Another Plane Into A Building

A plane from the company Telsa crashed and now this has occurred. The news has taken place so soon after the Amy Bishop shootings. It is interwoven, as has been noted often in my work and that of others, such as Dr. David Phillips and Dr. Steven Stack (no relation to today's pilot). See my chapter, "Planes Into Buildings" in The Copycat Effect.

Tampa Tower Crash

It will be recalled that Charles (Bishara) Bishop (February 8, 1986 - January 5, 2002) was an American teenager who died by suicide when he crashed a stolen Cessna 172 into the 28th floor of the Bank of America Tower in Tampa, Florida on January 5, 2002. A note written by Bishop was found in the wreckage and expressed his support for Osama bin Laden and the September 11, 2001 attacks. The young man also noted the "1967 Israeli-Syrian War" (also called the Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967) in his note.

Bishop's father was identified as Charles Bishara, an alleged small-time criminal with the Arabic surname Bishara. Bishop's mother had changed the boy's name from Bishara to Bishop during the first Gulf War. (The name may be familiar to you as it is the middle name of Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, the alleged single assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot on the first anniversary of the Six Day War and died the next day.)

Tesla Plane Crash

On February 17, 2010, in Palo Alto, California, a twin-engine Cessna 310 crashed in a residential neighborhood, killing three employees of electric-car maker Tesla Motors who were aboard the plane. (The sounds from the Tesla Motors crash have been published online. Warning: Graphic, with screams.) The accident caused a major power outage in Palo Alto, including at the office of Facebook, but no one was injured on the ground.

The pilot was Doug Bourn, 56, a senior electrical engineer who had worked for the electric carmaker for five years and who mentored others. The other two passengers have been identified as Andrew Ingram, 31, of Palo Alto, an electrical engineer; and Brian M. Finn, 42, of East Palo Alto; a senior manager of interactive electronics. Finn reportedly lived with his one-year-old daughter just two blocks from where the plane went down in East Palo Alto. Chief Executive Elon Musk noted: “Tesla is a small, tightly-knit company, and this is a tragic day for us.”

Nikola Tesla and the Death Ray

The company appears to have been named in tribute to Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856 – January 7, 1943), who was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. He was one of the most important contributors to the birth of commercial electricity, and is best known for his many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Aside from his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar, and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In the late 1880s, Tesla and Thomas Edison became adversaries. From 1900, Tesla worked, until his death, on his teleforce weapon, which the media called his "peace ray" or "death ray." This directed-energy superweapon was said to concern the use of charged particle beams. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited Tesla as being the inventor of the radio. (David Bowie portrayed Tesla in the 2006 movie The Prestige. Tesla's time in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was the focus of several scenes in the film, which featured speculations on the explosive power of Tesla's electrical experiments.)

Stack Hits IRS Building

On February 18, 2010, Joseph Andrew Stack, flying a Piper Cherokee PA-28 (registration N2889D) plane, crashed into Building I of the Echelon office complex in Austin, Texas, United States. An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) field office is located in the seven-story office building along with other state and federal government agencies. Stack had posted a manifesto dated February 18, 2010, to his business website.

The plane departed a nearby airport at 9:40 AM Central Standard Time, and, about twenty minutes later, crashed into a building containing offices for the IRS, setting it ablaze. It went in at full speed and did not appear to be accidental or due to mechanical failure according to eyewitnesses.

The pilot was killed in the incident along with Vernon Hunter, a 67-year-old Revenue Office Manager for the IRS. Thirteen people were reported as injured, two of them critically. Debris from the crash reportedly struck a Lexus sedan being driven on the southbound access road of U.S. Route 183 in front of the building and shattering the windshield. Another driver on the southbound access road of U.S. Route 183 had his windows and sunroof shattered during the impact and had debris fall inside his car yet escaped uninjured.

(Late in the week, Vernon Hunter's son, Ken spoke out. "There was just too much going on about what the guy did and what he believed in, and enough's enough," he said. "They don't need to talk about him. Talk about my dad. You know, some people are trying to make this guy out to be a hero, a patriot. My dad served two terms in Vietnam. This guy never served at all. My dad wasn't responsible for his tax problems.")

The plane was piloted by Joseph Andrew Stack, of the Scofield Farms neighborhood in North Austin, who worked as an embedded software consultant. Prior to the crash, he set his house on fire in the 1800 block of Dapplegrey Lane. Early reports wondered aloud if the house burned with his wife and daughter presumably inside. Their deaths have not been confirmed.

Stack had posted an anti-government, anti-bailout, anti-corporation, anti-union, and anti-religion manifesto on his website, embeddedart.com. It was also a suicide note.

In the manifesto, Stack states that he was not impressed with political representatives, whom he describes as "thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags," also criticizing the conglomerate companies of General Motors, Enron and Arthur Andersen. He also referred to the drug and insurance companies as "murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies." Stack also criticized "The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years," the "corrupt Catholic Church," and "the monsters of organized religion."

The manifesto ended with:

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, lets try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Stack was a graduate of the Milton Hershey School and attended Harrisburg Area Community College from 1975-77.

In response to the crash, the Department of Homeland Security became involved in the investigation of the crash, stating that it did not appear to be linked to terrorism. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs reaffirmed what Homeland Security said, and that President Barack Obama was being briefed of the incident. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) launched two F-16 fighter aircraft from Ellington Field in Houston, Texas, to conduct an air patrol in response to the crash, which was reported as standard operating procedure in this situation.

The company hosting embeddedart.com, T35 hosting, took Stack's website offline, "due to the sensitive nature of the events that transpired in Texas this morning and in compliance with a request from the FBI."

Time For Copycat Talk

This week people reading the Time Magazine article, "Is Copycat Behavior Driving Murder-Suicides?" are emailing me. Readers are sending messages such as this one: "I was surprised that the article did not mention your book."

The column, upon which I am being asked to comment, is:

Time Magazine, Thursday, Apr. 23, 2009. "Is Copycat Behavior Driving Murder-Suicides?" by Maia Szalavitz.

On March 30, a Santa Clara, Calif., man shot five people to death, including three children, before killing himself. On April 3, a gunman went on a shooting rampage in an immigration center in Binghamton, N.Y., killing 13 people before taking his own life. And on April 20, employees of a Sheraton Hotel in Maryland found the bodies of a husband and wife and two daughters, victims of another apparent murder-suicide.

These are only the most publicized of the recent murder-suicide crimes in the U.S. Since March 10, 2009, at least 43 people have been killed in murder-suicides, and there is no telling why the crimes occurred in such rapid succession. It is also not clear whether the spate of recent deaths represents an escalation in the typical murder-suicide death toll. But it has got some observers wondering why. Past research suggests that factors ranging from the time of year (suicides are more common in spring) to the financial climate may have an impact on the rates of suicide and murder; in the recent events, the apparent motive of the killers included sexual jealousy and economic despair.

But Steven Stack, professor of psychiatry and criminal justice at Wayne State University, offers another explanation: the copycat effect. The copycat theory was first conceived by a criminologist in 1912, after the London newspapers' wall-to-wall coverage of the brutal crimes of Jack the Ripper in the late 1800s led to a wave of copycat rapes and murders throughout England. Since then, there has been much research into copycat events — mostly copycat suicides, which appear to be most common — but, taken together, the findings are inconclusive.

In a 2005 review of 105 previously published studies, Stack found that about 40% of the studies suggested an association between media coverage of suicide, particularly celebrity suicide, and suicide rates in the general public. He also found a dose-response effect: The more coverage of a suicide, the greater the number of copycat deaths.

But 60% of past research found no such link, according to Stack's study. He explains that the studies that were able to find associations were those that tended to involve celebrity death or heavy media coverage — factors that, unsurprisingly, tend to co-occur. "The stories that are most likely to have an impact are ones that concern entertainment and political celebrities. Coverage of these suicides is 5.2 times more likely to produce a copycat effect than coverage of ordinary people's suicides," Stack says. In the month after Marilyn Monroe's death, for example, the suicide rate in the U.S. rose by 12%.

Stack also conducted the only study to examine whether murder-suicide (as opposed to suicide alone) is associated with copycat crimes. That study, published 20 years ago, analyzed the impact of media coverage of mass murders and murder-suicides between 1968 and 1980. The study found no associated increase in homicide rates, but did note an uptick in suicide after well-publicized events. "There was a significant increase in national monthly suicide rates," he said, "It is a fairly substantial association and was independent of major control variables like the unemployment rate."
For now, it seems that the reason behind the recent series of murder-suicides will remain unclear, but whether it's the economy, the season, gun availability or copycatting, it will be no simple task figuring out how to stop them.

While my research associates and readers may be startled to see that The Copycat Effect (NY: Paraview Pocket ~ Simon and Schuster, 2004) is not cited, it is a sign of the times that the "copycat effect" is now more acceptable for media discussions. All the examples and links mentioned within the Time article, from Jack the Ripper to Marilyn Monroe, of course, are explored and discussed within my book.

Instead of being upset, I merely shall reflect upon this generous prophetic endorsement on the back of my book from one Dr. Steven Stack, sociologist, Center for Suicide Research:

"The media are still largely in a state of denial on how their coverage of death contributes to the violence and destructiveness in our society - but Coleman's book should wake them up!"

Perhaps that is what is happening.