commentary by Patrick H.Moore
One thing you don’t expect when attending your high school reunion is for some miscreant to gun you down like a mad dog. In fact, I’ve gone to 4 or 5 reunions at my alma mater, the now defunct Ellwood P. Cubberley High School, without ever catching a bullet. Hell, I’ve never even considered the possibility of swallowing lead at one of these functions.
Sadly, danger erupted in a most unsettling fashion at the East Peoria Community High School (Class of 1999) high school reunion on Saturday night in good ol’ Peoria, Illinois. Perhaps it a Midwestern kind of thing, but whoever organized the reunion decided it would be held at The Fifth Quarter Sports Bar and Pizzeria, located on North Main Street, across from the Par-a-dice Hotel and Casino. (Maybe it’s because I went to high school in the snooty town of Palo Alto, but our reunions are generally held at rather posh country clubs, but hey, “whatever’s right.”)
The appalling thing is that the shooter, who did not miss, has the same last name as yours truly, as did one of his victims, who just happened to be the killer’s ex-wife.
A high school reunion in East Peoria Saturday night turned deadly when a man walked into a crowded bar and shot a woman and man at point blank range.
Within seconds, an off-duty law enforcement officer at the scene jumped into action, firing his weapon, killing the suspect.
According to the Peoria County coroner, the female victim is Lori A. Moore, 33, of Morton, Ill. She was pronounced dead at OSF St. Francis Medical Center at 9:16 p.m. Saturday.
The male victim is Lance E. Griffel, 36, of Peoria, Ill. He was pronounced dead at OSF St. Francis Hospital at 9:39 p.m. Saturday.
Both victims were shot in the head, according to the coroner.
Not only were the two victims robbed of their life and happiness, but all of the class of ’99 graduates had their fun-filled evening cut short – very short, for the simple reason that the killer, Jason A. Moore, burst into the sports bar at 7:50 pm (when the party must have barely been getting started) and opened fire.
Although the authorities appear to have been stumped initially with respect to motive, it all became clear once law enforcement realized that the shooter was Lori Moore’s ex-husband. In short, Jason Moore appears to have killed his ex and her new boyfriend (the divorce was finalized in May of 2013) purely out of jealousy.
It’s probably very fortunate that the off-duty officer, who is reportedly FBI, happened to be hanging out at the Fifth Quarter. Given that Jason Moore had clearly become unhinged, for all anyone knows, he might have just continued shooting was it not for the agent’s expedient actions. Thus, yet another mass shooting may have been averted.
Max Buedal of the Journal Star writes:
East Peoria Police Chief Dick Ganschow said investigators were reviewing video of the incident recorded at the bar, and crime scene investigators were gathering evidence. Interviews of friends and relatives of the shooter and the victims will continue in the coming days to determine the background that led to the deadly shooting.
People vary in how they react to an incident of this nature. The rubber-necking crowd naturally likes to hang around taking it all in. A group of bikers wearing the regalia of the Outlaw Motorcycle Club, however, chose to get out of Dodge quickly and left the bar immediately after the shooting. The bikers were followed by police to a clubhouse on Farmington Road in Peoria County. The police said later, however, that they were witnesses to the incident and not suspects.
(It’s quite possible that the motorcycle’s gang’s rapid exit was triggered by the fact that being “outlaw” bikers, they may have a natural aversion to the law. Or, alternatively, a few of them could have been holding contraband and/or unregistered weapons.)
Needless to say, the police treated the fatal incident with the utmost seriousness. They, and other emergency response vehicles, blocked the portion of Main Street that led from the entrance of the sports bar to a Shell gas station at the Route 116 intersection.
Speaking of rubberneckers, a crowd of curious onlookers gathered on the other side of Route 116 near the entrance to the gas station, and clustered on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape the police had set up to prevent witnesses from leaving the sports bar parking lot. One couple reportedly embraced tearfully over the tape. The police later lifted the yellow cordon to allow vehicles to depart one-by-one.
Kim Beeware of Huffington Post writes:
East Peoria Police Chief Dick Ganschow credited the off-duty officer — who asked news outlets not to identify him — with averting a larger-scale shooting.
“It’s very difficult to say,” Ganschow told the Journal-Star. “You can play the ‘what if’ game over and over again, but I think it’s pretty clear in his case the presence of this officer and his ability to take very quick and very decisive action prevented a further tragedy.”
The shooting has been classified as a domestic violence-related incident.
“Domestic situations are extremely volatile, whether they end up in this kind of situation or your average domestic. There is a certain level of volatility and unpredictability that are involved. The emotion level is high and sometimes they just reach a point and people snap,” Ganschow told NBC.
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Lori A. Moore and Lance E. Griffel
How truly sad! Given Jason Moore’s truly irrational actions, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Lori Moore, who as his ex must have known him very well, may have felt a huge sense of relief thinking she was disentangled from him after her divorce was finalized. As for her now-dead boyfriend, Lance E. Griffel, we can also probably assume that the last thing on earth he expected was that the ill-fated high school reunion at the Fifth Quarter Sports Bar and Pizzeria was the last reunion he was ever going to attend.