New Scaratings

This is the kind of employee BT hires while eliminating other decent long time employees. What the F is management doing in Carlsbad?

(from channel 10 news San Diego)
http://www.10news.com/news/25360864/detail.html & http://www.10news.com/news/25330191/detail.html

Neighbor: Suspected School Shooter Had Outbursts In Home
Alleged Gunman Brendan O'Rourke Had Past Incidents With Law Enforcement, 10News Reported

POSTED: 6:20 pm PDT October 11, 2010
UPDATED: 7:40 pm PDT October 11, 2010

SAN DIEGO -- The man accused in the Kelly Elementary School shooting had several past incidents with law enforcement, 10News reported.

Vickie Rowe-Mitchell, whose apartment is directly below O'Rourke's apartment in Oceanside, called police 4 to 5 times in the last year.

According to Rowe-Mitchell, O'Rourke would pound the floors and walls, say the N-word and rant about President Barack Obama. She said the bursts of aggression would go on for an hour at a time.

Each time Rowe-Mitchell said she called police, O'Rourke would become quiet when police arrived and usually refused to answer to door. Oceanside police told 10News they have had other contact with O'Rourke but are waiting for legal approval to release more information.

Before those incidents, O'Rourke had apparently passed several background checks -- one to get a security guard license in 2009 and the other to register a gun.

"I'm told he is the registered owner the handgun that was used on Friday," said Carlsbad Police Department Chief Gary Morrison.

10News learned O'Rourke, while living in Illinois, pleaded guilty in 2003 to telephone harassment charges -- a misdemeanor. Another case involving harassing faxes to politicians was dropped.

"He pounded so hard that my ceiling fan would shake, and the windows would rattle," said Rowe-Mitchell. "But the last 3 months, he's been quiet."

Rowe-Mitchell said during that time when the outbursts stopped, O'Rourke found a job. 10News confirmed he was working as a scheduler for Carlsbad-based NTN Communications, which installs video equipment in bars and restaurants.

Neighbors said despite the new job, O'Rourke learned he was being evicted from his home.

"I could tell in my soul this man is going to do something really bad," said Rowe-Mitchell.

O'Rourke was booked for investigation of attempted murder.

The San Diego County District Attorney's Office is awaiting a police report to file possible charges.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday.

_________________
BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Redskins and the 9 and 5!!!!

Holy crap, I saw the headline a few days ago about a shooting in Carlsbad and jokingly thought to myself "I wonder if it's a frustrated Buzztime employee?"

I can't believe it actually turned out to be true.

Every nut-job has societal connections. When the nut cracks, we should not automatically blame those connections. Despite the dark humour, ....just a sec,..... someone is pounding on my door.

This guy was obviously, outwardly, nuts... how could he have got through the BT job interview process? What moron dismissed the signs and hired him anyway? It goes to show what kind of management system there is in Carlsbad.

It turns out O'Rourke was assigned to BT customer service....that figures! Hire the wack jobs to deal one on one with the customers...brilliant. He may have read one too many of the weekly letters from BO and snapped.

Some more from news channel 8 San Diego. http://www.cbs8.com/Global/story.asp?S=13312994

CARLSBAD (CBS 8) - The former roommate of the man accused in a school shooting at a Carlsbad elementary school last Friday is talking to News 8 about a history of strange behavior.

News 8 spoke to 41-year-old Brendan O'Rourke's former roommate in Springfield, Illinois. The man, who did not want to be identified, says his family was harassed by O'Rourke several years ago.

O'Rourke worked answering customer service calls at NTN Buzztime in Carlsbad. The company makes video trivia games installed mainly in bars and nightclubs.

When News 8 called O'Rourke's work telephone extension, we heard his voicemail. It begins, "Hello, you have reached customer service representative Brendan O'Rourke." It ends, "Thank you and have a nice day."

Friday was anything but a nice day for the children at Kelly Elementary School in Carlsbad. That's when police say O'Rourke brought a .357 caliber handgun on campus and started shooting, wounding two young girls. Police still don't know why O'Rourke picked Kelly Elementary, but the school is along a likely route O'Rourke would have driven home on his daily commute.

O'Rourke's former roommate in Springfield, Illinois is all too familiar with O'Rourke's history of strange behavior.

"It was more paranoia. He would say odd things like the government put satellites in his head and that I would control him, or different people in his life controlled him," the roommate told News 8.

The roommate ended up evicting O'Rourke in 2002, and then misdemeanor charges were filed when O'Rourke started making harassing telephone calls.

"He started to call my sister and my mother and just say odd, strange things," the man said. "He would just constantly call and hang up, call and hang up, and I'm not talking one time a night. I'm talking 25 to 30 times a night."

O'Rourke moved to Oceanside in 2009. Records show Oceanside police responded to his apartment three times earlier this year to complaints of yelling obscenities, threats of violence and racial slurs, but no arrests were made, and no citations issued.

The former roommate said O'Rourke was not a church-going man when they lived together; nor did O'Rourke own a gun.

"He never had a weapon, never owned a weapon in this house. I don't allow that," the ex-roommate said.

News 8 has also learned O'Rourke's father was a well-known California politician. Lawrence W. O'Rourke -- a Pearl Harbor survivor -- worked for nearly three decades as a city manager and administrator in the California cities of Montclair, Tehachapi, Turlock and the City of Commerce before his death in 2002.

The alleged gunman's mother, brother and a disabled sister currently live in Springfield, Illinois. They have not responded to phone messages.

_________________
BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Redskins and the 9 and 5!!!!

NTN Buzztime – Statement to News 8
October 12, 2010

“NTN Buzztime employees were shocked to hear about the events that transpired at
Kelly Elementary School on Friday, October 8, 2010. We extend our continued well
wishes to the two little girls and the families of all of the students and staff at Kelly
Elementary School in Carlsbad. In addition, NTN Buzztime is fully cooperating with
Carlsbad police in their ongoing investigation, and any further inquiries into this case
should be directed to them.”
- Michael J. Bush, Chief Executive Officer, NTN Buzztime, Inc.

_________________
BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Redskins and the 9 and 5!!!!

"That question...wasn't it there last game? They're just repeating questions! Or is time going backwards? Am I the only one noticing??????"

Now we know who requested the assault rifle avatar option.

_________________
Lick me Charm City- you stole my team.
Quite crying about the Colts.

I hate to defend Buzztime on this, but from all of the descriptions, he seemed to be somewhere in the schizophrenic spectrum.

Having a few in my family, I can say you would be pretty surprised by just how normal they seem despite the incredibly odd beliefs they have. I have a relative who was just "a little weird" but was considered an excellent employee, family member, etc. It took years before his delusions of persecution and being controlled by satellites and utility companies actually finally snapped into something that frightened everyone and got him in legal trouble. About a month before it all blew up, I doubt there was a person outside of his close family who would have said he was likely to lose it and do something nuts -- and even family just thought he'd developed some really weird ideas.

Again, not dismissing it -- and maybe BT really just did a bad job here -- but a lot of people with schizophreniform disorders are actually socially functionable until such time that it finally progresses too far to be controlled without medication. In many cases, those people have worked somewhere long enough that the business doesn't want to quickly fire them when they finally start to exhibit obvious problems. And there's an additional problem when the personal is socially cognizant enough to hide it from their employers but express their problems to the people they "trust" (before those people become part of the conspiracy, too).

It's hard for me to have sympathy for criminals (especially this dickwad), but it really sucks to see someone's own mind torture them into a warped human being who is willing to do insane things.

In better news, there are much better medicines now than there used to be.

Yeah, but maybe he was so mad from the penalty stroke that he murdered the dry cleaner!

FWIW, 99% of the CS reps I've spoken with were top notch. Don't remember if I ever spoke to Brendan.

In a small way, this is funny with the issues BT's had and all. But for the most part, it's not a laughing matter. Very happy nobody was seriously hurt in this ordeal.

BO

I guess he was more in when a new site would get the system schudling a delivery and getting a person to set it up out in the field when it arrived. Or a computer needed changing out and the site could not do it themselves.

Good God, you've talked to at least 100 of BT CS reps ? About what ? I've never even talked to one.

I've talked to at least 100 over the last 20 years. Whenever the system wasn't connecting at our bar (90% of the calls), when games were completely messed up with the font problems of a few years back, a repeat primetime game from the week before-to send the proper game, boxes to be returned, to complain about all the tiefly questions , etc etc.

I have 18007454686 on speed dial, they have always been very quick to diagnose connections problems. Haven't had to call in a while, connection is much much better over the last year. Broken or bad battery boxes remain a problem. Yes these are things managers should handle but we all know how that goes. Handle it yourself and tell the manager afterwards, they are quite happy to know all is well.

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Redskins and the 9 and 5!!!!

From a San Diego Reader Blog
They Called Him Jeeves
Eva Knott, March 20, 2012

Richard Palmer worked with Brendan for a year and a half, five days a week, in the same little room with another co-worker. They worked the same hours, 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. They set up appointments with customers by phone for the Carlsbad company NTN Buzztime.


Although Brendan “tended to keep more to himself,” Richard said he is a talker, so he would try to draw out Brendan in conversation.


The coworkers both found Brendan “very intelligent,” in fact they gave him the nickname “Jeeves” – after the search engine "Ask Jeeves," which is named after P.G. Wodehouse's near omniscient butler character. They said they could ask Brendan a question on any topic and he would have an answer.


And then there were the “rants.” Especially after he had been looking at his cell phone, Brendan would make swearing outbursts which began as low mumbling then got louder. “It appeared he was reading news articles.” What would he rant about? “Usually about God and fags -- his words.” Brendan especially hated priests. And he hated homosexuals, saying they all should die. Richard said the outbursts would happen at least three times a day.

But if Brendan was in the middle of a “rant” he could instantly switch it off when his work phone rang. “He would answer the phone in a professional manner.” Richard said he did find this “odd.”

Another little quirk about Brendan -- if they said “God bless you” to Brendan, for example when he sneezed, Brendan would reply, “How dare you say that to me” and “Don’t say that to me,” according to Richard.

Richard was stunned to hear about Brendan’s arrest in October of 2010. “I was in disbelief. I didn’t think he could have done it.”


Brendan Liam O’Rourke, 42, will be sentenced on April 20 for attempted murder and assault with a firearm and twelve other felonies, in connection with the shooting at Kelly Elementary school in Carlsbad.

Brendan O’Rourke was found guilty and sane enough, at the end of a three-week trial in San Diego’s North County Superior Courthouse this month, during which his co-workers testified.

I did a little followup, he faces 103 years to life in a state prison.