I'm looking for a real general description (i.e. date, location,
names) about a shootout between two friends who were security guards
or possibly cops. I believe the event took place sometime during the
first six months of 1997.  I'm thinking that they were security guards
at a college or university.  The shootout ended in their deaths and I
think took place over the hood of their car.  Their families had no
idea why it happened.  I first read about it in the Rockford
Register-Star (as in Rockford,IL).  It wasn't local news but it could
have been state news.

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Request for Question Clarification by secret901-ga on 16 Oct 2002 19:37 PDT

Hi bpryanmb79,
I found an article dating from 1995 from Illinois about two police
officers who killed each other.  The cause is still unknown.  They
were Filipino-Americans and were attending the 16th birthday party of
a girl.
Does this sound familiar?

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Clarification of Question by bpryanmb79-ga on 17 Oct 2002 08:55 PDT

Secret901, I am 90% sure that the event I'm looking for took place
between September 1996 and May 1997 because I specifically remember
telling my World History class about it(and that was the year I had
that class).  So unless I am totally fooling my memory, that's when it
happened.  Also I don't think the circumstances were as you described
in the 1995 incident.  Thanks for looking,

BPRyanMB79

BP --

You can't keep a Google Answers researcher down, when there's a good
crime and an answer to be found!

You were correct about the date.  My curiousity kept me going and I
found the news story from the Seattle Times, Jan. 18, 1997.   The
initial reports were that two Michigan State University security
guards killed each other in a point-blank shootout in Lansing, MI.

Says the Seattle Times report, "About 3:50 a.m. yesterday, Virginia
Rich and Canute Findsen got angry enough to draw their 9-mm automatics
and open fire at each other inside the gated grounds of a state police
administrative complex, state police said."  They'd worked together
for 14 years.

A later report from a Lansing newspapers suggests that one officer
killed her partner, then killed herself.  Lansing State News, "Unknown
circumstances surround police shooting," (Jan. 20, 1997):
http://www.statenews.com/editionsspring97/012097/nw_shooting.html

There are numerous reports of the shooting on-line.  Use this Google
search strategy:
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/022198/new_briefs.html

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Answer by omnivorous-ga on 18 Oct 2002 11:47 PDT

Sorry, the Google search strategy should be:
Lansing + Rich + Findsen

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

Thanks, omnivorous.  I've been wondering about that story for years.

I remember this story!  Until 1994, I lived in Chicago and remembered
reading about it -- downstate in Illinois or perhaps in Indiana?  I
tried the Chicago Tribune Advanced Search capability using 'college
security guards' between 1990 and 1998, with no success.

The mystery endures. . .

Omnivorous-GA

Well done, omnivorous! :-)