotte. Here is a description of who he thought the killer is, written in 2003 before anyone knew about Duncan:

I continue to feel that Russ’ killer is an Anglo, maybe in his late 30s or early 40s, a so-termed “professional” person with a quite good, reassuring kind of car and out-of-state license plates. It’s obvious that he is a criminal psychopath.

Not bad, huh? At the time he wrote that, Duncan was 40 years old (!), White, and though not a professional, he could certainly come off as one. It seems like he liked to drive nice cars too. About the out of state plates, I have no idea. Hunter Bear said that the cops did not try very hard to find the Turcotte’s killer, at one point saying that they had no interest in a routine store surveillance camera tape that filmed Turcotte at the last place he was seen.

Hence, the tape was destroyed. Hunter Bear made a good case that the population and the police in North Dakota and Idaho were very racist towards American Indians. We don’t see much of it out here in California, but it seems to be more of a big deal back there. Some people are still looking at Seattle, Tacoma, or Portland as the connection between the killer and Turcotte, but I am pretty certain that this is a Duncan crime.

This is a Web Archive cache of the original Jet Gazette, Jet’s own online magazine that he made all about…himself! This page is dated July 29, 2002, and that would have been about 17 days after Turcotte was killed.

March 26, 2003: Disappearance and Murder of Dalton Mesarchik, 7, in Streator, Illinois

On March 26, 2003, Dalton Mesarchik, 7, of Streator, Illinois vanished from the front yard of his home. His body was found the next day in creek. His skull had been crushed with a hammer. That’s Duncan’s style. In June 2003, Duncan began going on trips to Minnesota and Michigan to scuba dive. He went on dives all summer.

On October 3, 2003, Duncan was visited by three police officers who accuse him of harassing women downtown. The women knew who he is from the Sex Offender database, and they had photos of him. He was accused of repeatedly asking them out and not going away when they told him to. That doesn’t sound like much of a crime to me. The cops said they knew who he was and they watched him all the time. Guess they did not watch him enough. He wrote about this incident later on his blog, The Fifth Nail.

Here is the final edition of the Jet Gazette, with photos of his scuba diving trips and videos that he made.

February 15, 2004: Disappearance and Probable Murder of Justin Phillip Edwards, 13, in Casper, Wyoming

Between late February 14 and early February 15, 2004, Justin Phillip Edwards, 13, disappeared. He was living at R. L Mills Home, a state-run facility, located at 116 East “H” Street in Casper, Wyoming since the summer of 2003. He was 5′ tall and weighed only 100 pounds and was retarded. He had the mind of a 6 year old. In his blog entry of February 16, Duncan said he went skiing for the first time that weekend, alone. Some think he may have been involved in Edwards’ disappearance.

July 3, 2004 Molestation of a Boy, 7 and Attempted Molestation of Another in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota

On July 3, 2004, Duncan molested a 7 yr old boy and tried to molest another boy at a school playground. He had a video camera with him. He was not caught until later.

March 4, 2005 Charged in Minnesota for the Molestation Incidents

In March 4, 2005, Duncan was charged with molesting a 7 year old boy and attempting to molest the boy’s young friend in Detroit Lakes, Becker County, Minnesota. On April 5, a judge set his bail at $15,000. This was the July 2004 incident above.

The same day, a Fargo businessman, Joe Crary, wrote a check for that amount to the court and bailed out Duncan. Crary said he befriended Duncan when they both rode their bikes on bike trails in Fargo. Somehow, Duncan gave off the impression of being polite, soft-spoken, and seemed sincere about wanting to turn his life around. Duncan also seemed sincere that he was innocent of the Minnesota charges.

I will never understand how psychopaths fool people like this, but they do it all the time. The ability to con and lie with a straight face in these people is amazing. Crary is now maligned, but I feel he was just another good person that this psychopath conned. It should be noted, however, that Crary is apparently a homosexual who had a sexual relationship with Duncan beginning in early January 2004.

After being bailed out, Duncan made plans for his crime spree. He purchased night vision goggles and a video camcorder at a Walmart. He also purchased a shotgun, shells, and a claw hammer. On April 15, 2005, he rented a 2005 red Jeep Cherokee in St. Paul, Minnesota.

After the rental agreement was up, he never turned it back in, and on May 4, auto theft charges were filed against him. On the same day, the key tag to the stolen car was found in Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in Wyoming, so Duncan must have been here at some point in his travels.
Between those two dates, Duncan traveled all the way to the far southwest portion of Missouri, where it meets Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas. There, on April 27, he stole license plates off a vehicle and placed them on his vehicle.

Then he continued his travels. No one knows where he went during this period, but I believe that he was in Spokane using GPS to stalk young children at a preschool, Kindermusik, which has kids from toddlers up to age 7. While in flight, a warrant was issued for his arrest in Fargo for failure to appear in a court date stemming from the Minnesota case.
He stopped in the Wolf Lodge area eight miles east of Coeur d’Alene. This post from Duncan’s horrifying blog, The Fifth Nail, was somehow posted from Wolf Lodge just four days before he committed the Idaho crimes.

May 13, 2005 Murders of Brenda Groene, Slade Groene, and Mark McKenzie in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

On May 12 or 13, he ended up on Frontage Road at the home where the crimes occurred. He spent the next two or three days scoping out the house, and on Sunday night, he entered the home with gloves, night vision goggles, a claw hammer, and a shotgun.

He pointed the gun and Brenda, Mark, and Slade and tied them up or forced them to tie each other up. Brenda Groene called Shasta down to the living room from where she had been sleeping. Dylan also came downstairs. Duncan quickly hustled Shasta and Dylan outside and into his van. Then he went back in to kill the others. With blows of the claw hammer, he dispatched them.

Shasta heard Mark scream, then she saw Slade try to run out of the house, wounded. He was hauled back in and dispatched. The kids in the van did not witness the killings, but Duncan later told them how he had killed her family. He told her that the name of the hammer was a Fatmax and she learned to call him “Jet” for his initials, Joseph Edward Duncan.

After his arrest, Duncan started blogging again with the help of others from inside prison. The blog is here. Here is an undated picture of Jet.
Here are two awesome time lines (Timeline One, Timeline Two) on Duncan’s life on the great The Cellar blog which is devoted to this case. This is a website Duncan made, the usual whining stuff about how terribly society treats convicts.

I interviewed my friends Thrillseekerman, Doperman, and Sexmaniacman about Steve Groene, the father of the three child victims and Chris Groene, his brother. All these guys, Doperman, Thrillseekerman, Sexmaniacman, grew up together with me in Southern California, and we all ran with the same crowd. They’re scattered to the five winds now, but all still keep in touch by phone and Internet.

I can’t say where they are, but they’re all still in the USA! I grew up with all of them, but I don’t remember Steve Groene or Chris Groene. I think the Groenes and I knew some of the same people, but I don’t remember the Groenes specifically.

Thrillseekerman shared his reminiscences about the Groenes:

Hi Bob, this case really wears on my mind. It’s amazing that I know this guy, and I know his brother, Chris, too. I haven’t seen Steve in 27 years, and I haven’t seen Chris in probably 25-26 years. Doperman knows Chris but I don’t think he knows Steve.

We all grew up together, Steve, Chris, Sexmaniacman, Doperman, and me, Thrillseekerman! And all the rest of the gang! And you, Bob! Ha ha! I heard about the case and saw the strange name, Groene, and wondered if it was him.

I saw his pic and knew it was him, though at the time I had not seen him in 24 years. He looked like he’d had a hard life; I don’t know if there is any better way to put it. His sister now says he already had cancer at the time. I don’t know enough to comment. Life’s hard on all of us in one way or another. Hang in there, Steve!

Steve was into drugs when I knew him, but then so was I! Ha ha! We all were! Ha ha! I think I went to grade school with the guy in Orange County and he was in my grade, but I’m not entirely sure.

I never really knew him that well, but I went to see him play with a blues band at a party in an industrial park one night in 1980. He’s a damn fine blues musician and I have good memories of that party. I was drinking Heinekens and later on smoking some dope.

Later I got to know Steve better, and somehow in 1981 I was buying Thai weed from him. I realize that sounds bad, but I was a dealer too! For many years! Ha ha. All of us – my friends and I – were drug users and dealers for many years. Ha ha! Plus, Steve sold me some damn good Thai weed too! Eat your hearts out, puritans!

Steve was working in the carnivals, traveling all around as a carny, was in with the biker crowd, and he was doing methamphetamine, but I don’t think he was doing very much. He was just a recreational user. Back in those days, the only people doing meth were bikers and carnies, people like that. Now meth is this huge deal.

He used to come over once in a while, mostly to sell me pot. I was just a pothead at the time. That’s all I know about Steve Groene and dope. Pothead, occasional meth user. But that was Summer 1981, and I never saw him again. I won’t guess about the rest of his life.

I remember he came over once. I was living in an apartment and there was this young guy staying there. He was really mentally ill and he needed a place to stay. He was living on the couch. Ha ha! There was a guitar case owned by this guy, a great guitarist who was going through a manic episode.

There were cigarette burns all up and down the case, and I pointed to them, shocked, then to the guy in the midst of the manic episode. Steve gave a smile, of sadness, wisdom, truth, and life itself. And then he said, “That’s the blues, man.” That’s right, Steve, you got it, man. The blues is life, and life is the blues. Ain’t that so true now, though? Damn.

I realize that I may be trashing his reputation here, but Steve has already admitted to being a heavy drug user as a younger man. Besides, what’s wrong with being a doper? Ha ha! I’m 50 years old, and I’m still a stoner! By the way, can you get me any good pot? Ha ha!

I want to point out that Steve Groene was always the nicest guy to me, a real warm and kindhearted person, always was. I value that, and I’ll always remember him for that.

I also knew Chris Groene, too.

That handsome face, beautiful long hippie surfer hair, and words of honey – no wonder the girls ate him up! Ha ha! Chris was a doper too, a pothead! Ha ha! We all were! He was a juvenile delinquent as a kid, but hey, a lot of us were. Even me! Ha ha! A nice, friendly, charming delinquent. I think Chris was probably a better thief than I was, though. Ha ha! I never was good at stealing.

Chris was also a real nice and warmhearted guy the whole time I knew him. I guess he outgrew that delinquent stuff. I still saw him later, into the early 1980’s, and he was still a kind, warmhearted person. I understand he’s got a really good job now.

I see in a recent pic Steve’s got himself a really nice looking new girlfriend. And he’s still a blues musician, which he always was. He’s a damn good musician, too.
I’m amazed that Steve has appeared to hold up pretty well in all this. Two of his kids and his ex-wife were brutally murdered, and his daughter was kidnapped and molested. But in the last pic I saw of him, he seems to be holding up. I think I would have snapped a long time ago.

All of us, me, Doperman, Chris, Steve, and all our friends, and you, Bob! Ha ha! We were bad boys, rebels, longhairs, surfers, stoners, mavericks, and trillseekers. Badass middle class dopesmoking White boys! Ha ha! We were White Punks On Dope ! Ha ha! Those were the days, man.

I’ll always remember Steve and Chris Groene. Whatever else they’ve been in their interesting lives, they were never mean. They both have hearts as big as the ocean. You don’t see that a lot in this world. Even, with the ravages of time and an unknowable future, if my heart becomes cold and hard, there will always be a tiny warm place there set aside just for Steve and Chris Groene.

Steve and Chris Groene, presente!

Doperman reminisced about Chris Groene:

I was working at the local elementary school as a janitor when I was 16. It was 1974. One night Chris, then age 15, came up to me and wanted me to give him access to the auditorium so Chris could steal a microphone. I guess Chris was a musician too? He almost talked me into it, but I eventually chickened out.

Chris was more of a charming type, and he had natural good looks, really long hair, and he got all kinds of girls and women. He could charm the poison right out of a cobra. This dude had style, man! He was one slick guy! I liked Chris Groene, Bob.

He was always really good to me, even when he was trying to convince me to participate with him in a juvenile crime! I think he grew out of that delinquent stuff, and I hear he has a great job now. You go, Chris! A ghost from your past!

Sexmaniacman recalled Steve Groene. The only recollection he had was one night 30 years ago when he was out of mind on LSD:

“I remember one time, it was the summer of 1978, it was around 10 PM, and I was flying on LSD! I think I was with my buddy Craig L. Anyway, we were headed to this party at Alan B’s place. We came to the street where the party was, and there were cops there! I was on acid, driving a car, and I looked right into this cop’s eyes! With my huge saucer eyeballs! Scary!

Well, we went inside, and I was flying on fucking LSD! Oh man! Steve Groene was there! He had this big, friendly, warm smile, enough to light up the whole room, like always. It was Alan B’s party, an Italian guy. A hippie and an acidhead! Ha ha!

Well, I walked in and there’ was this beautiful Mexican chick, about 20 years old, sitting on the couch. She was kinda big, but not too big. Just big enough, baby! Lotsa curves! Well, she was looking at me the whole time. I was kinda looking back, but I didn’t really know what to do.

So after a while Steve Groene said, way too loud, “Hey! Sexmaniacman! Why don’t you get her a beer, Sexguy? She wants you to get her a beer, Sexman!” He was smiling and laughing, but he was also like, “You idiot! Pick up on the chick! She likes you! Go for it, dummy! Like, duh!” So I go and get her a Heineken. I forget what happened after that. I fucked up; I don’t think I even got her number. I was so stupid sometimes.

Later that night, I was in Alan’s bedroom. I told him I was on LSD. He said, “Hey, Sexmaniacman! Let’s do some more acid and go to Black Star Canyon and fry all night!” I opened up a box full of blue LSD tablets. But we never did it.

I love Steve Groene, Bob, I really do. He’s a good person, and his heart is solid gold. He ran with a rough crowd, and he looked like a pretty tough guy, but he was good people all the way. A shout out to Steve Groene! Blast from the past!

Demographics and Especially Population Movements Spell Doom for the Republican Party

Present demographics in the US means that demographics is not on the side of the Republicans. Whites, the base of the Republican Party, continue to decline every year while the Hispanic population grows.

Even more important than that is a general movement of blue staters to red states and almost no movement in the other direction. Show me one red state that is losing population because it’s people are moving to blue states. There’s no such thing.

There’s more going on than that. Blue states have a far larger population than red states.

Virginia turned blue because Northerners kept moving down there for high paying jobs.

Georgia and North Carolina are on the same track for the same reason, and both may well in fact have gone over. Northeasterners have flooded to the Research Triangle in North Carolina, and Atlanta has been attracting floods of Northeasterners for a long time. The Republicans just stole a Senate seat in North Carolina due to mass election fraud, otherwise the Democrat would have won.

Florida is the only state resisting the trend towards blue due to continuous injections of rightwing Latin American immigrants and their offspring into the state.

New Hampshire has gone blue, probably due to invasion from more liberal NE states.

Pennsylvania is already history for the Republicans the same reason, mostly liberals moving out of the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area into the Philadelphia area.

Ohio and Iowa are on tied, but they have been tied for a long time, or at least Ohio has been.

Ohio swung hard to the right in 2016 or Trump in line with working class Whites voting Republican. But it swung back pretty hard in the other direction in 2020. In the last election, the electorate voted 51% Democrat. It’s only staying red due to massive election fraud and especially gerrymandering at the state Legislature level.

Iowa was a Democratic state that recently went red as part of a trend of working class White states going red, similar to Ohio, which it resembles. As in Ohio though, it swung back hard blue in the 2020 election. I’m convinced Democrats won the Senate seat there in 2020.

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are all long gone over to the Democrats despite massive election fraud on the part of Republicans. The legislatures of Michigan and especially Wisconsin remain in Republican hands due to massive gerrymandering by Republicans. In order to Democrats to win 51% of the Legislature, they would have to win 65% of the state vote, a near impossibility. The Republicans have gerrymandered themselves in for life.

Missouri and South Carolina are both trending blue, slowly but surely. Republicans only won by three points in South Carolina last election. I’m not sure why either state is going over unless it’s part of a general trend. Missouri used to be the bellweather state, but it went hard Right with the movement of the White working class in that direction in recent years, so it’s no longer a weathervane state. However, it swung somewhat back towards blue in 2020.

Colorado and New Mexico are solid blue now. In Colorado, this is due to mass influx of Californians to the state. New Mexico’s been fairly blue for some time and has only gotten more so.

Nevada’s pretty much gone for the Republicans for the same reason – Californians moving in. It’s been a traditionally conservative Republican state, but with so many Californians moving into the Reno and especially Las Vegas areas, it seems gone to the Republicans, although it’s still a bit close there.

Arizona appears barely blue now for the same reason – Californians flooding in to Tuscon and especially Phoenix – but it’s very much on the verge, and the legislature is still red, probably due to gerrymandering.

Blue states are getting bluer. I can’t think of one blue state that is becoming less blue.

Beyond that and even more ominous for Republicans is that almost all red states are getting less red with time. The average heavily-red state went a full ten percentage points blue in the last election, from Wyoming to West Virginia to Alabama. That’s terrifying from a Republican point of view.

The future looks ominous indeed for the Republican Party. The only way they can stay in power will be by stealing elections, which they are already good at, or moving to the left, which they almost cannot do because if the Republican Party moves left, it won’t be the Republican Party anymore.

It’s not so much racial demographics as mass movement from blue states to red states and almost zero movement in the other direction.

Alt Left: Full Democracy in the US Will Be a Boon for the Democrats and a Catastrophe for the Republicans

I do believe there are parties, groups, and individuals, in fact 10’s of millions of them, right here in the US who very much support democracy in the US itself. Those would be people associated with the Democratic Party and the Left in the US.

Few if any persons on the Right in the US support democracy, although there are a few. The reasoning is simple.

Full democracy implemented in the US, something we have never had and never even tried to have, would help the Democratic Party and the Left in the US quite a bit. So of course they support it. But they supported it even when majorities were voting Right to be fair.

Full democracy in the US, which as I noted we have never had one day of in this silly blighted land, would be a disaster for the Republican Party.

The country is far to the left of the Republican Party. Since 2005, Democrats have held a +10% support advantage among the US electorate. With the implementation of full democracy in the US, the Republican Party will never win another national election and they will probably never control Congress again either. The only way out of this jam is to move the Republican Party somewhat to the left in order to be in line with a left-moving population.

But that probably cannot be done because it goes against the basic foundations of the Republican Party itself. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but they would have to turn their back on over 100 years of Republican Party policy and go all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt.

Hell, at this point, a return to Richard Nixon or Eisenhower would be wonderful, but the party is too far gone to even do that. Instead of moving left with the electorate as they should if they wish to survive, every year they get increasingly rightwing to the point where the Republican is an actual anti-democratic rightwing authoritarian party. They now don’t support democracy at all. They support some form of Latin American style rightwing hard or soft dictatorship. It’s transformed itself into an actual Latin American-style fascist political political party.

Survival against All Odds Via Computerized Election Theft

The only reason the Republicans have been winning all of that time is because they’ve been stealing elections. No way on Earth could fifteen years of +10% Democratic advantage in the electorate coincide with massive Republican wins, especially at the state level. However, it coincides almost perfectly with the rise electronic voting in the US. Since the advent of US computer voting, we have seen massive poll and election poll failures across the US, the likes of which we have never been before in this country since the advent of sophisticated polling in 1946.

The only possible explanation for the massive and unprecedented failure in in pre-election and election precinct level polling is that the Republicans have been engaged in massive election theft via computer voting machines for the last 20 years. In fact, Karl Rove is on record admitting that the Republicans have been stealing elections via computer voting machines. He said he it’s within a few points, they can try to steal it because no one notices but if it’s more than that, they don’t even try.

2020 was the most brazen election theft in US history. Republicans tried to steal elections in Wisconsin and Michigan where they were down by 8-10 points and they almost won in both cases. So this shows that the Republicans are getting very desperate. Even if Democrats are ahead by 8-10 percentage points, Republicans will still try to steal it and no one in the Democratic Party or the media will ban at eye.

They will just blab on endlessly about poll failure. In this sense, the US Democratic Party fully deserves every terrible thing that has happened to it and in a larger sense, US Democrats deserve every shitty rightwing thing that has happened and will happen to this country for being so stupid and obtuse to refuse to recognize this obvious election theft being conducted right under their noses. I have no sympathy for the US Democratic Party. They can burn it to the ground for all I care, and while they are at it, burn every one of those corporate media companies to the ground too.

The system is too far gone for reform. I’m at the “burn it to the ground and start all over again from scratch” point now. Otherwise known as creative destruction. That’s an almost Maoist point of view. Sometimes things are just too far gone for petty reformism. You need to raze it all to the ground and start all over again with a complete political and cultural revolution.

Alt Left: I Despise Conservatism

It might seem otherwise but it’s actually true. I hang out on places like Daily Kos. All of the people I follow on Twitter are progressive or liberal Democrats. To me, the Republican Party is the enemy, especially this blatantly fascist latest version. Thing is though, don’t be fooled. They’ve always been like this.

None of this surprises me because I’ve been around Republicans and American conservatives (one of the worst of the breed) my whole life.

I’ve been on the Left my whole life. People keep telling me I’m a conservative, so I’ve been researching conservatism all over the world. I more or less hate it everywhere. It always the same garbage, against everything I stand for. I know I take a lot of anti-SJW points on here and I don’t write many liberal articles, but that’s because my audience has been mostly conservatives and Republicans forever.

Most liberals hate me and don’t even ask about the people further left, who seem to want me dead. Liberals come here for a bit and then freak out and run away, screaming, “Racist! Sexist! Misogynist! Homophobic! Transphobic! Bigoted! Conservative!” It’s sad because I’m probably left on the vast majority of issues and I’m only conservative on some social issues, and even then, I’m not as conservative as a Republican social conservative. But liberals and Democrats are party-liners nowadays, as bad as Communists.

So I’ve never had much of a liberal audience, and hence there’s no audience for me to write for. But I’m definitely a man of the Left. And the Republican Party is absolutely fascist in its present orientation, Trump’s presidency has been a horrorshow that doesn’t even seem real because it’s so beyond anything I’ve experienced. And right now, of course Trump is trying to steal an election. Really the Republican Party is trying to overthrow a liberal winner of an election with a coup.

That’s what the Latin American Right does. I said the other day that our breed is starting to resemble them. The Latin American Right believes in minority rule forever and they also believe that the Left has no right to rule their countries, no matter how many elections they win. They’re simply not allowed to win.

If they lose an election, they typically scream fraud when there never is any, or they foment a military (Honduras), legislative (Paraguay), judicial (Brazil), or economic (Venezuela) coup of some sort or another. The Latin American Right is absolutely fascist in character and behavior.

There is absolutely zero evidence for any of the crazy voter fraud (actually election fraud) allegations levelled by the Republicans. I’ve studied them all in depth. For one thing, there’d be a vast blue shift in the difference between the outcome and the exit and pre-election polls. Instead there were a mere two blue shifts.

And there were 39 red shifts, many of large percentages. There is no way on Earth you could possible have 39 red shifts, often of a significant number of points, in any election. Poll failure, especially massive failure of all the polls – mass poll failure, does not occur. The polls are not rigged for the Democrats. In particular, exit polls pretty much never go off. They can’t. Any time you have mass shifts in outcomes versus exit polls, the only explanation is fraud.

In a number of states, the Republicans stole up to 10 points. They’ve never been this brazen before. I’d tell you if the Democrats cheated and they didn’t. The Republicans are projecting. They’re the ones who engage in election fraud via the voting machines that they own and run.

The latest appalling news is that the legislatures of 17 Republican state governments (many stolen with voting machine election fraud, particularly in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin. They had a lot of help from gerrymandered districts that make it almost impossible for a Democrat to carry them.

Outrageously, the Supreme Court approved these blatantly anti-democratic gerrymanders. The Republicans have been engaging in mass voter suppression for 20 years now. When you have mass voter suppression, you do not have democracy. When you have gerrymandered districts that the opposition can never win, you do not have democracy. When you have continuous election theft via electoral fraud with voting machines for two decades, you do not have a democracy.

I don’t know why Democratic morons keep screaming about saving our democracy. Supposedly we just rescued our democracy this time around. Like Hell we did. We simply made a dent in the rightwing authoritarian government we have had for at least 20 years in this country. America has no democracy. We are an authoritarian state – a dictatorship in a sense. Americans need to quit insisting we have a democracy here. That went away a long time ago.

The trick now is to get it back, which is the project I support. I support bringing democracy back to the US and rescuing it from this rightwing corporate dictatorship. And for that we need to do some extreme things like pack the Supreme Court, expand the lower courts and pack them too, add DC and Puerto Rico (if they wish) as new states, etc. I don’t want to fill the judges’ seats with unfair partisan Democrats. Then we will be replacing their Republican dictatorship with a Democratic dictatorship. I will settle for fair-minded justices who are committed to bring back our democracy and sustaining it going forward.

On the Difficult Case of Saint Henry Ford

I admit I am a bit of an antisemite. Not too much of one! Nazis are evil! But just a bit. You know those recipes that call for a “pinch” of this or that? I mean not 1/4 or even 1/8 of teaspoon. Less than even that! Well, that’s how antisemitic I am. Just a pinch.

Actually I think all Gentiles should be. Judeophilia is stupid as blind love for any race is stupid. No race should be worshiped blindly. We are all humans, and all human races are a bit evil or have that potential simply on account of being made up of humans, as humans are at least a bit evil, and that’s on a good day!

And as a “pinch antisemite” type, I have chosen to worship Saint Henry Ford as one of my antisemite secular Gods. Feel free to hate on me for that. I’m used to it.

Saint Ford was not perfect. No saint is, not even Saint Jesus. St. Ford’s scriptures, the long-running, Hadith-like commentaries in the great Dearborn Independent, are actually excellent and hardly antisemitic at all. They’re just one endless cynical and exasperated lament at the typically terrible Jewish behavior of the times. Check them out if you can dig them up. Fascinating stuff.

His greatest scriptural document, The International Jew, was excellent and was not even particularly antisemitic at all. In fact as antisemitic documents go, it’s one of the mildest and least offensive ones ever written. Antisemitic speech tends to be nasty as Hell, often murderous and not uncommonly genocidal. TIJ is neither. Further, it was written with a kind heart in the spirit of racial peace. It was actually an early antiracist tract!

He was mostly just exasperated with Jews for being such separatist, selfish, and Other-hating jerks. TIJ was a call for Jews to knock off the Gentile-hatred and especially the Jewish Ethnic Wars against the Gentiles, which were quite hot at that time.

At one point in the book his exasperation is clear. He points out that he never supported one pogrom and thought that pogroms were sickening and horrible. He called for the Jews to stop fighting us and smoke the peace pipe. He said Jews were too busy being Jews to be real Americans, and that was sad and frustrating.

Quit being Jews and start being Americans instead was the message. In other words, TIJ and even The Dearborn Independent are just a couple more works in favor of the assimilation of the Jews, which is generally a good and even progressive thing anyway. Unassimilated Jews don’t act real great. Face it.

Come, Jews! Come join us Gentiles in building a better America!

– Henry Ford, The International Jew

What a beautiful, albeit exasperated, remark! Of course the Jews didn’t listen, and I’m still not sure if they have joined the rest of us here in the US or not. I wish to believe they have, but I do wonder.

But even this scripture, TIJ, is flawed. Ford believed in the Czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hate book that led to the murders of a lot of Jews. That book is just stupid.

And no, Jews don’t “act like that anyway even if it’s a forgery.” Bad argument. It’s just a stupid and wrong bit of hate speech and hate lie that killed a lot of people. Nasty stuff. Well, St. Ford ignorantly believed the Protocols. Dumb, almost criminal stupidity. His later meetings with Hitler were downright stupid too and even ignorantly wicked. He accepted the genocidal maniac Hitler’s praises, and that was more criminal idiocy.

He paid for it when the Jews tried to murder him by running his car off the road in the mid- 1930’s. Most people don’t know this and the Jews will scream, deny it and call you an antisemite for bringing it up, but oh yeah, it definitely happened all right. He almost died. He eased up on the Jews after, which I guess was smart.

My former Jewish girlfriend and I really split on the subject on St. Ford. Usually she agreed with everything I said about Jews and then one-upped me to go beyond that. Jews are profoundly antisemitic themselves as the sin is currently defined.

I defended St. Ford and boy was she mad. She really hated him. She grew up in Detroit and St. Ford was Antisemite Enemy #1 to Detroit Jews.

We had a fun relationship. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1996, I openly supported Hezbollah and cheered them on right to her face. She would just laugh, tell me to shut up, and defend Israel. I’d say, “Go Hezbollah go!”, she’d laugh and retort and the match was on. Good times!

Once I asked her why she was defending Israel, and she thought a bit and said, “I ‘m defending my people.” Great answer. Nothing wrong with defending or supporting your people. Racial self-haters are rather disgusting to me. I even with Blacks to take pride in themselves.

Sure, Blacks are fucked up. Duh. But are you, a good Black person, fucked up too? Well, of course not. Then take pride in being a Great Black Man or Woman, whichever it is. Pride is always admirable and groveling is always disgusting, no matter the race or ethnicity.

English as a Genocidal Language Attacking Other Tongues Spoken in the Anglosphere – USA

English has had a genocidal affect on the other languages spoken here, but many non-English languages still survive and some are quite thriving.

Pennsylvania Dutch is still quite alive with 300,000 native speakers. I think is is just a dialect of Rhenish German. It’s actually two separate languages and they can’t understand each other.

There are many other languages in the US that have been taken out by English. Most of the Indian languages spoken here have been driven extinct or moribund by English. A few like Cherokee, Sioux, Navajo, Mohawk, Pueblo, some Alaskan languages, a couple of Indian languages of the US South, are still doing well.

Most of the others are in bad to very bad shape, often moribund with only 10 or fewer speakers, often elderly. Many others are extinct. However, quite a few of these languages have had a small number of middle aged to elderly speakers for the last 25 years, so the situation is somewhat stable at least at the moment.

Almost all Indian languages are not being learned by children. But there are still children being raised speaking Cherokee, Navajo, Pueblo, Mohawk, and some Alaskan and Southern US Indian languages. Navajo is so difficult that when Navajo children show up at school, they still have problems with Navajo. They often don’t get the language in full until they are twelve.

However, there are revitalization efforts going on with many to most Indian languages, with varying amounts of success. Some are developing quite competent native speakers, often young people who learn the language starting at 18-20. I know that Wikchamni Yokuts has a new native speaker, a 23 year old man who learned from an old who is a native speaker. In California, there is a master apprentice program going on along these lines.

There are a number of preschool programs where elders try to teach the languages to young children. I am not sure how well they are working. There are problems with funding, orthographies and mostly apathy that are getting in the way of a lot of these programs.

There are many semi-speakers. For instance in the tribe I worked with, many of the Indians knew at least a few words, and some of the leadership knew quite a few words. But they could hardly make a sentence.

Eskimo-Aleut languages are still widely spoken in Alaska. I know that Inuktitut is still spoken, and there are children being raised in the language. Aleut is in poor shape.

Hawaiian was almost driven extinct but it was revived with a revitalization program. I understand that the language still has problems. I believe that there are Hawaiian medium schools that you can send your child to. There may be only ~10,000 fluent speakers but there are many more second language speakers with varying fluency.

There are actually some European based languages and creoles spoken in the US. A noncontroversial one is Gullah, spoken on the islands of South Carolina. There may be less than 5,000 speakers, but the situation has been stable for 30-35 years. Speakers are all Black. It is an English creole and it is not intelligible with English at all.

There is at least one form of French creole spoken in Louisiana. There is also an archaic form of French Proper called Continental French that resembles French from 1800. It has 2,000 speakers. Louisiana French Creole still has ~50,000 speakers. People worry about it but it has been stable for a long time. Many of the speakers are Black.

Texas German is really just a dialect of German spoken in Texas. There are only a few elderly speakers left.

There are a few Croatian languages spoken in the US that have diverged dramatically from the languages back home that they are now different languages. The status of these languages vary. Some are in good shape and others are almost dead. One of these is called Strawberry Hill Gorski Kotar Kaikavian spoken in Missouri. It is absolutely a full separate language and is no longer intelligible with the Gorski Kotar Kaikavian spoken back home.

There are other European languages spoken in the US, but they are not separate from those back home. Most are going out.

There are many Mandarin and especially Cantonese speakers in the US.

There are many Korean speakers in the US, especially in California.

There are a fair number of Japanese speakers in the US, mostly in California.

There are many speakers of Khmer, Lao, Hmong, and Vietnamese in the US. Most are in California but there are Hmong speakers in Minnesota also.

There are quite a few speakers of Arabic languages in the US. Yemeni, Syrian, and Palestinian Arabic are widely spoken. There are many in New York City, Michigan and California.

There are also some Assyrian speakers in the US and there are still children being raised in Assyrian. Most are in California.

There are quite a few Punjabi and Gujarati speakers in the US now. We have many Punjabi speakers in my city.

There are quite a few Urdu speakers here. Most of all of these speakers are in California.

Obviously there are many Spanish speakers in the US. English is definitely not taking out Spanish. They are mostly in the Southwest, Florida, and New York City, but they are spreading out all across the country now.

There are a few Portuguese speakers in the US. All also speak English. They are mostly in California but some are back east around Massachusetts.

The Sicilian Italian spoken in the US by Italian immigrants is still spoken fairly widely to this day. It has diverged so much from the Sicilian back home that when they go back to Sicily, they are not understood. This is mostly spoken in large cities back east.

There are quite a few Armenian speakers in the US and children are still being raised in Armenian. Most are in California.

There are some Persian speakers in the US, but not a lot. Most of these are in California too.

All of these languages are the same languages as spoken back home.

How Trump Stole the 2016 Elections: The Blatant Evidence

Zamfir: You say Trump “stole the election with computers”. Really? What are you talking about here? I’ve looked into these bizarre claims and never found any proper evidence of anything.

They’re not bizarre. Republicans been doing it since 2000 because the public doesn’t really support them anymore, so like all capitalist, ruling class, and oligarchic political parties, they have to lie, cheat, and steal to stay in power. See the Latin American Right for example. The Republicans been stealing them with computers, especially since 2004. Bush out and out stole the 2004 election.
We can tell they were stolen by how the exit polls went radically off compared to the actual vote. Exit polls are the gold standard of politics for over 50 years now. They always reliably track with results. Out of 50 states, polls will be off in maybe two states, no more. They’ve been going off, often by a lot and almost always in a Republican direction, since 2000. This is when the Republicans started stealing them with the computers. That’s why the Republicans put the computers in in the first place – to steal elections.
In Michigan, all polls for weeks before the election – hundreds of them – were all off, including the exit polls. That can’t possibly happen. So Michigan was stolen. They refused to count 70,000 votes in Detroit for no reason except that they are nigger votes I guess. And many fraudulent votes for Republicans were found even before the recount. A recount was never done because all Michigan politicians opposed it. Why did they oppose a recount?
Wisconsin was also stolen. Exit polls were off but always in Republican districts. There was no real recount in Wisconsin. There was only a fake recount, and some precincts were incredibly shady to where it appeared to witnesses that they were seeing actual fraud taking place.
Also 30,000 fraudulent votes for Republicans were found before the recount even started. The vote in Milwaukee was not possible, and I think they never even recounted it. Write-in’s supported Clinton and those lean rightwing. All exit polls showed Clinton winning. Exit polls were perfect in all precincts that had hand counted ballots but went off in all precincts that had computer counted ballots.
50,000 fraudulent votes were found in Pennsylvania before the recount even started. Write in votes supported Clinton and those tend to lean conservative. There was no recount in Pennsylvania because the DNC governor fought it in court! All exit polls showed Clinton winning.
The vote in Florida was not possible. 70% of votes were write-in’s and they supported Clinton by a decent margin. For Trump to win, a huge number of voters on election day would have had to support Trump. That number was so large as to be statistically impossible. Republican turnout was not elevated on election day anyway. As many Democrats came out as Republicans.
Trump started saying the election was going to be stolen because he was going to steal it himself. He always accuses his opponents of doing what he does or is going to do. This is called projection but it is particularly prominent in this man. It is considered to be a primitive and immature defense that kids use a lot. Yes, adults use it a lot, but people who project all the time are notably unhealthy. It is particularly prominent in personality disorders.
Also Trump, Conaway, and Guiliani became unusually calm about Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania a few days before the election. All polls were pro-Clinton. Manafort said he had just talked to the Russians, and they said not to worry about Michigan. I assume the Russians may have been in on the vote-hacking. Vote-hacking in this last election was never investigated by the FBI or by anyone.
I will add that sleazy Democrats do this too. Hillary had to have stolen a number of primaries. There is no way for the exit polls to go off like that, and the DNC laid down the law that Sanders could not win. Democrats don’t seem to want to fix these machines either I guess because they use them to steal elections themselves.
Republicans are fanatically opposed to all recounts of elections and to fixing the damned voting machines. They must know that the way they are set up now, they are hackable.
Really we need to get rid of them altogether and go back to hand counted ballots. States that hand count ballots never see their exit polls go off.

More Election Predictions

Ed writes:

What you are really saying is that Hillary Clinton will defeat Donald Trump at the polls because she is more popular than Trump is. More people want her to become President. That is all you are saying.
But you did not make the argument until challenged in the comments. You hid it behind all this pseudo-sophisticated Electoral College nonsense.

It’s not pseudo-sophisticated, and it’s not nonsense. The Electoral College is all that matters. Everything else is crap. Trump is the most toxic Presidential candidate in recent memory. Over half of Republicans say either they are uncertain he would be a good President or they say he will be a lousy President. Fully 40% of Republicans say Trump will be a lousy President. 40%!
Hillary will win all of the battleground states, well, at least if the election were held today. She will win Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and even North Carolina. Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina have gotten much more liberal in 20 years. Ohio and Pennsylvania are flat, but they lean ~3-4 points Dem. Florida is flat, but she will win there. A Republican barely won the governor’s race recently despite spending a mountain of money.
Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, have all gotten quite a bit more liberal in the last 20 years.
Not one single battleground state is getting more conservative over the last 20 years. Not one!
Hillary will not turn any red states though. At best, she could win Indiana and Arizona.
This is the longterm trend, and it will not be reversed.
Black turnout will be the same as 2012. Women despise Trump. Trump will win no more than 15-20% of Hispanics and maybe less than that. He has to win 66% of the White vote, and he might not even win 60%. His gains with working class Whites will be wiped out because Whites with some college hate him. Hardly any working class Democrats support him. Yes, working class Whites support him, but those people have been backing Republicans for a long time.
At least as of right now, he can’t win. She has 347 electoral votes. Total blowout. The election is over and it hasn’t even started yet.
Nate Silver puts Trump’s chance at winning at 2%. I would say that is optimistic.
Look at who the bookies are betting for. These people are willing to lay down their money to bet who wins. If Hillary wins, you will get a 33% return on your money. If Trump wins, you will get 150% return. The betters are favoring Hillary by a large margin.

Swing State Election Forecast

Swing states include states like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.
Nevada and New Mexico are Western states that were former Republican strongholds, but have gone over to Democratic in recent years. Most of this is due to more Hispanics in those states. Hillary will win both states.
Colorado is a bit more red, but it is also getting more Democratic. Colorado was former hard conservative Western state, but it’s changed. This is also due in large part to a growing Hispanic population. This state is very much up in the air, and Trump is leading at the moment. It will be a challenge for Hillary to win here, and Trump may well win Colorado. The percentage of gun nuts in this Wild West state is very high.
Iowa has also been trending Democratic. Reasons are not known. Hillary will probably win, but it may be quite close.
Wisconsin has been trending heavily Democratic for some time now. Hillary will win this state handily. Hillary is not even spending one nickel on ads here now because she knows it is in the bag.
Michigan has also been getting more more Democratic lately, and Hillary will win here easily. Hillary is not buying any ads here either.
Ohio is very much up in the air. This is another state that has been trending Democratic lately. Hillary has been ahead in the polls by 4-5 points though. This state could probably go either way.
Pennsylvania has not voted for a Republican in nearly 30 years. Polls show a close race, but Hillary is not spending one nickel on ads here yet. Hillary’s campaign says their internals show a much better race for Hillary. Apparently Hillary thinks she has it in the bag. Pennsylvania as a whole has been getting more Republican if you go county by county, especially in the east and center of the state. However these rural counties are not heavily populated.
The problem with Pennsylvania for Republicans is Pittsburgh and especially Philadelphia. Most of the state’s population lives in these large urban centers that are heavily minority. Philly in particular has a huge Black population. The Democratic votes in the cities should easily outweigh the rural red counties. Hillary should win Pennsylvania.
New Hampshire was long famous for being a conservative state, but it has been voting Democratic in recent years also. Hillary will easily win this state.
Virginia is very much a swing state. This was long a conservative Republican stronghold, the capital of the Confederacy. However, many Northerners have been moving down there in recent years, changing the state. This is very nearly a blue or Democratic state now. It’s incredible. Hillary will most probably win Virginia, but it will be close.
North Carolina is very much up in the air. This state was a conservative red state for a very long time. However, it is now moving towards the Democratic Party, but it is not all the way there yet. This is because many young hipsters have been moving down there for the good jobs to be had in the region, especially in the Research Triangle, where many high tech firms have moved.
It seems hard to believe that the state of Jesse Helms is now moving Democratic. The state is now flip-flopping back and forth between voting for Democrats and voting for Republicans. The state government is still very conservative. This was where the famous transgender bathroom bill was passed recently. This will be a very close race, and it could easily go either way.
Florida is the ultimate swing state and has been flipping back and forth between Democratic and Republican votes for President for the last 20 years. I have no information how the state was voting before then. If anyone knows, please tell me.
Northern Florida is like the US South and is very conservative. The center of the state is very mixed, and the south is also also a very mixed bag.
Many Jews from the Northeast have been moving down to Southern Florida to retire. These people vote Democrat. The state also has a very large Black population, especially in the northern part of the state. South Florida is very Hispanic but these Hispanics are conservative as they are mostly Cubans. Cubans have long voted Republican, but a lot of the younger ones are voting Democrat. There are also large populations of rightwing Venezuelans and Nicaraguans living here who fled leftwing regimes. However, there are also many Haitians here, and they vote Democrat. There are many Puerto Ricans in the center of the state, especially around Orlando. They vote Democratic.
This state will be incredibly close as it has been since at least 2000. The state government is run by Republicans, and there are major voter suppression efforts underway. Florida is completely up in the air and could go either way.

"The Death of a Young Sailor," by Alpha Unit

Ashtabula, Ohio, is a major coal port on Lake Erie. The coal dock at Ashtabula Harbor is a transload point for coals destined for electricity-generating plants and cement producers in Canada and the Great Lakes area. Coals from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia arrive at Ashtabula by train before being sent on their way. Other commodities coming through the port include iron ore, sand, gravel, and stone.

Among the ships you could see at Ashtabula Harbor was the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, a lake freighter that carried iron ore from mines near Duluth, Minnesota, to iron works near cities like Detroit and Toledo. A young man named Karl Peckol, barely out of Ashtabula High School, signed on to work on the Edmund Fitzgerald. He became a watchman.

Most of the crew on the Fitzgerald were veteran seamen. But there were some novices, including Karl Peckol, who didn’t necessarily aspire to a life as a sailor. Stacy Millberg says that Peckol was working on going to college. He didn’t get to go to college. He died on November 10, 1975, when the Fitzgerald sank in a storm on Lake Superior. At 20 years old, he was the youngest man on board.

Bigfoot News July 12, 2014

List of Bigfoot shootings in chronological order. This post is going to be exclusively about the topic of reported incidents of humans shooting and/or killing Bigfoots from 1829 to the present day. I have a lot of other Bigfoot stuff to write about in my notes, but I am a bit overwhelmed by the many notes that I have. Please bear with me.
This is a post I have been working on for some time. I finally lost interest in it, and it does need a bit of updating with the Sierra Kills and the Shooting Bigfoot Rick Dyer incident. Both of these may be included in the list for this reason: the list is merely of purported or reported shootings or killings of Bigfoots by humans, and Justin and Rick definitely reported shooting Bigfoots and frankly presented us with more evidence than most of the other folks below have.
Anyone who wants to write up the Sierra Kills and/or Dyer incidents in an objective, reporter-style matter of fact way as a police dispatcher would report an incident that someone is calling in (descriptive only) is welcome to try their hand at it. What I mean by descriptive only is you just write down what Justin and Rick said happened in those incidents in reportorial style without commenting on the validity of the claim.
Obviously, none of these claims have panned out yet, but it is pretty amazing that for a creature that supposedly does not exist, we have so many excellent shooting stories, often from otherwise credible, ordinary day to day folks who have never been known to make things up or lie.
This is a good research piece, and nonprofit websites are free to repost it. Feel free to comment if you any new cases or if you can provide more information to any of the cases below.
Note: Long, runs to 61 pages.

Bigfoots Shot At, Shot and Wounded, or Shot Dead by Humans

Unknown date: Klakas Inlet, Southern Alaska. In far southern Alaska on Prince of Wales Island, a Bigfoot was shot and buried at the mouth of a stream on the north side of the inlet. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Unknown date: Sonora, Mexico. Rich Grumley reported that a hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then buried it.
Unknown date: Desoto, Louisiana. A man’s dogs were fighting with a Bigfoot. The man then shot the Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Unknown date: Lewis, Washington. A sheriff shot at a Bigfoot in a pasture. The Bigfoot tore down a fence while escaping. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Unknown date: Skamania, Washington. A Bigfoot threw a rock at a truck. The truck driver then fired on the Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Date unknown, modern era: Location unknown. A wealthy hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then paid a taxidermist to stuff it, and the specimen was put on display in a ritzy country club on the East Coast. Reported by Ray Crowe.
Unknown date, modern era: Yankton, Oregon. Near the Columbia River north of Portland, a hunter shot a Bigfoot four times between the eyes and killed it. It rolled off the road. The man came back 24 hours later, and the body was gone. There was a set of three tracks, possibly a family group – a male, a female and a juvenile. Reported by Ray Crowe.
Unknown date, modern era, Amboy, Washington. Near Mt. St. Helens, a hunter reported that he shot and killed a male Bigfoot on an old logging road. Upon hearing that there was a $10,000 fine for killing a Bigfoot, the hunter hung up the phone on the researcher. Reported by Ray Crowe.
Unknown date, modern era: Pound, Virginia. Someone shot at a Bigfoot roaring outside his home at midnight with a 12 gauge shotgun. The shot missed. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
June 20, 1829: Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia. A team of hunters set out in an attempt to track down and kill a Bigfoot in the swamp. After tracking for two weeks, they were set upon by the Bigfoot one night. The men opened up with all their guns, but it seemed useless. Five of the men were killed by the Bigfoot, who then tore all of the men’s heads off. The surviving men opened up on the Bigfoot, finally killing it. Reported by Augusta Chronicle, March 12, 2000 – “Hunters Told of Swamp Creature’s Attack.”
Mid to late 1800’s: Bexar, Texas. The Legend of the Converse Werewolf. A rancher sent his 15-year-old son into the woods to hunt and told him not to come back until he had killed a deer. The boy never came back. People went searching for him and found the boy’s dead and mutilated body. A Bigfoot was standing over it. The rancher fired a shot and chased the Bigfoot into the woods. The others in the search party reported that the rancher never made it back alive, apparently also killed by the Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
1856: Ohio or West Virginia. Possible Bigfoot skeleton found with bullet holes in its skull. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Late 1800’s: Winston, Alabama. A moonshiner shot a Bigfoot that was following his mule wagon.
October 1879: Williamstown, Vermont. Two men hunting in the woods were surprised by a Bigfoot. One shot and wounded it. The Bigfoot chased them out of the woods. Reported by the New York Times, October 18, 1879.
1882: Inyo, California. A man, Jack Ferral, shot a Bigfoot five times. Reported by the Inyo Register, March 19, 1981 referring to articles in the Bishop Creek Times of 1882, noted in the Bigfoot Co-op April 1981, p.2.
July 4, 1884: East of Yale, British Columbia. In the Fraser River Region, railroad men working on a British Colombia Express Company’s train stopped their train when they saw what appeared to be someone sleeping near the tracks. After they stopped the train, a juvenile male Bigfoot woke up, barked and started to climb up a steep bluff. The workers decided to chase him. One got up above him on the slope and dropped a rock on the Bigfoot. It disoriented the Bigfoot enough that the men were able to get a rope around him, capture him and put him on the train.
They named the Bigfoot “Jacko.” Jacko had bruises on his head and upper body, and they assumed that he had gotten too near the edge of the bluff and had fallen over and landed, stunned, near the tracks. Jacko had been seen in the area where he was captured recently, but residents thought he was either a bear or a stray Indian dog.
Jacko was 4’7, weighed 127 pounds, and was covered with shiny black hair. He was extremely strong. Jacko did not communicate other than making half-bark, half-growl sounds. He was fed berries and milk.
There are conflicting reports on what happened to Jacko. Some reports said he was taken into Yale where a man made a pet of him. Other reports said that Jacko escaped from the train before it got to Yale.
There are other reports that say this whole matter was a hoax, but I believe it was true. For one thing, John Green received a letter from Adele Bastin, whose mother remembered that people continued to talk of Jacko long afterward. Reported by The Colonist of Victoria, British Colombia, July 4, 1884. The best analysis of this incident was by Myra Shackley.
There are reports that soon after Jacko was captured, a Bigfoot matching Jacko’s description was shot and killed in the same general area by a group of men, so the story about him escaping from the train before it got to Yale may be the correct version. Famous story.
June 1885: Watauga County, North Carolina. Northwest of Seven Devils, NC. Roughly 15 to 20 miles northwest of Grandfather Mountain. A 13-year-old Cherokee girl went to gather food along a creek. Then she heard gunshots. She hid under a bush because at that time it was dangerous for an Indian girl to be caught in the woods by a White man. She heard someone running down the hill.
As something ran past her, to her surprise she noted that it was a male Bigfoot. It seemed to have been wounded by the shots. The Bigfoot went down to the creek and buried itself in a pile of leaves, sticks, dirt and debris to the point where it was invisible. Then she heard the sounds of more people coming. She thought it was the White men, so she left. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
1890: Brookings, Oregon. Two men shot and wounded a Bigfoot. The Bigfoot retaliated, slamming the men against trees and tearing them apart, killing them. Reported by the Bigfoot Track Record.
1900: Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. The Eskimo came out of the forest onto the beach and was met face to face with a Bigfoot. He opened fire and killed the Bigfoot. He and two other Eskimos then buried the Bigfoot on the beach. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1904: Lane, Oregon. On two separate occasions, men shot at Bigfoots that were prowling around their cabins. The shots missed the Bigfoots on both occasions. In one case, the Bigfoot threw a rock at the man who shot at it. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website.
1905: Gardner Canal, British Columbia. On the coast of central British Columbia, a Bigfoot was shot and killed, but there are no further details. Reported on the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club website.
Summer 1917: Cass, Texas. A family coming home at night in a mule driven wagon was alerted by a screaming, advancing Bigfoot. The man shot at the Bigfoot, missed, and it ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
1917: Nowata, Oklahoma. Men shot at a Bigfoot that had gotten trapped inside of a barn. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
1920’s: Walla Walla, Washington. Hunters shot and wounded a Bigfoot, but the Bigfoot ran away. A second Bigfoot appeared and threw boulders at the hunters. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1920’s-1930’s: Lake, California. A man hunted red-haired wildmen that lived in caves above a lake. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1921: Terrebonne, Louisiana. Hunters killed a Bigfoot and dumped the body in an old well. Later a skeleton was found and taken to Tulane University, where it disappeared. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1924: Deschutes, Oregon. A prospector shot a Bigfoot five times, but the Bigfoot was only wounded and ran away. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1924: Ape Canyon, Washington. Near Mt. St. Helens, miners Marion Smith, Roy Smith, Fred Beck, Gabe Lefever and John Peterson, shot and killed a Bigfoot, which fell off a cliff into a river below. Other Bigfoots retaliated and bombarded their cabin with rocks. Famous story. Reported by Fred Beck.
1928: South Bentinck Arm, near Bella Coola, British Columbia. On the coast of central British Columbia, George Talleo shot and killed a Bigfoot. He left the scene and did not come back. Reported by the Sasquatch-BC website.
1930: Kwaltwa Kitasu Bay, Swindle Island, British Columbia. Tom Brown saw a Bigfoot in the shallows at night. He shot at it, and it screamed. He went back the next day, but there was no body. Reported by John Green.
After 1937: Green River, Washington. In the Cascades east of Tacoma, a hunter saw a bear grubbing in a log and shot and killed it. It turned out he had killed a Bigfoot. Feeling that he had shot a “hairy man” (a human being), he buried it under a pile of rocks and never told anyone until he confessed on his deathbed. Reported by Datus Perry.
1940’s: Yukon Territory. An man saw a 10-foot Bigfoot and shot at it with a 30.06. Reported by John Green.
1940: Southeastern Missouri. Jared Sparks killed an apparent Bigfoot (he described it only as “like a gorilla”) that had been killing horses and cattle by tearing them apart. Disposition of body unknown. Reported by John Keel in Strange Creatures.
Fall 1941: Near Basket Lake, Manitoba. A 17-year-old boy, Paul Shebaga, was hunting out of season shot and killed a Bigfoot that he thought was a moose. He left it in the forest because he thought it was human and because he was hunting out of season. He went back sometime later, and the body was gone. Shebaga has since died. Researchers who interviewed him found him a highly credible witness. Reported on BFRO site.
1943: Georgia, near the South Carolina border. A Bigfoot was shot and killed by shotguns, hit with 60 bullets after it was tracked by a group of men because it was killing sheep and calves by tearing off their legs. The reddish-brown Bigfoot was buried on the outskirts of town. Reported by Rich Grumley. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Winter 1943: Clarke, Alabama. Three men spotlighting deer in river bottomlands shot a Bigfoot. The Bigfoot may have died, but they did not stay around long enough to find out. Reported by the Alabama Bigfoot website.
1946: Lebanon, Pennsylvania. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
June 18, 1948: Franklin County, North Carolina. A Black family hunting in the woods at night shot and wounded a Bigfoot. It screamed, and they all ran away.
1949: Clackamas, Oregon. A man shot a Bigfoot that was eating a turkey. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Fall 1949: Coos, Oregon. A man shot a Bigfoot chewing on a live cow. The Bigfoot was wounded and ran off. Reported by the BFRO site.
Early 1950: Near Boston, Georgia. A man shot at a Bigfoot when his dogs cornered it on a porch. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
1950: Indiana, Pennsylvania. People shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
1951: Thomas, Georgia. A man shot at a Bigfoot next to a porch. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
1953: Alder Creek Canyon, Sandy, Oregon. East of Portland, a hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then buried the body. Reported by Peter Byrne.
1956: Shasta, California. A man may have shot a Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1957: Near Jackson, Tennessee. James M. Meacham shot repeatedly at a Bigfoot with no effect. Ivan T. Sanderson, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, pp.122-3.
Late 1950’s: Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. A group of young people were sitting in a house waiting for a Bigfoot to come back, as it had been banging on houses earlier in the night. The Bigfoot approached the house and ran away when people shot at it. Reported by Grover Krantz.
1957: Deschutes, Oregon. A hunter shot and killed a deer. A Bigfoot then ran out, grabbed the deer and started to run away with it. The hunter then shot the Bigfoot, but the Bigfoot was only wounded and made off with the deer. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1958-1960: Overton County, Tennessee. A Bigfoot stealing chickens was shot dead by the owner of the chickens. They drove it around the area to see if anyone could identify it. Disposition of body unknown. Reported by Mary Green.
1959: Knoxville, Tennessee. A Bigfoot was shot at when it came near a man’s home. Reported by Mary Green, Fifty Years with Bigfoot: Tennessee Chronicles of Coexistence, p. 192.
1959: Carroll County, Maryland. A police officer shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
October 1959: South of Tenmile, Oregon. A black Bigfoot chased two boys up a hill and across a ridge. One of the boys shot the Bigfoot seven times with a 30.06 shotgun. The Bigfoot slumped down but then picked itself up and kept coming after them. Reported by John Green, The Sasquatch File, p. 19.
Summer 1960’s: Morris, Texas. Two girls sitting on a bed talking at night looked outside and saw a Bigfoot in their yard. They called their grandfather. He came with a rifle and shot the Bigfoot. The Bigfoot roared and ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
Winter 1960’s: Wildwood, California. A Bigfoot was spotted peeking in the windows at a dance held at the inn. A man ran outside to grab his 30.06 rifle from his pickup truck. He shot the Bigfoot, and it screamed and ran off. Men tracked it to the Trinity River where they lost the trail. Reported by Ben Foster, Williamsburg, Indiana.
1960’s: Douglas, Oregon: In the Cascades west of the Umpqua National Forest, a farmer shot a Bigfoot and then somehow managed to take it back to his house, where he left it outside. Other Bigfoots then came that night and retrieved the body. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Winter 1960: Watson Bay, Roderick Island, British Columbia. Timothy Robinson and Samson Duncan shot at a small Bigfoot that they saw on a snow-covered beach. They found blood on the snow where it had been but were too afraid to follow the blood trail. Reported by John Green and Bob Titmus.
October 1963: Smith, Texas. Men hunting coons in the woods at night were alerted when dogs treed an animal. A beagle came running back, badly wounded with its guts hanging out of its body. The men came to the tree, and there was a Bigfoot in the tree with hounds circling around the trunk. The Bigfoot was howling and shaking the tree. One of the men shot the Bigfoot twice with a .22, but the Bigfoot only screamed even louder. The men all became frightened and ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
1965: Near Fouke, Arkansas. James Lynn Crabtree, age 14, shot a Bigfoot three times in the face, but the Bigfoot did not die. Reported by BFRO site.
1965: Yakima, Washington. A boy shot a Bigfoot but only wounded it. The Bigfoot then tore the boy apart, crushing his ribcage, and killing him. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1965: Kitimat, British Columbia. On the coast of central British Columbia, a Kitimat man shot and killed a Bigfoot near town. He was trying to drag the body away when other Bigfoots came out and tried to attack him. He barely escaped to his canoe. Reported on the British Colombia Scientific Cryptozoology Club website.
October 1965: Nisqually Hill, near Olympia, Washington. While driving at night, Russell Gels and Dennis Lensgrave saw a white 7-foot Bigfoot in their car headlights and shot at it. The Bigfoot ran away. Reported by The Sunday Olympian, October 24, 1965.
1966: Erie, Pennsylvania. Men shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
January 1966: Wildwood, California. Bob Kelley and Archie Bradshaw saw a Bigfoot looking in their window. One of the men fired his shotgun at the Bigfoot and thought he hit it. The Bigfoot’s tracks were followed down to Hayfork Creek. Reported by the Redding, California Record Searchlight.
May 1966: Spillimacheen, British Columbia. A man watching two Bigfoots have sex while another watched shot at the Bigfoot that was watching the other two but missed. The man was hunting grizzly bears at the time. Reported by the BFRO site.
Summer 1966: Near Richland, Washington: Several boys – Greg Pointer, Roger True, Tom Thompson, Carl and Jim Franklin, John McKnight, Alvin Anderson, Selby Green, Roger Howard, Bob McDonald, and Ron Blackburn – saw an 8-foot whitish-gray Bigfoot and shot at it several times with no effect. Reported by John Green, Roger Patterson and Rene Dahinden.
October 1966: Near Yakima, Washington. Mike Corey’s dog was attacked by a Bigfoot. He shot at it as it ran away. Corey’s dog was later mysteriously killed. Reported by Roger Patterson.
Late 1960’s: Chuska Mountains, New Mexico. Two Navajo shepherds shot a Bigfoot. It ran wounded into a canyon. Two other Bigfoots helped it. Reported by a Mrs. Chessman in John Green, The Sasquatch File.
February 1967: Hartley Bay, British Columbia: Two men saw a Bigfoot on an island and shot it. It screamed and ran away. Reported by Bob Titmus.
May 1967: Wasco, Oregon. Dennis Taylor and his friends often watched Bigfoots crossing the highway near the cemetery while going from the hills to the river, usually around 11:30 PM. Several times they shot at them with various weapons. Once one was hit at close range with buckshot and it fell down. It leaped up and crashed through a barbed wire fence, taking out three fence posts. Reported on the Oregon Bigfoot website.
Fall 1967: Winlock, Washington: A grayish Bigfoot had been seen in a necking spot for high school students. Some high school boys went out with a 30.30 and took a shot at it, but it ran away. Reported by the BFRO site.
Fall 1967: By Chehalis River near Chehalis, Washington. Billy Brown was hunting when he saw an 8-foot tall white Bigfoot. He shot it in the head, and it screamed and ran into a swamp. Reported by Roger Patterson.
December 1967: Teton National Forest near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Two college students from Marshalltown, Iowa – Lyle Bingaman and Mike Burton – shot and killed a Bigfoot, thinking it was a bear. They were terrified that they had killed a human being and that they would be prosecuted for murder, so they left it where it fell. Reported by Peter Byrne.
1968: North of Carson, Wyoming. Three men were hired by a rancher to kill a Bigfoot that was killing his cows and sheep by tearing off their legs. Afterward, the body was picked up by a government helicopter and taken to a research facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico to be autopsied and studied. Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup.
May 1968: Delphi, Indiana: A man and a woman were finishing their breakfast when a 5-foot tall “monkey” (Bigfoot) approached their residence. When the creature was 20 feet away from the door, the man gut-shot the Bigfoot in the stomach. It screamed, held its stomach and ran away. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
Autumn 1968: Point Isabel, Ohio. Larry Abbott, his father, and Arnold Hubbard saw a 10-foot tall white Bigfoot. The men fired on it. It vanished in a white mist. Reported by Leonard H. Stringfield, Situation Red – The UFO Siege!, pp. 65-6.
After 1968: Alabama. The same man involved in the Carson, Wyoming case above shot another Bigfoot later on. This time the government found out about it and was angry at the man for killing another Bigfoot. Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup.
New Years Day, 1969: Franklin, Missouri. Arbie Boyer pumped nine bullets from a .22 rifle into a Bigfoot 20 feet away from his home. It turned and slowly walked away. Then man then shot it with a 45/70 rifle and hit it in the shoulder. Reported on the Bigfoot Encounters website.
1969: San Juan, New Mexico. Shepherds shot a Bigfoot and wounded it. Two other Bigfoots then came to help the wounded Bigfoot away. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1969: Whiteface Reservoir, Minnesota. A hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then put the body on ice and displayed it for awhile before replacing it with a plastic replica. The famous Minnesota Iceman story.
Late February 1969: Khutze Inlet, British Columbia. Ronnie Nyce and two other men shot a Bigfoot that ran screaming into the woods. Reported by Bob Titmus.
November 1969: Burlington, New Jersey. A man shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
November 1969. Calaveras Big Trees State Park, California. Mike Scott shot a Bigfoot three times from 30 feet away, wounding it. Reported by Slate and Berry, Bigfoot.
1969-1972: Homosassa Springs, Florida. A group of teenagers were hanging out at a rock quarry at night when one of them shot and wounded a Bigfoot. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
After 1969: Clark, Washington. Neat Mt. St. Helens, a man shot and killed a Bigfoot, then tried to sell it but stopped when he thought it might have been illegal to kill the Bigfoot. No further details. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Early 1970’s: Chelan, Washington. Men shot at a Bigfoot holding and biting a 150-pound pig. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Early to mid 1970’s: Burr Ferry, Louisiana. A coon hunter shot a Bigfoot, and it screamed loudly. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
Summer 1970’s: Evangelina, Texas. Fishermen camping on the Neches River heard noises down by their bait box and boat and smelled a bad smell. The grandfather fired in the direction of the commotion and then a terrible scream was heard. Nothing was found the next morning except footprints. The grandfather said he had shot a Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy..
1970’s: Sylacauga, Alabama, on the slope of Marble Mountain. After a series of incidents involving Bigfoots on a small farm, sheriffs were called out. A sheriff’s deputy saw a Bigfoot standing near the house. Although he did not know what it was, he emptied his revolver at it. It ran off. The deputy then told the family that he would not come out to the house at night alone again. Reported by the Alabama Bigfoot site. Government coverup.
1970’s: Gray’s Harbor, Washington. A man shot at a Bigfoot. Four Bigfoots then attacked his pickup truck. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1970’s: Oregon. A man unloaded four rounds from a 30.06 into a Bigfoot, but the shots had little effect on the Bigfoot. Reported by Oregon Archives, University of Oregon.
1970’s: Idaho. Two men fired their rifles, one .22 and one .44 magnum, at a Bigfoot, but the shots had little effect.
1970: Spokane, Washington. A hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot. Reported by Grover Krantz.
1971-1976: Citrus, Florida. Men shot Bigfoots. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
1972: Citrus, Florida. A man shot a Bigfoot. Possibly the same as the previous incident. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
June 1972: Rusk, Texas. A Bigfoot watched campers at a campfire for about four minutes. The men then opened fire on the Bigfoot, and it ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
1973: Fayette, Pennsylvania. A man shot twice at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
June 1973: Maryland. A man shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
June 1973: Collowash River, Oregon. A man was sitting by a campfire when a Bigfoot walked by. He shot it, and it ran screaming into the woods. Reported by John Green.
July 1973: Greensburg, Pennsylvania. A doctor fired several shots at a Bigfoot that tried to enter his trailer home, but it walked away. Reported by Pat Morrison, UFOs and Bigfoot Creatures: An Adventure into the Unexplained, p.29.
Fall 1973: Albany, Kentucky. Many people saw a dark 6-foot tall Bigfoot. It killed some livestock in the area. People shot at it. Farmer Charlie Stern finally wounded it, and the sightings stopped. Reported by Loren Coleman.
October 1973: Pennsylvania. Witnesses saw a slow-moving, bright red UFO land in a farm pasture. Men went to the top of the pasture to investigate and they saw two Bigfoots creeping along a barbed wire fence about 75 feet away from the UFO. They were making strange whining sounds and and another sound like a baby crying. One man fired a tracer bullet at the Bigfoots. One of the Bigfoots reached up in the air as if trying to grab the tracer bullet. The man tried shooting at the Bigfoot with live ammunition, but the bullets had no effect. Reported by Stan Gordon on Coast to Coast radio show, November 28, 2014.
November 1973. Near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. A man saw a Bigfoot at night and shot at it with his revolver. It ran away. Later he shot it with a rifle. It screamed and ran away. Reported by Stan Gordon, “Pennsylvania Creatures Busy,” Shylooh: 77, pp. 15-16.
1974: Near Stone State Park, Sioux City, Iowa. A man shot and wounded a Bigfoot with a deer rifle. Reported by the Des Moines, Iowa Sunday Register, November 12, 1978.
1974: South Mountain, North Carolina. A 7-foot Bigfoot stood up by a campfire. A man fired at it, and it went away. Reported by John Green.
January 1974: Lee, Florida. A Bigfoot killed a pony. A man then shot at the Bigfoot in response. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
January 9, 1974: Palm Beach, Florida. Patrolman Robert Hollemeyal shot a 7-8-foot tall, dark Bigfoot. The Bigfoot was only wounded and ran off at 20 mph. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
February 1974: Fayette, Pennsylvania. Men shot multiple Bigfoots. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
February 6, 1974: Uniontown, Pennsylvania. A Bigfoot was shot at and then disappeared. A UFO was seen nearby. Stan Gordon, “Pennsylvania Creatures Busy,” Shylooh: 77, pp.14-17
May 1974: North Carolina. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
July-Aug. 1974: Watova, near Nowata, Oklahoma. A Bigfoot was seen many times around the property of Mrs. Margie Lee. She called sheriffs, and Deputies Gilbert Gilmore and Buck Field came out. The deputies shot the Bigfoot, but it was uninjured. Reported by Clark and Loren Coleman, Creatures of the Outer Edge.
Mid-October 1974: Near Holly Springs, Arkansas. A Bigfoot was sighted several times. A man shot it, but it lived. Reported by the Arkansas Gazette, November 2, 1974.
November 1974: Corkscrew Swamp, Collier County, Florida. A group of men hunting at night were being stalked by a Bigfoot. They opened fire on it with their shotguns. It screamed and ran off. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
December 1974: Bootlegger Trail, Montana. A coyote hunter shot three times at a 7-8-foot tall Bigfoot with a 30.06. The Bigfoot kept coming at him, and he jumped into a car and escaped. Roberta Donovan and Keith Wolverton, Mystery Stalks the Prairie, p.90.
February 1975: Alachua, Florida. A man’s car hit a Bigfoot on the road and knocked it down. The man got out of his car and shot the Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
February 2, 1975: Cape Coral, Florida. Richard Davis shot a Bigfoot, then later repented. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
September 1975: Nowata, Kansas. Men shot at a Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
September and October 1975: Nolde, Oklahoma. Kenneth Tosh, Marion Parret, Clifford Bentson, and Gerald Bullock tried to shoot and kill a Bigfoot on repeated occasions over a 2-month period. They were unsuccessful; the Bigfoot survived. Reported by by Jerome Clark and Hayden Hewes.
Early October 1975: Lummi Indian Reserve near Bellingham, Washington. The captain of the police force shot at a 6-foot+ tall Bigfoot. Reported by John Green, Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, p. 17.
October 1975: Fayette, Pennsylvania. A man shot at two Bigfoots. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
October 1975: Washington, Pennsylvania. Men shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
December 26, 1975: Vaughn, Montana. Two teenage girls shot over the head of a Bigfoot. The Bigfoot fell to the ground and was helped into the brush by other Bigfoots. Reported by Roberta Donovan and Keith Wolverton, Mystery Stalks the Prairie, pp.87-9.
1976-1977: Linn, Oregon. A man met two young women in a casino in Las Vegas who told him a fascinating story. Shortly before, they had wanted to go hiking in Oregon so they hired a guide to take them to the forest.
At one point, they came across a Bigfoot, and the guide raised his rifle and fired on it several times, seemingly to no effect. The Bigfoot then tore the man apart, killing him. The man’s body was evacuated via a heavily-armed US Forest Service helicopter. The Forest Service grilled the females for seven hours, trying to convince them that the man had been killed by a bear, but they stuck to their story. The ranger then told the women to never come back to the forest again. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Government coverup.
1976: Kern, California. A man shot a Bigfoot ten times in the chest with a .22 rifle. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
January 1976: Elm Creek, Texas Panhandle. Three men shot and killed two Bigfoots. The first one charged them, so they shot it. Then another one charged them, so they shot it too. They dropped both of them, a male and a female. They buried the bodies down by a nearby creek. They were afraid they would be prosecuted for homicide so they kept quiet about the killing. However, they recently told their story anonymously on a radio show.
April 26, 1976: Near Flintville, Tennessee. A Bigfoot tried to abduct 4 -year-old Gary Robinson. A six-man posse made up of Deputy Sheriff Homer Davis, Melvin Robertson, Stan Moore, and three others chased the Bigfoot and shot at it. Reported by Jim Brandon, Weird America, p.205
June 1976: Baltimore, Maryland. As unlikely as it sounds, a Bigfoot was reported here in May 1976. Police were called, and K-9’s initially refused to track it. Finally, the dogs tracked it to an interstate tunnel. A police officer then saw it run under the interstate. The next month, US army personnel were called out to deal with the Bigfoot once again. Reports indicate that soldiers captured or killed the Bigfoot. No further information. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. Government coverup.
July 1976: Citrus, Florida. A man shot a Bigfoot. Possibly the same case as another Citrus case reported above. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
July 1976: Gaston, North Carolina: A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
January 23, 1977: Blewett Pass near Ingalic Creek, Washington. David Kernoul and Dean DeWees saw a Bigfoot near a chicken pen and shot at it. Reported by Wenatchee, Washington World, January 26, 1977.
April 13, 1977: Rising Sun, Indiana. Tom and Connie Courter saw a Bigfoot on a hill late at night. Tom fired 12 shots at it, but there was no trace of the Bigfoot the next day. Reported by the Cincinnati Post, April 20, 1977.
May 12-13, 1977: Wantage Township, New Jersey. A Bigfoot visited the Sites family farm and killed some of their rabbits. It came back later, and the family shot at it. Reported by S.N. Mayne, “The Wantage Event,” Pursuit: 10-4, pp. 124-7.
Summer 1977: Cheshire, New Hampshire. Hunters may have shot at a tan-gray Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
July 1977: Jones, Texas. A Bigfoot threw a rock at a human and hit him. In response, the human shot at the Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
August 1977: Stilwell, Oklahoma. Brian Jones and two boys with the last name Ritchie saw a Bigfoot looking in the window. Jones went outside, and an 8-foot tall Bigfoot picked him up but dropped him when others appeared. The boys fired at the Bigfoot, which responded by throwing rocks. Reported by the Bigfoot Research Society.
August 15, 1977: Sussex County, New Jersey. A man shot a Bigfoot in the front yard of a house with a .22 pistol. The Bigfoot screamed and ran off. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
August 20, 1977: Belt Creek Canyon, Montana. Staff Sergeant Fred Wilson and two others saw a 15 1/2 foot tan Bigfoot standing in some bushes. They fired at it but drove off in their car when it ran towards them. Great Falls Tribune, August 20, 1977.
October 1977: Broward, Florida. A Bigfoot tore at a man’s shirt. In response, the man shot the Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
October 1977: Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
October 1-2, 1977. Near Bend, Oregon. Gary Benson and Ronald Kershey said a 7-foot tall black-haired Bigfoot with silver shoulders attacked them. They fired four shots at it. Reported by INFO Journal: 6-4, p.15.
November 1977: Marion, Florida. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
Mid-November 1977: Ocala National Forest, Florida. A hunter fired six times at an 8-foot tall Bigfoot weighing 800 pounds. Ocala Star-Banner, November 19, 1977.
1978: Fort Pierce, Washington. Edwin Godoy, a soldier on the base, shot a Bigfoot in the chest. The Bigfoot moaned and ran off. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website.
1978: Fayette, Pennsylvania. A Bigfoot smashed a windshield of a car. A man then fired on the Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
April 1978: Pennsylvania. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
April 1978: Danbury, Connecticut. A boy called deputies out to a farm where he saw a Bigfoot. Deputies came out, saw the Bigfoot and shot at it. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website.
June 26, 1978: Crossett, Arkansas. Mike Lofton, age 10, was feeding his dog when his dog began to tremble. Mike then saw a Bigfoot approaching the house from the woods. He ran and got his .22, shot at the Bigfoot, and the Bigfoot ran off. Reported by the BFRO site.
August 1978: Near Owensboro, Kentucky. Larry Nelson, his brother and two friends shot three .45 bullets into a Bigfoot’s chest. It ran off into the woods unhurt. Reported by Keith Lawrence, “The Fairview Horror,” UFO Report, May 1979, p.30.
Mid-August 1978: Near Owensboro, Kentucky. Several men cornered a Bigfoot beside a pond and shot it at a distance of 10 feet with a pistol. It ran into the woods, leaving no blood trail. Reported by Keith Lawrence, “The Fairview Horror,” UFO Report, May 1979, p.70.
August 14, 1978: Oceana, West Virginia. Policeman Bill Pruitt shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by the Charleston, West Virginia Gazette, August 15, 1978.
August 16, 1978: Fowlerville, Michigan. Gary Browning shot at a Bigfoot that ran out of the underbrush. Reported by the Lansing, Michigan State Journal, August 18, 1978.
October 1978: Colombia, Oregon. Men shot a Bigfoot between the eyes on a road. The Bigfoot rolled off the road, and the men took off. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
April 30, 1979: Dunn Lake, near Barriere, British Colombia. Tim Meissner was fishing with friends when he saw a Bigfoot across the lake. He came back later with a gun and shot at it. Reported by the Vancouver, WA, The Columbian, May 6, 7 and 9, 1979.
Late Spring 1979: South Mountain, North Carolina. A fisherman saw a Bigfoot in the underbrush. He came back later with a gun and shot at it. Reported by Robert L. Williams, “‘Knobby’, North Carolina’s Bigfoot,” UFO Report, September 1979, p.27.
October 1979: Oregon. A Bigfoot put a hand on a boy’s shoulder. The boy ran to the men he was with, who got guns and fired into the woods at the Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Mid-October 1979: Knox County, Indiana. Two boys who were predator hunting at night with rabbit-in-distress calls called in a Bigfoot. They shot at it, and it ran off. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website.
1980: Vinton, Ohio. A man shot a Bigfoot. Bigfoots threw boulders at trailers in response. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
September 1981: Cleveland, North Carolina. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
October 10, 1980: Fleming County, Kentucky. A Bigfoot raided J. L. Turney’s freezer. Turney chased it and shot at it. Reported by the Flemingsburg, Kentucky, Times-Democrat, October 15, 1980.
November 1981: Taylor County, Florida. A Bigfoot approached a camp of hunters in the middle of the night. A man fired a gun at it several times to make it go away. It crashed off into the woods. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
1982: Oglethorpe, Georgia. A woman went outside to tend to the dogs and was surprised to see a Bigfoot there. She ran back in the house yelling for her husband. The man was in the bathroom and shot through the bathroom wall at the Bigfoot, hitting it. The Bigfoot ran off. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website.
1982: Colombia, Oregon. A fisherman shot a Bigfoot. He followed the blood trail until he lost it. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Spring 1982: Maryland. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast.
Fall 1982: Cherokee, Texas. A man shot a Bigfoot with a shotgun three times and with a .357 revolver five times. The Bigfoot apparently survived. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
Fall 1983: Morgan-Monroe State Forest, Indiana. A college student was having a drinking party at his house with two friends. Early in the morning, he heard a noise and went outside. He saw what appeared to be a Bigfoot. He went back into his house, got an automatic weapon and shot at it. It ran off into the woods. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website.
October 13, 1983: Wilson, Oklahoma. A Bigfoot, apparently mad at a man for some reason, charged into a man’s house and tore the house apart. The man grabbed his shotgun and shot the Bigfoot. Then the man and his family chased the Bigfoot out of the house and barricaded the doors. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
November 1983: Tillamook, Oregon. A hunter tried to shoot a Bigfoot, but the gun was empty. The Bigfoot then growled at the hunter. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
Mid 1980’s: Johnson County, Arkansas. A Bigfoot kept taking a farmer’s animals – chickens, pigs and calves – but by fall, he would only take no more than half the farmer’s animals, leaving the other half for the farmer. The farmer got fed up and one night lay in wait for it with a shotgun. When the Bigfoot appeared, the farmer shot it with a shotgun, wounding it. The Bigfoot ran away and never bothered the farm again. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
Mid 1980’s: Johnson County, Arkansas. Two men were poaching deer with spotlights at night when they spotlighted a Bigfoot. One man shot at it, wounding it. The next day they found blood from the Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
October 15, 1984. Jefferson, Texas. A man was squirrel hunting in Pine Islands Bayou in the Big Thicket National Preserve when his dog started barking. He then noticed a Bigfoot wading in the bayou. His dog charged the Bigfoot, and the Bigfoot threw a log at the dog. The man then fired on the Bigfoot, but he did not know if he hit it or not. The Bigfoot ran off into the underbrush. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
1985: Pierce, Washington. A Bigfoot charged at men. Men then fired on the Bigfoot, then got in their car and drove away. The Bigfoot chased the pickup truck as it was driving away. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1985: Ripley, Oklahoma. A group of people out partying by the Cimarron River saw a Bigfoot. The Bigfoot then crashed off into the brush. Men left to go get guns and came back to shoot at the Bigfoot. They saw it and shot it. It screamed and ran away. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
October 20, 1986: Los Angeles County, California. Father and son deer hunters hunting in the San Gabriel Mountains noticed something rustling the brush very forcefully. They fired a few shots at it, then it came out of the brush and stood in front of them. It was a Bigfoot. They both ran away. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
1987: Pacific, Washington. A Bigfoot chased rafters along a river for seven miles, throwing rocks at them. A man fired into the brush at the Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
May 1987: Maricopa County, Arizona. A group of men were fishing for catfish. They fell asleep. At 2 AM, one awoke and noticed a female Bigfoot standing only 10 feet away. This situation went on for a while, as the one man in the group who had a gun pointed it at the Bigfoot to hold her at bay. At one point, she charged the men, and he opened fire at close range with a single shot shotgun. The Bigfoot grabbed her chest and ran across the lake to the other side, crashing through the brush. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
1988: Atoka, Oklahoma. A hunter shot a Bigfoot with a 30.06 rifle, but the Bigfoot was only wounded and ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
1990’s: Nowata, Oklahoma. A farmer shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
1990: Clark, Washington. A woman shot at a Bigfoot in the brush near her chicken coop. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
May 1990: Cooke County, Texas. Men shot a Bigfoot in the chest with a shotgun while on a camping trip. Reported by the BFRO website.
September 1990: Glenn, California. A Bigfoot that had been shot at by other men ran past a group of men. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
1991: Indiana. Two young men were hunting at night when they saw a Bigfoot. They freaked out and opened fire on it with a shotgun. It screamed and chased them half a mile through the woods. Reported by Mary Green.
August 1992: Between Westal and Crosstal, Tennessee. A man and his sons were out hunting squirrels in the woods. At 3:30 AM, the father woke up when a Bigfoot was trying to pull him out of the back of his truck. He thought it was one of his sons, so he yelled at them to stop. After a bit, he realized it was a Bigfoot. He shot and wounded it, and it walked away. Later, it came back and walked around the camp breaking branches and menacing the campers. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
August 1992: Iowa. Two fishermen camping beside a river saw a Bigfoot walking along the bank on the opposite side early in the morning. One man fired three shots at it with his .22, and it ran over the top of the bank and disappeared. Reported by The Sasquatch Report Issue #84 March 1997.
May 1993: Clark, Washington. Deer poachers shot a Bigfoot and wounded it. Blood was found, but the Bigfoot escaped. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
December 1994: Deschutes, Oregon. Hunters shot and wounded a Bigfoot in the leg and followed the blood trail for several miles. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
November 1996: Coos, Oregon. Spotlight hunters took long shots at a spotlighted Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
May 1997: Mendocino, California. A man shot at a female and some juvenile Bigfoots. Another Bigfoot then attacked the man and broke some of his bones. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
September 1997: Tillamook County, Oregon. A hiker shot at a Bigfoot standing on a rock outcropping early in the morning. The Bigfoot ran off.
July 1997: Jones, Texas. A Bigfoot threw a rock at a man, hitting him. The man then shot back at the Bigfoot but missed. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
October 1998: Madison, Virginia. A man was camping in the woods when he saw a Bigfoot up on a ridge only 80 feet away when he woke up in the morning. He emptied his revolver at it, and it ran off. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website.
November 1998: Longview, Texas. Two men were out squirrel hunting in the woods when they came across a Bigfoot. It ran across the trail and took off into the woods. The men decided to leave the area quickly, but five minutes later, they smelled a bad smell. They looked around, and 20-30 feet to the side in the woods was the Bigfoot again. One man fired three shots at it, hitting the Bigfoot.
The Bigfoot screamed and then chased the men all the way back to their house. It roamed the woods around the house all night, yelling and breaking branches. Later in the night, one of the men fired on the Bigfoot again.
November 4, 1998: Greenbrier, Tennessee. A man out hunting was scared off by a Bigfoot staring in the window of his truck. He drove off quickly, but the Bigfoot had blocked the road with a downed tree. The hunter called his friend to come cut up the tree.
They drove off and came to the main road when they saw some deer. The hunter decided to shoot a deer, so he got out. But then the two men saw a Bigfoot heading towards a neighbor’s barn. They fired shots at it, but it kept moving towards the barn. As they fired more, it turned and ran towards them. They jumped into their trucks and drove away very fast.
The hunter and his friend went to their homes, but then they heard the Bigfoot again. The Bigfoot yelled and burst out of the trees 40 feet away. The men unloaded all their guns at it, and it fell to the ground and started crawling away. The hunter told his friend to stop shooting at it because they didn’t know what it was. They followed the blood trail 1/2 mile to a creek where they lost the trail. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
April 6, 1999: Hawkins County, Tennessee. A farmer was plowing his field with his tractor when he saw a Bigfoot come out of the trees. He thought it was a bear, so he pulled out his 30.06 rifle and shot it. They tracked it for six hours but could not find it. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
September-October 1999: Northwestern Alabama. A woman sighted a Bigfoot and reported it to law enforcement. The next day at 4 PM they saw helicopters flying over the area. The copters had .50 caliber machine guns and were firing into the woods. This went on until midnight. Apparently they hit the Bigfoot because residents heard horrible screams from the wounded Bigfoot. It is not known if the Bigfoot was killed or not.
When people asked law enforcement about the helicopters, citizens were told that the police had been eradicating wild boars in the area. However, there had not been any wild boars in the area for 20 years. Reported by the Southeastern Bigfoot Research Organization. Government coverup.
January 2000: Honobia, Oklahoma. The Siege of Honobia. Bigfoot apparently shot and killed as part of a group that was raiding and harassing a rural residence. Other Bigfoots apparently carried off the dead Bigfoot. Reported by the BFRO site.
August 2000: Fort Mitchell, Alabama. A man and his friend were camping at Rood Creek Park Campground and Boat Landing on the Chattahoochee River, Georgia. One of the men’s dogs started whimpering, and the man went to check on it. Then he saw a Bigfoot coming out of the woods and approaching the camp. The man fired two shots from his pistol at the Bigfoot, but they didn’t seem to faze it. The Bigfoot then grabbed the man’s dog and tore it to shreds. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
October 11, 2000: Lewis County, Washington. A mother and two of her children saw a Bigfoot walking across the road. It looked as if it had a gunshot wound in the lower back. Reported by the BFRO site.
April 27, 2001: Orange County, Indiana. A hunter was in a blind calling turkeys in the woods when he heard a noise 50 feet in back of him. He turned around, and after a little bit, a Bigfoot stepped into view. Soon the Bigfoot charged the hunter’s position. The hunter fired one shot at the Bigfoot’s face and hit it. The Bigfoot turned and ran down a steep ravine where it stumbled around for 15 minutes or so. A trail of blood was found leading to the ravine. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
October 4, 2001: Woodville, Texas. A woman saw a Bigfoot standing in her backyard. She told her son, who grabbed a gun and took off into the woods after it. Soon he heard two men shouting along with gunshots. Then the men said, “Let’s get out of here!” They had apparently been shooting at the Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
2002: Sawyer, Oklahoma. An old man shot a Bigfoot. Bigfoots then started coming to the house, throwing rocks and sticks at it. One day the old man died of a heart attack. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.
Late January 2002: Monster Central, Louisiana. This is a 1,500 acre zone in northwest Louisiana south of Shreveport. A hunter gut shot a Bigfoot and wounded it. Other men with dogs were called in to track the Bigfoot. They tracked it to a tree on the edge of a stream, but it jumped down out of the tree and into the stream. One of the men shot at it again but missed.
Then the men became worried that some of the other Bigfoots might come around to defend the one they shot. Some blood and vomitus were taken for analysis, but the wife of the man who had the samples accidentally threw them away when she found them in the freezer. The results came back “unknown primate.” Reported here.
July 16, 2003: Lincoln County, Tennessee. A man shot a white Bigfoot that was making noise in a yard at night. The Bigfoot stumbled and then ran away. Reported by the BFRO site.
November 12, 2003: Lafollette, Tennessee. A creature had been killing peoples’ animals. A goat and cat at the very least had been killed. A woman called the sheriff’s, they came out with a team of deputies, and told everyone to get their pets indoors, as they were going to eliminate this animal. They tracked the Bigfoot and shot it dead over the next hill.
There were sirens wailing, and the Bigfoot screamed as it was shot. The woman left the scene. People saw a black body lying in a field the next morning. Ten minutes later, it had vanished. Planes flew around the area night and day for two weeks. Locals reported that there had been a hostile Bigfoot in the area, and they were trying to appease it by leaving food out for it so it would not kill their animals. The next day the woman who reported the incident went back to the area, and someone had taken the body away. Reported by Mary Green. Government coverup.
February 2006: Navarro, Texas: At a road crossing, a man shot a Bigfoot twice with a 30.06. The Bigfoot was wounded but walked away. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.
August 2006: Slim Buttes, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. A Bigfoot that had been named Chiye-tanka was shot and killed on the reservation. It was later given to the School of Mines to study. They sent it back, and it was given a ceremonial burial by Lakota elders. Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup.

"Made Mostly in America," by Alpha Unit

Waterford Precision Cycles manufactures custom, hand-built bicycles 30 miles from downtown Milwaukee. It was founded by Marc Muller and Richard Schwinn, both formerly of Schwinn Bicycle Company. Richard Schwinn is the great-grandson, in fact, of the founder of Schwinn.
Waterford, established in 1993, is one of the few bicycle manufacturers left in the United States. The vast majority of bikes sold here are made in Asia, including Schwinn bikes, which are fabricated entirely in China. In 2012 another bike manufacturer began operations in America, in midtown Detroit. That company is Shinola, which started out producing hand-crafted watches and leather goods.
The company makes 80 to 100 bikes each month on a three-person assembly line. Waterford Precision Cycles provides the frames and forks. The company reveals on its website that the wheels are assembled in California, the frame tubings are made in Mississippi, the spokes are from Colorado, and the brand decals are made in North Carolina.
Other small parts of their bicycles come from Asia and Europe. The company says that right now there isn’t any at-scale manufacturing in the United States for some of the components they need. But no matter where the parts come from, their bicycles are assembled completely in their Detroit factory.
Shinola, says John Arlidge, is the creation of Tom Kartsotis, who founded Fossil, a watches and accessories brand. He poured much of his fortune into his venture capital firm, Bedrock, which invests in US-based manufacturers. He got the idea to set up Shinola after one of Bedrock’s managers made the “You don’t know shit from Shinola” reference when kidding around with an office colleague.
Shinola was the name of a shoe polish sold in the United States until 1960. According to Arlidge:

The joke turned into a discussion about restoring the brand. Kartsotis bought the name from the defunct shoe polish company with the idea of using it as a catch-all brand for domestic cottage industries.

In June 2011 executives from Shinola were scouting out locations for factory space in Detroit to manufacture high-end watches, says J.D. Booth. They found 60,000 square feet of empty space at 485 West Milwaukee, in what was originally a research and design laboratory for General Motors. The building is on the National Register of Historic Sites.
Shinola parts are produced in Switzerland by Ronda AG, which manufactures watch movements for a number of famous brands. The final timepieces are assembled on the fifth floor of the Detroit building. Shinola brought in watchmaking experts from Switzerland to train their workers – none of whom had experience as watchmakers – and imported a manager from Ronda to run their production facility.
When Shinola decided to branch out into bikes they hired Sky Yaeger, who joined the company two years ago. She had spent 25 years designing bicycles for companies such as Bianchi, Swobo, and Spot. Shinola produces two lines – the Runwell and the Bixby. As R. J. King tells it:

Inspired by the French style of Porteur bicycles, as well as American models that slightly mimic motorcycles with a faux, elongated gas tank, the urban cruisers retail for $1,950 for a 3-speed version and $2,950 for an 11-speed model.

Who among us will buy them?
The number one “frequently asked question” for Shinola is, indeed, why its bikes cost so much more than a lot of other bikes. The company points to the quality of the components and the craftsmanship that goes into production. “The value they represent is absolutely worth the asking price,” they declare.
And another question they’ve been asked is “Why Detroit?” Their rejoinder:

Why not accept that manufacturing is gone from this country? Why not let the rust and weeds finish what they started? Why not just embrace the era of disposability? And why didn’t we buy a warmer coat before we moved here?

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"It Ended With a '53 Buick," by Alpha Unit

My husband almost bought a Woodie.
It was about 25 years ago. He had a neighbor who had one in storage, and she wanted to get rid of it. All he can recall about it is that it was a 1940-something Dodge and that the wood was badly warped. Even though she was going to give him a great deal on it, he passed. Way too much hassle, he decided.
The hassle of maintaining these cars is one reason people stopped wanting them. They look beautiful, but they can be high-maintenance divas.

800px-Nash_Suburban_4-door_sedan_woodie_at_AACA_show_left_side — A Nash Suburban “woodie.”

Woodies weren’t “Woodies” until some time in the 1950s, I found out. Before then they were just station wagons. Station wagons were a way of transporting people and their luggage from train stations to their final destinations. They were directly descended from horse-drawn express wagons.
Before the 1930s the passenger compartment of a vehicle was normally made of hardwood. A station wagon had the typical wooden body – built by a local carpenter, probably – and was used in a privately-run shuttle service.
The 1923 Star was the first wooden paneled station wagon sold commercially (made by Durant Motors). But the Ford Motor Company sold more wood-bodied cars than any other manufacturer, according to Art Daily, building its own bodies in a plant in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Ford Motor Company was vertically integrated; the wood – kiln-dried maple and ash framing, with mahogany panels – was harvested from the company’s expansive Iron Mountain first-growth timber tracts.
It was harvested, kiln-dried, and aged, all in one facility. Skilled craftsmen hand-built, assembled, and trimmed each car’s wooden body as they would fine furniture. Then it was shipped to a local Ford assembly plant to be mated to its engine and chassis.

General Motors didn’t sell as many wood-bodied wagons as Ford. Since it wouldn’t have been efficient for GM to produce the cars in small numbers, says Art Daily, a few respected suppliers hand-crafted Chevrolet, Olds, Pontiac, and Buick woodies. Packard, De Soto, and Nash also offered wood-bodied wagons.
Chrysler came out with its Town & Country wood-bodied wagon in 1941 and eventually began making wood-bodied 4-door sedans and convertibles. The Town & Country, with an all-steel roof and a white ash and mahogany body, is designated a Classic. People really want to see them. And get their hands on them.
Wood-bodied cars were undoubtedly complex and expensive to build and required special care.

Many pieces were made of rare bird’s-eye maple, resplendent with natural whorls and unique flowing patterns. Woodies were beautiful, but they were weather-sensitive and subject to an early demise. Manufacturers issued instructions with each wood-bodied car that instructed owners how to sand and re-varnish the body every year. No one would tolerate that frequency of maintenance today, but it was a different era.
And Woodies were fragile. A fender-bender that’d simply dent a metal car body could reduce a hapless Woodie to matchsticks. Brutal Northeast winters meant that these were essentially three-season cars, at best.

People who restore Woodies say that most of the ones they see are in bad condition. They commonly see both dry rot and termites. Eric Johnson, who rebuilds these cars, spoke to John Katz of Hot Rod and Restoration about the difficulty of restoring original wood.

I’d love to have a car with original wood. I’d love to keep it all original. But when you start taking an old wooden body apart, it’s like opening a can of worms. You may have seen only a few rotted areas when it was all together. But when you take it apart you’ll find tenons that are rotted out from where water got into it.

He says that sometimes you have to build a whole new reproduction body – something Rick Mack specializes in. He estimates that less than 1 percent of Woodies have good, original wood. He builds about a dozen woodsets a year and ships them all over North America. As Jeff Layton describes it:

The process is meticulous and time-consuming. There can be upwards of 64 wood pieces on a vehicle. Very few are straight or square; most bend in two directions, and some have a twist.
Mack uses a hand-crank press to laminate and shape replacement wood. He then uses jigs, patterns, and templates to dictate where to drill holes, round corners, and router interlocking pieces.

Pieces are accurate to the originals within 1/64th of an inch, he says. (Once varnished and installed, even judges at car shows can’t tell if the wood is original.)
Because many woodies were kept in storage during winter months, some of them can be found in pretty good condition. But to a lot of owners, proper maintenance was not a priority. Manufacturers understood this. Some people say that the last great year for the Woodie was 1949. Postwar auto production made handcrafting complicated and maintenance-intensive wood frames and panels hard to justify, according to David Traver Adolphus.
During the 1950s, car design, along with the tastes of people who drove cars, underwent radical changes, he says, and woodies fell from favor. The Chrysler Town & Country was discontinued in 1951. The 1953 Buick wagons were the last of the real woodies from a major American manufacturer.
Rick Mack drives a 1950 Ford Woodie wagon, even though it’s not a great idea in the Pacific Northwest. “Driving in the rain can make the wood swell,” he confesses to Layton.
But he drives it anyway. He loves Woodie wagons.

A Thought Experiment Regarding Detroit

People say economics ruined the city. The remaining Blacks (keep in mind that Detroit is 90% Black) are seen as victims, stuck there and abandoned by a ruined economy, which they did nothing to cause.
Others say like commenter Ishmael that Detroit has a Black problem. Many of Detroit’s problems flow directly from the fact that it is now a 90% Black city.
Keep in mind that in the US, whenever any huge US city gets around 90% Black, it’s effectively ruined. In fact, most large US cities that are over 50% Black are pretty much thrashed in one way or another. Sure, there are plenty of suburbs, small cities and towns of various sizes that are heavily Black and seem to do ok. But once a large US city goes majority Black, something terrible seems to happen to it.
Let’s try a thought experiment: Suppose we had a Stalinist or Stalin-like dictator in the US dedicated to the common good and the greatest good for the greatest number. He would also be, like Stalin, utterly dedicated to the concept of what the right derisively calls “social engineering” on a mass scale.
Detroit now is the same under this Stalin-type dictator. US Stalin has had it with Detroit as nothing seems to work. He decides to transform Detroit. Whereas now it’s 90% Black and ~10% White, he decides to switch the figures around and make Detroit 90% White and 10% Black. Nothing else will change about Detroit. Everything else will remain the same, finances, economics, government, the whole mess. Those Whites will be effectively abandoned in the same ruined and wrecked city.
You still think it would be the same city? Would the 90% White Detroit act the same as the present day 90% Black Detroit?
I do not think so.

The Death of Detroit

Repost from the old site:
Racists and White nationalists (in practice, identical) like to blame Detroit’s problems on the fact that it is full of Black folks. This is what happens when you have a Black majority city, in the US, Hell, anywhere, they say. I was wondering about it myself for a long time.
How about another look at things? From a Detroit Free Press article, now a dead link, so I am going to violate copyright here, and the article is 10 years old anyway:

A Historian Dissects Detroit’s Trouble

Thomas Sugrue, native Detroiter, historian and author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis , has spent 20 years in major cities in the United States and in London. He came to the Free Press in the summer of 1998 to talk about the conditions that created present-day Detroit, and the implications for journalists. These are excerpts from his talk.
Anyone who has spent time in cities like Detroit in America’s former industrial heartland can’t help but be struck by the eerily apocalyptic landscapes that are so common as one passes through these places.
I asked a simple, but very difficult question: “Why?”
After digging around in the papers of unions and business, civil rights organizations, census data, city records and countless newspaper articles, I arrived at the conclusion that follows: Detroit’s woes began, not in the 1960s with the riot, not with the election of Coleman Young as mayor, not with the rise of international competition and the auto industry’s globalization, they began amid the steaming prosperity and consensus of the 1950s, and in an era about which we have very little to go on apart from hoary shibboleths and cliches.

A THREE-PART STORY

Three sweeping changes transformed the city. These three things, occurring simultaneously and interacting, dramatically reshaped the metropolis of Detroit and other metropolises like it. First was deindustrialization, the flight of jobs away from the city, something that began unnoticed and unheralded in the 1950s.
Next was persistent racial discrimination in labor markets. Racial discrimination remained a very persistent problem despite decades of civil rights activism and some improvement in attitudes and beliefs.
Finally was intense residential segregation, a division of the metropolitan area into two metropolitan areas: one black and one white.
Any one of these forces would have been devastating, but the fact that all three of them occurred simultaneously and interacted with each other proved to have devastating consequences.

WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION

World War II was a great moment of opportunity for working-class Detroiters, black and white alike. The city was a magnet for workers coming from other parts of the country. African-Americans had been pretty much closed out of the industries that provided skilled jobs, but that pretty much ended during World War II.
Only 3 percent of auto workers in Detroit were black in 1940. By 1945, 15 percent of the city’s auto workers were African American. Detroit, then, became a magnet for black migrants who heard about these great opportunities. But the reality for black workers, even in this window of opportunities, was a great deal more complicated and harsher and more frustrating than those statistics would lead us to believe.

DEINDUSTRIALIZATION

One of the supreme ironies of post-war Detroit is that, just as discrimination was under siege, just as blacks found a small window of opportunity in the city’s labor market, that job base began to fall away.
First, beginning in the late ’40’s, and especially in the 1950s, began a process that has continued right up to the present. Jobs began to move out of places like Detroit to low-wage regions in other parts of the United States and the world.
Companies in Detroit began picking up and moving their production to rural Indiana and Ohio, increasingly to the South and, by the 1970s and beyond, increasingly to the Third World — places where wages and other standards were lower than they were in Detroit.
At the same time, industry in Detroit was changing from within. There was introduction of automation, of new, labor-saving technology within the factories. The consequence was a dramatic decline in the number of manufacturing jobs, solid, blue-collar jobs, the jobs that made Detroit the city that it was.
Between 1947 and 1963, a period of unprecedented national economic prosperity, Detroit lost 134,000 manufacturing jobs. This is not the ’70s. This is not when there is any competition from Germany and Japan and Korea for automobiles. These are jobs that were picking up and moving to other parts of the country, or these were jobs that were being replaced by machines.
Workers who had come to Detroit during World War II, seeking opportunities, found their choices seriously constrained. The workers who suffered the worst were African Americans, and they suffered because of seniority.
African Americans, because they didn’t get their foot into the door until the 1940s, were the first to be fired. So, when companies began moving out of Detroit, the burden was borne disproportionately by black Detroiters.
So, in the midst of the 1950s, 15.9 percent of blacks were unemployed, but only 6 percent of whites were unemployed, so we’re talking about black unemployment two and a half times the rate of white unemployment.

RESIDENTIAL DISCRIMINATION

The third and, indeed, probably the most pernicious force was residential discrimination by race. The city was divided into districts by race, divided by invisible lines.
These invisible lines were drawn in a whole bunch of different ways by different groups. The federal government subsidized housing development for whites through the Federal Housing Administration and Home Owners Loan Corporation.
But federal policies prohibited making loans to risky properties, and risky properties, according to federal standards, meant homes in old or homes in racially or ethnically heterogeneous neighborhoods. It meant that, if you were a black trying to build your own home or trying to get a loan to purchase a home, you had many obstacles to face, whereas if you were a white it was really quite easy.
Real estate investors reinforced these invisible racial lines by steering black home buyers to certain neighborhoods and white home buyers to certain other neighborhoods, and stirring up racial anxiety when neighborhoods were along that invisible boundary.
In one west-side neighborhood, in the late 1950s, there were more than 50 real estate agents working a several-block area trying to persuade panicked whites to sell now and sell fast because “they’re moving in.” Real estate agents even went so far as to pay African-American women to walk their children through all-white streets to encourage panic among white homeowners.
Also reinforcing these invisible boundaries were the actions of ordinary people. There were more than 200 violent racial incidents that accompanied the first blacks who moved into formerly white neighborhoods in Detroit.
If you were the first black to move into a formerly all-white block, you could expect, certainly, for your house to be pelted with rocks and stones. In one case, a tree stump went through a window.
Regularly, vandals would break 20, 30 — every window in a house. Arson was another popular tactic.
As newspaper reporters, if such an incident were happening today, you can be sure that you would be covering it, but until 1956, there was not a mention of any of these incidents in Detroit’s daily newspapers. They were off the radar of the major dailies.
This process of housing discrimination set into motion a chain reaction.
Blacks were poorer than whites and they had to pay more for housing. They had a harder time getting loans. Hence, they spent more of their income on the purchase of real estate. They were, by and large, confined to the oldest houses in the city, houses that needed lots of repair work.
Many of their houses deteriorated as a consequence of them being older, not being able to get loans and folks not having all that much money in their pockets. City officials looked out onto the poor housing stock in poor neighborhoods and said, “we should tear this down.”
Moreover, the fact that housing stock was old and in many cases deteriorating in black neighborhoods provided seemingly irrefutable evidence to whites that blacks were irresponsible. “We kept up our property, why aren’t they keeping up their property?
Finally, this neighborhood deterioration seemed to lenders definitive proof that blacks were a poor credit risk and justified disinvestment.

CONCLUSION

To talk about Detroit’s problems beginning in 1967, or beginning with the election of Coleman Young, or beginning with the globalization of the 1970s is to miss the boat.
The pattern of workplace discrimination, of the massive loss of jobs, of the residential balkanization of the city into black and white — this was already well established by 1967. It wasn’t Coleman Young that led to the harsh racial divisions between blacks and whites in metropolitan Detroit. It was there, and had been festering for a long time.
It wasn’t the riot that led to disinvestment from the city of Detroit. Disinvestment had been going on very significantly for years.
And it wasn’t globalization that led to the loss of jobs. That loss of jobs was going on when the auto industry was at its very peak.

IMPLICATIONS

We focus on changing the attitudes and motivations of individual workers, rather than challenging larger discriminatory practices.
We have a policy mismatch, a gap between the reality that I have described and the policy recommendations to try to address those problems.
The premise of welfare reform is to put welfare recipients to work. The problem is that the areas with the greatest job growth in the metropolitan area tend to be the farthest away from where the poorest folk live, in the outer suburbs largely inaccessible by public transportation. So there’s a gap between the reality of jobs and job loss and a policy solution.
Another major one,is downtown revitalization and tourism: “Build casinos and they will come. You need to deal with the deeply rooted problems I’ve described: job flight, racial segregation, discrimination.
We need to think about providing poor people with access to secure, well-paying jobs, wherever those jobs might be.
We need to begin thinking more creatively than we have with the real problem of racial division in our city and in our nation. Conversations on race are not enough. We need to deal with the reality of economic and residential division.

From the Google link to Sugrue’s book, also apparently a dead link, but I copied the text anyway:

The Origins of the Urban Crisis, by Thomas J. Sugrue

Once America’s “arsenal of democracy,” Detroit over the last fifty years has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of racial and economic inequality in modern America, Thomas Sugrue explains how Detroit and many other once prosperous industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty.
He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Probing beneath the veneer of 1950s prosperity and social consensus, Sugrue traces the rise of a new ghetto, solidified by changes in the urban economy and labor market and by racial and class segregation.
In this provocative revision of postwar American history, Sugrue finds cities already fiercely divided by race and devastated by the exodus of industries.
He focuses on urban neighborhoods, where white working-class homeowners mobilized to prevent integration as blacks tried to move out of the crumbling and overcrowded inner city.
Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today’s urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II.
In a new preface, Sugrue discusses the ongoing legacies of the postwar transformation of urban America and engages recent scholars who have joined in the reassessment of postwar urban, political, social, and African American history.

See also The Fire Last Time, from the Washington Post last year, for more along the same lines.