This past Friday, singer Christina Grimmie, who rose to prominence via Youtube videos and then exploded when she appeared on the Voice, was shot and killed point blank after performing in Orlando, FL. As she was signing autographs, a gunman approached her and shot her point blank. Shortly after being tackled, the gunmen then took his own life. Christina had no prior history with the gunman.
The event hit close to home for metalheads, as it was a similar manner in which Pantera and Damage Plan guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott was shot in December of 2004, when he was playing on stage and a gunman came up from behind and shot him and killed three other people. Pantera posted the following to their Facebook page earlier today:
We are so sad and disappointed to hear that Christina Grimmie was gunned down the same way that Dimebag Darrell was. After Dime's murder, we all prayed that our industry (i.e. club owners & promoters) would do whatever they needed to do to protect artists from gun-wielding fanatics. Sadly, that's not the case and another rising star had to pay the consequences with her life. SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE! RIP Christina & RIP Dime, Jeff Thompson, Erin Halk, and Nathan Bray.
Kudos to Pantera for speaking up on this very serious matter. I recall that immediately after Dimebag's death, security at venues became much more serious and then a few months later, everything was back to normal.
Sadly, this is not the first shooting at a venue in the last month even, as there were shootings at NY clubs. Even worse, this wasn't even the most tragic shooting in Orlando this week, as just yesterday a man pulled used an assault rifle to shoot up a gay club in Orlando, killing 50 innocent people.
[h/t Rock Feed]
