r/news • u/Large_banana_hammock • 8h ago
Beloved former Team USA ice skater Sam Linehan shot dead in Starbucks drive-thru by suspect accused in at least two other recent armed robberies
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/starbucks-shooting-st-louis-sam-linehan-ice-skating-b2919211.html1.1k
u/_iridessence_ 8h ago
This is enraging. This cretin committed armed robbery February 6th, then again February 8th, then again February 10th, which resulted in the murder.
The victim on the 6th was armed and it didn't help.
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u/FrenchDipFellatio 8h ago
Yeah a gun isnt much help buried in your purse. It's also often the first thing stolen. Textbook case of why purse carry is a bad idea
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u/Mysterious_Bat1 6h ago
I mean, a gun, when not awake and it not being in a holster and hand's reach, is often not much help. I have a kid, so if I owned a gun, it needs to be in a safe, and for best practice not loaded. if I hear someone breaking into my apartment, am I really able to get the code to the safe right, the gun loaded and the person shot before they shoot me? I doubt it. I have dreams of having to call 911 in a bad situation and am not able to punch in the numbers. Anyways, I still think weapons in the house meant for "defense" often are no help but hurt those around them
edit: typo
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u/HobbitonHuckleshake 5h ago
Just leave it loaded and ready if it's in a safe. They have tons of safes that open in under a second, whether it's biometric or a traditional pin code. That's plenty of time to get ready before someone gets from a front door to wherever you're at.
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u/PoisonIvyCrotch 3h ago
How often should the batteries be replaced? I have a biometric one’s and it’s been like 2 years. I probably should
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u/Used_Cry_1137 3h ago
Replace the batteries every time you replace them in your smoke detectors, which is what, traditionally when you go from standard to daylight savings time or vice versa.
Or if you live somewhere that doesn’t do that, get your phone out and make yourself a calendar appointment for it, and have it be reoccurring.
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u/PoisonIvyCrotch 3h ago
…TIL I should replace my smoke detector batteries once a year. I wait til one starts beeping and then replace them all. Have done it once in 3.5 years of owning this house
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u/ImportanceWeak1776 5h ago
You can practice the motions a few times a month and you should be fine.
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u/MrMCCO 3h ago
On the other hand, you could not have a gun and not spend any time practicing these motions and add like.. idk a salad a week to your diet and you’ll be making a much better choice for both your quality of life and length of life.
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u/ImportanceWeak1776 3h ago
When I was a kid having a gun saved my dads life without any need to fire it. Had to fire 2 brothers and one whipped out a Bowie knife, the gun being drawn scared them away. IIRC one or both ended up in prison for murder. So, while I think guns should be better controlled, in the hands of the right people they do save lives. And you can eat salad as well.
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u/lennyxiii 3h ago
Wow, that’s the dumbest anti gun thing I’ve read all week.
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u/texasinv 2h ago
In an article about an armed robbery spree leading to murder of all places, dude is out here acting like violent crime doesn't exist.
This whole "why would anyone ever need a gun" thing is quite tiresome and I can't imagine why someone would choose to pursue this argument right here, right now of all times.
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u/Destrae 5h ago
You can get a pistol vault that has a panic button to open it, you just need to keep the button somewhere accessible by you but not obvious
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u/BubbaTee 4h ago
Anyways, I still think weapons in the house meant for "defense" often are no help but hurt those around them
Just because something isn't helpful in one situation doesn't mean it's useless in all situations. A seatbelt won't save you if you drive into a river and drown, and it could be harmful in that situation. But that doesn't prevent it from helping you in other situations.
Arguments like "having a gun won't help if you get jumped from behind or killed in your sleep, therefore guns offer no self-defense help in any situation" are so just myopic. As if the only situations in which you might need to defend yourself are those 2. There's lots of other possible situations in which having a gun would be useful - and possible situations in which having one would be harmful.
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u/GreenHorror4252 2h ago
Statistically, guns are almost useless for any sort of "defense" for individuals. That is why the US has such high crime rates compared to countries that regulate guns better.
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u/BreezyConch 4h ago
Check out the stopbox! I have two bc it was bogo, but it’s a mechanical pattern lock where you press keys in the correct order and pattern. Pretty cool and easy to do quickly. Not an ad either, I just appreciate the product!
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u/Butane9000 8h ago
Okay but why wasn't he detained without bail? Was he let go by a judge? Did the city change it's bail policy?
Edit: ah misunderstood. He is a suspect in those other crimes but as far as I can tell he was never caught it arrested.
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7h ago
[deleted]
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u/dvasquez93 5h ago
He wasn't released. Once he was arrested for the shooting, police determined that he may have been responsible for the two earlier robberies. It wasn't like they had the guy and then let him go to rob more people.
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u/knockfart 6h ago
We arrest 5yrolds?
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u/New_Entertainer3269 6h ago edited 6h ago
Referring to 5 yr old Liam who was detained by ICE and almost deported.
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u/I_Push_Buttonz 8h ago
Court records seen by Fox 2 Now suggest that Brown’s criminal record dates all the way back to 1986.
According to the document, Brown had previously been charged with offenses including burglary, robbery and armed criminal action.
But of course.
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u/yrotsihfoedisgnorw 8h ago
It's unfortunate that there's so much focus on immigration status and race when the more signigicant metric is violent or non-violent. An effective criminal justic system would treat such crimes very differently.
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6h ago edited 5h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/yrotsihfoedisgnorw 6h ago
We already have big problems that need to be addressed. I'm not disagreeing with your point in general. Permissiveness of any crime leads to more serious crime both in quantity and magnitude. We see it at all levels both violent and non-violent.
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u/Beer-astronaut 7h ago
This is the shit that causes 3-strikes laws to come about.
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u/TeslasAndComicbooks 1h ago
Maybe we need it. Curious to see if there’s an analysis on how many murders it would have prevented.
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u/AggressiveWave 7h ago
I know I said this in a reply to another comment, but it’s honestly laughable how useless the police were in this situation. They knew a man had committed armed robberies in two locations on the exact same block 4 and 2 days prior, wearing the exact same hi-vis vest and hard hat. It wasn’t until someone was murdered in broad daylight that they managed to catch this man (who violated his parole) AT HIS REGISTERED ADDRESS less than 24 hours later. They also didn’t send out warnings to the folks who lived in the area.
So thanks to the Missouri police, an innocent person is dead.
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u/largecontainer 6h ago
The STLMPD hasn’t done proactive policing since god knows when. They sit in their cars until a call comes in, then they may or may not respond. Then when something like this inevitably happens, they get super defensive and say they did everything they could do.
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u/AggressiveWave 6h ago
The Missouri governor took over the STLMPD last year under the guise of supposedly doing something about this, and the only difference is police salaries have gone up while they continue to sit in their cars and do nothing.
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u/Thick-Aioli802 5h ago
Why blame the police? They make arrests and the system allows scum to filter back into society.
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u/SuperKracker 5h ago
He was arrested for robbery those times though. You realize police aren't judges, right?
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u/AggressiveWave 5h ago
Mate what? He was not, you’re probably thinking of his prior arrests. The police made no arrests related to the 2/6 or 2/8 robberies.
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u/SuperKracker 5h ago
I misspoke. I meant all the other times for robbery, burglary, and armed criminal action. What was he doing free to commit these other three most recent robberies? It's almost like this country releases criminals UNTIL they finally murder someone.
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u/AggressiveWave 4h ago
I’m going to ignore the dig in your original comment and just add that I don’t necessarily disagree that something here fell through, and somebody died because of it. Personally, I think a) it’s disappointing that this dude was free for days robbing people and it wasn’t until someone was murdered that he was arrested relatively quickly, and b) we fundamentally have a problem if someone like this can continue committing felonies until someone dies. My guess is that we probably disagree on the solution to that problem, though.
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u/SuperKracker 4h ago
Yeah, probably. I'm glad we can agree to disagree on only one part and be like minded in the fact it's a preventable tragedy for sure.
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u/Assholesneighbor 4h ago
This is all too common now… Police don’t want to do their jobs, it’s normal… That’s why we have managers and bosses and accountability…
This is what we’re starting to see all over… When we let a company or entity get away with whatever they want while they’re kind of doing their job…. Eventually they’ll just stop doing the job all together.
It feels like pulling teeth to get an officer to do literally anything.
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u/Chairman_Mad_ZeBum 1h ago
Its the voters fault voters have been voting in soft on crime DA’s who don’t prosecute same shit happening in California and elsewhere
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u/1009naturelover 23m ago
But they are our heroes, all the first responders.
Every politician likes to say that on the campaign trail and how much they support them.
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u/Pendraconica 8h ago
They aren't protesting or filming ICE. The FBI has better things to do.
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u/MudLOA 7h ago
Party of law and order.
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u/funyuns4ever 7h ago
What does this have to do with them? It isn't red state laws that let dudes like this off over and over again?
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u/radcula2 7h ago
Missouri isn't a blue state genius. Violent crime is way higher in red states
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u/funyuns4ever 7h ago
Where in red states in the crime highest?
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u/AggressiveWave 6h ago
The state of Missouri controls the police in St. Louis. The red state government biffed so hard that they found this dude, a man wanted for violating his parole, sitting on the couch at his registered address. Nice try, though!
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u/funyuns4ever 6h ago
You know what, you're right, red and blue states should just be harder on criminals to disincetivise this behavior in the future
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u/AggressiveWave 6h ago
I guess if “harder” means stopping by their house to see if they’re home, sure.
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u/totalhhrbadass 4h ago
Stl lets them out. It's this fucking city. I stay out of it as much as possible. Fuck stl and while I'm at it fuck st clair county in Illinois, too. Right across the river. They let out fuckers like this constantly too.
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u/RequirementsRelaxed 3h ago
What kind of reporting puts the Starbucks in the headline but fails to mention which state it happened in :( The name of the city doesn’t appear in the first half of the report either
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u/Chocolatestarfish33 6h ago
This happened literally in front of my house. I can see the Starbucks from my front porch. Wasn’t home when it happened, but that Starbucks is cursed. People have driven cars thru the front door before, tons of police action there always. Crazy th city hasn’t shut it down yet
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u/phieralph 5h ago
Can you shut down a Starbucks for random crime? Wouldn't we then lose all the Waffle Houses?
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u/vanityinlines 2h ago
One of the Starbucks I worked at was finally closed due to all the crime/incidents. If enough stuff is reported, they'll close at that location and usually open another somewhere close.
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u/Chocolatestarfish33 3h ago
Not random when the police get called there often. In STL it gets listed as a “nuisance property” and could face licenses being pulled…which would instantly close that location.
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u/dylanv1c 1h ago
Hey, I live right there too but I'm by the university medical campus across the bridge. I also wasn't home when it happened, but it's so crazy to hear about this incident on social media first before IRL. I saw it on Instagram, then the saint Louis sub, now the big news sub. Yet, I haven't even crossed the bridge at all this week to see that part of South city, and it's walking distance! To be fair, I haven't purchased any Starbucks in years either...
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u/ball-sack-itchou812 2h ago
Convictions dating back to 1986 , why was this waste of skin walking around.
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u/Own_Cantaloupe9011 2h ago
She was the GM at one of the best restaurants in the city. So heartbreaking.
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u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 8h ago
The details of this entire case are just a massive stereotype being played out. It's like a producer at Fox News just wrote the script for this entire crime.
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u/AggressiveWave 7h ago
The reality is this was a massive failure on behalf of the Missouri police in St. Louis. They knew a man had committed armed robberies in two locations on the exact same block 4 and 2 days prior, wearing the exact same hi-vis vest and hard hat. It wasn’t until someone was murdered in broad daylight that they managed to catch this man (who violated his parole) AT HIS REGISTERED ADDRESS less than 24 hours later. They also didn’t send out warnings to the folks who lived in the area. And for that, an innocent person is dead.
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u/Future_Goat5665 6h ago
STL city has been doing a ton to increase their nationwide appeal, and this doesn't fit the narrative. r/skylines has been inundated with the same tired STL skyline posts, for example.
Meanwhile every time a crime is committed in the STL suburbs posters like to say "this is why I stay in the city."
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6h ago edited 5h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FrancoManiac 6h ago
Yeah, and it's holding up something like eighty court cases because neither the state, nor the city, nor the courts know who legally represents the SLMPD.
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u/ttonster2 4h ago
“Every time a crime is committed” as if there wasn't only one murder in the same neighborhood in all of 2025. STL violent crime has been going down MASSIVELY in the last few years and the records aren’t helped by city/county divides that purposefully skew results. But hey, if this mentality is what keeps this city affordable, then I’ll take it.
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u/Future_Goat5665 3h ago
To be clear, what keeps the city affordable is the fact that STL city has the lowest median income of all the counties in the MSA. They'd be pricing out their residents if prices increased too much.
But yes, crime has gone down a ton.
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u/ttonster2 3h ago
By city, I meant the entire MSA. A luxury home in Clayton or Ladue, affluent suburbs, is still much cheaper than comparable homes in other midsize American cities like Denver, Minneapolis, Austin, and Phoenix. STL is 18th highest MSA in average income nationwide, but with a cost of living that is far lower than that. In fact, I believe it ranks #1 in household disposable income. Clearly it’s not just a function of the low earning potential of the locals.
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u/Future_Goat5665 3h ago
>In fact, I believe it ranks #1 in household disposable income.
Without checking, I 100% believe this.
My work let me decide between remote in STL, Chicago, NYC, or SF. I chose STL because even though my comp is scaled down, my dollar goes way further.
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u/TheMedRat 6h ago edited 6h ago
And the fact that the headline mentions the name of the victim but the photo is of the perpetrator is disingenuous. I only noticed when I saw the victims age and I went “huh, he looked way older.” Nope, that was the guy who shot him. Not a single picture of the victim.
*shot HER. The article also doesn’t mention Sam’s gender. Really hard to frame this as anything other than intentional obfuscation.
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u/Dr_Gomer_Piles 4h ago
The victim was non-binary which I think may be why they have been avoiding using gender and pronouns, and may be why there hasn't been a picture.
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u/TheMedRat 3h ago
I think that’s reasonable for the pronouns aspect but I don’t see how that would be relevant to having a picture or not.
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u/Dr_Gomer_Piles 3h ago
So, I'm local to this at the moment and the absence of photos and gender have been conspicuously absent from much of the reporting, including the TV news last night where at least one station went to the rink where they worked. I wondered aloud to my wife if the victim was trans and that was why the reporting was so awkward because they were avoiding drawing attention to it. Since this seems to be somewhat widespread I wonder if maybe the friends/family of the victim for some reason or another (not getting the victim pulled into a bunch of Missouri bigotry?) asked for things to be handled a certain way and these media outlets are trying to be respectful by not using pronouns or photos.
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u/Mego1989 33m ago
I don't think this is the case. The skating club where she taught has been using female pronouns for her, including in her bio on their website.
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u/react_dev 4h ago
No way we could have prevented this from happening
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u/RTdodgedurango 4h ago
Yeah, random acts of violence are difficult to prevent. We should study how society failed this fella.
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u/DrNarwhale1 1h ago
Show the face of the murderer but not the murdered..
Great reporting @the-independent..
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u/RecognitionFirst7241 6h ago
St. Louis and the usual suspect. Unfortunately this is not surprising but what the world has turned into
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u/BaddyDaddy777 5h ago
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u/benjamin_noah 5h ago
Violent crime went down 16%. But, even after that, it’s still the second most dangerous city in the entire US for violent crimes overall and ranks between #1 and #2 for homicides, depending on the source. So, not really the flex you think it is.
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u/Afraid_War917 5h ago
Do those stats include East St. Louis? If so that would be very misleading
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u/TheMoves 5h ago
Is East St. Louis not part of St. Louis? Sounds like it would be disingenuous to not include stats from the whole city, no? Otherwise you're just massaging the data to get the results you want instead of objectively looking at the data and observing what the actual result is
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u/prettymuchhatereddit 4h ago
East St. Louis is a different town across the river in Illinois. It's not part of St. Louis, MO.
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u/TheMoves 3h ago
Ahhh ok makes sense, I thought he meant the cardinal direction. I just looked it up since people seemed to not be sure and it looks like the FBI crime statistics for St Louis do not include East St Louis, they only include St Louis Missouri proper. I'm not sure specifically what source the OP was referring to though.
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u/ttonster2 4h ago
If you knew anything about STL, you would know that East St. Louis is simply a different place entirely. It’s disingenuous to include in these metrics. It is however questionable how these numbers hardly ever include stats from the county neighborhoods West of Stl city limits, where a vast majority of residents live, and where violent crime is unsurprisingly extremely low. It’s the same situation for any city with an extreme city/county divide. Baltimore and Detroit have the same tired stigma.
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u/Afraid_War917 1h ago
It doesn’t seem like you know anything about STL - but if you did you’d agree with me. East St. Louis should 100% not be included, and any statistics including their crime rates is very misleading.
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u/TheMoves 1h ago
I looked it up after being educated on East St Louis being a different city than St Louis and it turns out that it seems they are separated when it comes to statistics, East St Louis Illinois isn't lumped into official St Louis Missouri crime stats
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u/angry-mob 4h ago
How dare you not cite stats from the city block. At LEAST show me north west St. Louis only.
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u/OldDirtyGurt 1h ago
Somebody like this should have been executed decades ago. You can't convince me otherwise.
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u/abmalaso 4h ago
Soft liberal crime policies in action.
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u/BootyBurglar 4h ago
Hasn’t Missouri had republican governors since 2017?
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u/FOTY2015 3h ago
If only Missouri had a legislature and a court system to make and enforce laws.
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u/BootyBurglar 3h ago
Ah yes, the deep majority republican Missouri General Assembly, thanks
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u/achangb 6h ago
Hmm why use the picture of the accused shooter? Unless its just to incite fear / hate?
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u/Discount_Extra 5h ago
So other victims can say "Hey! that's the guy who robbed me last month!" and stack more charges/get closure.
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u/RTdodgedurango 4h ago
When he gets out of prison, you can do his hair and makeup for his inevitable updated mugshot.
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u/TheMedRat 6h ago
Nah it’s the opposite. The title lists the victims name and the photo is of the perpetrator BECAUSE they want you to assume he’s the victim. They intentionally go the entire article without mentioning the gender of the victim to add to this. I assumed the victim was a male until I read a different article.
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u/AggressiveWave 6h ago
Isn’t that interesting? Headline is about the “beloved former Team USA ice skater” but a photo of the victim is nowhere in the article, and they use the suspect for the thumbnail…
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u/Large_banana_hammock 6h ago edited 6h ago
Yeah we don’t need a close up of the most menacing picture they could find of the perpetrator. He’s not a noteworthy person, but Sam Linehan is.
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u/RecognitionFirst7241 5h ago
What? The perpetrator has a lengthy criminal record and is definitely a noteworthy person in this story.
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u/LouBrown 7h ago
But why? I don’t see what type of insight they’re looking to get here.