In the book, The Copycat Effect, a clear anniversary cycle is noted in well-publicized shootings, which can serve a predictive function. Often these patterns follow a monthly cycle. Currently, there is a strong indication the shootings are following that specific model.
The Omaha mall shooting came exactly one calendar month after the school shooting in Finland, which was exactly one calendar month after the school shooting in Cleveland, Ohio. The last three months, remarkably, therefore, have had precisely four weeks to the day between each of these dangerous Wednesdays.
The SuccessTech Academy shooting took place on Wednesday, October 10, 2007, at SuccessTech high school in Cleveland, Ohio. The shooter, Asa H. Coon, 14, wounded at least four people, including two teachers and two students; another student was injured fleeing from the school. He killed himself at the end of his shooting spree. He was attempting a copycat of Columbine.
The Jokela school shooting occurred on November 7, 2007, at Jokela High School (Finnish: Jokelan koulukeskus), a public secondary school in the town of Jokela, Tuusula municipality, Finland. The gunman was 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen, and the end result was nine people were dead. Auvinen was a known Columbine copycatter.
Then on Wednesday, December 5, 2007, at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, Robert A. Hawkins, 19, killed nine (counting himself). He used a hooded black sweatshirt to sneak in the AK-47 he used. It is too early to know how much inspiration he got from Columbine.
The desire to seek media attention was high in all three of these teen shooters, and they all left behind various "media packages" to be remembered.
"Now I'll be famous," wrote Robert Hawkins in the note he left behind before he went off to shoot people to death at the Omaha mall.
This, of course, sounds all too familiar, especially as the unfolding media melodrama of Virginia Tech was planned out by the shooter himself. The Columbine killers, I was not surprised to hear, were noted in the VA Tech shooter's materials. Cho Seung-hui called Columbine's Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold "martyrs."
I thought perhaps North America could have a quiet winter, but it appears that the hot zone of the Columbine-VA Tech week of April 2007 will be carried, at least with this monthly cycle, through the winter of 2007-2008.
I think the next two weeks could be a vulnerable time for those that wish to copycat the routine pre-Christmas pattern of shootings that is beginning to develop at malls and other group settings in this country. These events are rare, true indeed, but everyone should walk into group situations with their eyes wide open.
Also, look to the spring of 2008 to be dangerous, with some attention and awareness to large gathering spots like school/university cafes and mall food courts, from late March into April, until early May 2008.
Contact the authorities if you know of anyone talking about such attacks, even jokingly, and heighten your own level of alertness.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Mall Shootings
SWAT teams were able to respond quickly to Omaha's Westroads Mall shooting because they were on high alert due to President Bush's quiet visit to the Nebraska city.
President George W. Bush was in Omaha, Nebraska, on the morning of December 5, 2007. While in Omaha, Bush visited the OneWorld Community Health Centers, a clinic that provides medical, dental and nutritional aid. However, Bush was mainly in Omaha to support candidate Mike Johanns for the United States Senate. The Johanns fundraiser was held at the large estate of billionaire businessman and philanthropist Walter Scott Jr. It was closed to the media. Soon after Bush departed, a mall shooting occurred at a mall in the city.
The Westroads Mall shooting occurred on December 5, 2007, beginning at 1:42 p.m. (local time) at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska. The main location of the shooting happened at the Von Maur customer service desk.
The gunman was identified as Robert A. Hawkins, 19, who was armed with an SKS assault rifle. Hawkins dropped out of Papillion-La Vista High School two years ago.
Hawkins stated in a suicide note that he wanted to "go out in style." It is reported there were nine fatalities (two customers and six employees) including Hawkins who reportedly took his own life. Five other people were injured, two of them remained in critical condition on December 6.
Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren reported that video showed Hawkins was hiding something in a black sweatshirt as he entered the mall. Warren speculated that at least 30 rounds were fired from an AK-47 rifle, which was stolen from Hawkins' stepfather. Warren said the gun had two 30-round magazines with the ability to fire off rounds quickly.
Hawkins apparently left two suicide notes and a will, prompting Warren to call the shootings premeditated. The chief said people may never know why he went on a rampage, and that the victims were chosen randomly. He said it also appears the mall was picked because it's a large public place where Hawkins could get a lot of attention.
It was the deadliest shooting spree in the state of Nebraska since a rampage by Charles Starkweather in 1958, who is usually described as a "mass murderer."
The Omaha shooting was one of several shootings at a mall or shopping center so far in 2007.
November 2007: Two people were wounded after a gunman fired several rounds at a mall in Douglasville, Georgia, near Atlanta. Police say that case was an attempted robbery.
June 2007: Two employees were killed in the Greenbriar Mall, Atlanta, Georgia, parking lot. The shooter later killed himself.
April 2007: David Logsdon, 51, stormed the Ward Parkway Center parking lot in Kansas City, Missouri, killing three and injuring 7, on April 29. He was shot and killed by police.
Feburary 2007: Sulejmen Talovic, 18, a high school dropout and Bosniak immigrant, opened fire at a crowded Salt Lake City shopping mall. The Trolley Square shooting occurred on February 12, 2007, at Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, Utah. The shooting resulted in the deaths of five bystanders and the shooter himself who was killed by police. At least four others were wounded.
Christmas Eve 2006: Jesse Cesar, 21, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in a fatal Christmas Eve gang shooting at a St. Petersburg, Fla., mall that sent shoppers running for cover. Cesar was accused of firing the shots that killed Berno Charlemond, 23, and of shooting at authorities, according to the arrest report. No one else was injured. (Source: St. Petersburg Times)
December 2006: Gunfire at Eastland Mall in Charlotte, N.C., sent Christmas shoppers ducking for cover and left one man shot in the neck. The shooting erupted in the busy mall about 8:15 p.m., after an argument between two groups of men. Investigators believe four shots were fired from two guns. One struck a 27-year-old man in the base of his neck, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said. The man had been involved in the argument. (Source: Charlotte Observer)
September 2006: Gunfire erupted in the parking lot of the Mall of Georgia after five suspected shoplifters fled a department store.
November 2005: The Tacoma Mall shooting occurred on November 20, 2005 at the Tacoma Mall in Tacoma, Washington. The gunman, Dominick Maldonado, entered the mall with a semi-automatic Norinco MAK-90 rifle and a pistol and instigated four armed kidnappings. Six people were injured but no deaths resulted.
September 2005: A gunman shot a security guard to death inside the Mall West End and made off with a bag filled with thousands of dollars in cash.
Februray 2005: At the Hudson Valley Mall, Kingston, New York, on February 13, 2005, Robert Bonelli of Glasco, New York, entered with a replica of an AK47 and began firing his weapon inside the Best Buy located at the mall. Bonelli, age 24, caused a panic as employees and shoppers began to flee the mall. The mall was evacuated and Bonelli was taken into custody. No one was killed in the shoot-out and only two people (a National Guard recruiter and a 56 year old man) were wounded with one making a full recovery and the other still facing limitations today. Ulster County investigators searched Bonelli's room at the home he shared with his father, and found what Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams described as "Columbine memorabilia". Officials described the young man as being fascinated by the Columbine High School massacre.
December 2004: Holiday shopping turned deadly when two men were shot - one fatally - inside of their car in the Quail Springs Mall parking lot, police said. Police received several 911 calls about 11:40 a.m. reporting that shots had been fired in the parking lot and that both victims had fallen out of their white Oldsmobile and onto the lot. Police said they did not believe Christmas shoppers were targeted. (Source: The Daily Oklahoman)
December 2004: A Boston boy in his early teens was shot in the stomach just outside the Cambridgeside Galleria's east entrance as hundreds of holiday shoppers packed the mall, police said. The shooting, which frightened shoppers, neighbors, and mall employees, was the third inside or just outside the mall in less than a decade. (Source: The Boston Globe)
December 2003: A shooting inside the Caribbean's largest shopping mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico, wounded one man and created panic during the height of the Christmas season. Thousands of shoppers were in Plaza Las Americas mall when a man fired at Manuel Villanueva Carrasquillo in front of the Sears store, police said. They were unsure of the motive. Villanueva was in stable condition at a hospital with two gunshot wounds to the neck and chest, police said. (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
December 2001: A fatal shooting outside Owings Mills mall prompted questions yesterday about mall security and whether the incident would scare off shoppers during the last week of the crucial Christmas shopping season. But some shoppers said the violence, which appeared unrelated to any mall activity, would not force them to change their habits. (Source: The Baltimore Sun)
Christmas Eve 1999: A former Roxbury man was convicted of fatally shooting a 20-year-old Roslindale man at the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall on Christmas Eve was sentenced to 15 to 18 years in state prison for the slaying, authorities reported. The shooting occurred in the parking garage in front of stunned shoppers who were streaming out of the mall with packages and bags. (Source: The Boston Globe)
February 1993: Three people were wounded in a shooting at Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America in a dispute over a jacket.
December 1993: David Mack Flinn fatally shot two people and injured three in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Hugo, Okla.
April 1987: William B. Cruse gunned down six and wounded ten at a Winn-Divis supermarket in Palm Bay Florida.
October 1985: Sylvia Seegrist, 25, dressed in combat gear and firing a semiautomatic rifle, killed three and injured seven at Springfield Mall in Pennsylvania.
President George W. Bush was in Omaha, Nebraska, on the morning of December 5, 2007. While in Omaha, Bush visited the OneWorld Community Health Centers, a clinic that provides medical, dental and nutritional aid. However, Bush was mainly in Omaha to support candidate Mike Johanns for the United States Senate. The Johanns fundraiser was held at the large estate of billionaire businessman and philanthropist Walter Scott Jr. It was closed to the media. Soon after Bush departed, a mall shooting occurred at a mall in the city.
The Westroads Mall shooting occurred on December 5, 2007, beginning at 1:42 p.m. (local time) at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska. The main location of the shooting happened at the Von Maur customer service desk.
The gunman was identified as Robert A. Hawkins, 19, who was armed with an SKS assault rifle. Hawkins dropped out of Papillion-La Vista High School two years ago.
Hawkins stated in a suicide note that he wanted to "go out in style." It is reported there were nine fatalities (two customers and six employees) including Hawkins who reportedly took his own life. Five other people were injured, two of them remained in critical condition on December 6.
Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren reported that video showed Hawkins was hiding something in a black sweatshirt as he entered the mall. Warren speculated that at least 30 rounds were fired from an AK-47 rifle, which was stolen from Hawkins' stepfather. Warren said the gun had two 30-round magazines with the ability to fire off rounds quickly.
Hawkins apparently left two suicide notes and a will, prompting Warren to call the shootings premeditated. The chief said people may never know why he went on a rampage, and that the victims were chosen randomly. He said it also appears the mall was picked because it's a large public place where Hawkins could get a lot of attention.
It was the deadliest shooting spree in the state of Nebraska since a rampage by Charles Starkweather in 1958, who is usually described as a "mass murderer."
The Omaha shooting was one of several shootings at a mall or shopping center so far in 2007.
November 2007: Two people were wounded after a gunman fired several rounds at a mall in Douglasville, Georgia, near Atlanta. Police say that case was an attempted robbery.
June 2007: Two employees were killed in the Greenbriar Mall, Atlanta, Georgia, parking lot. The shooter later killed himself.
April 2007: David Logsdon, 51, stormed the Ward Parkway Center parking lot in Kansas City, Missouri, killing three and injuring 7, on April 29. He was shot and killed by police.
Feburary 2007: Sulejmen Talovic, 18, a high school dropout and Bosniak immigrant, opened fire at a crowded Salt Lake City shopping mall. The Trolley Square shooting occurred on February 12, 2007, at Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, Utah. The shooting resulted in the deaths of five bystanders and the shooter himself who was killed by police. At least four others were wounded.
Christmas Eve 2006: Jesse Cesar, 21, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in a fatal Christmas Eve gang shooting at a St. Petersburg, Fla., mall that sent shoppers running for cover. Cesar was accused of firing the shots that killed Berno Charlemond, 23, and of shooting at authorities, according to the arrest report. No one else was injured. (Source: St. Petersburg Times)
December 2006: Gunfire at Eastland Mall in Charlotte, N.C., sent Christmas shoppers ducking for cover and left one man shot in the neck. The shooting erupted in the busy mall about 8:15 p.m., after an argument between two groups of men. Investigators believe four shots were fired from two guns. One struck a 27-year-old man in the base of his neck, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said. The man had been involved in the argument. (Source: Charlotte Observer)
September 2006: Gunfire erupted in the parking lot of the Mall of Georgia after five suspected shoplifters fled a department store.
November 2005: The Tacoma Mall shooting occurred on November 20, 2005 at the Tacoma Mall in Tacoma, Washington. The gunman, Dominick Maldonado, entered the mall with a semi-automatic Norinco MAK-90 rifle and a pistol and instigated four armed kidnappings. Six people were injured but no deaths resulted.
September 2005: A gunman shot a security guard to death inside the Mall West End and made off with a bag filled with thousands of dollars in cash.
Februray 2005: At the Hudson Valley Mall, Kingston, New York, on February 13, 2005, Robert Bonelli of Glasco, New York, entered with a replica of an AK47 and began firing his weapon inside the Best Buy located at the mall. Bonelli, age 24, caused a panic as employees and shoppers began to flee the mall. The mall was evacuated and Bonelli was taken into custody. No one was killed in the shoot-out and only two people (a National Guard recruiter and a 56 year old man) were wounded with one making a full recovery and the other still facing limitations today. Ulster County investigators searched Bonelli's room at the home he shared with his father, and found what Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams described as "Columbine memorabilia". Officials described the young man as being fascinated by the Columbine High School massacre.
December 2004: Holiday shopping turned deadly when two men were shot - one fatally - inside of their car in the Quail Springs Mall parking lot, police said. Police received several 911 calls about 11:40 a.m. reporting that shots had been fired in the parking lot and that both victims had fallen out of their white Oldsmobile and onto the lot. Police said they did not believe Christmas shoppers were targeted. (Source: The Daily Oklahoman)
December 2004: A Boston boy in his early teens was shot in the stomach just outside the Cambridgeside Galleria's east entrance as hundreds of holiday shoppers packed the mall, police said. The shooting, which frightened shoppers, neighbors, and mall employees, was the third inside or just outside the mall in less than a decade. (Source: The Boston Globe)
December 2003: A shooting inside the Caribbean's largest shopping mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico, wounded one man and created panic during the height of the Christmas season. Thousands of shoppers were in Plaza Las Americas mall when a man fired at Manuel Villanueva Carrasquillo in front of the Sears store, police said. They were unsure of the motive. Villanueva was in stable condition at a hospital with two gunshot wounds to the neck and chest, police said. (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
December 2001: A fatal shooting outside Owings Mills mall prompted questions yesterday about mall security and whether the incident would scare off shoppers during the last week of the crucial Christmas shopping season. But some shoppers said the violence, which appeared unrelated to any mall activity, would not force them to change their habits. (Source: The Baltimore Sun)
Christmas Eve 1999: A former Roxbury man was convicted of fatally shooting a 20-year-old Roslindale man at the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall on Christmas Eve was sentenced to 15 to 18 years in state prison for the slaying, authorities reported. The shooting occurred in the parking garage in front of stunned shoppers who were streaming out of the mall with packages and bags. (Source: The Boston Globe)
February 1993: Three people were wounded in a shooting at Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America in a dispute over a jacket.
December 1993: David Mack Flinn fatally shot two people and injured three in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Hugo, Okla.
April 1987: William B. Cruse gunned down six and wounded ten at a Winn-Divis supermarket in Palm Bay Florida.
October 1985: Sylvia Seegrist, 25, dressed in combat gear and firing a semiautomatic rifle, killed three and injured seven at Springfield Mall in Pennsylvania.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Finland Shooting's Columbine Links
The Finland school shooter of November 2007 exhibited several ties to Columbine and other recent school shooters. Hauntingly, the Finland shooting came exactly one calendar month after the school shooting in Cleveland, Ohio, four weeks to the day of another dangerous Wednesday.
The SuccessTech Academy shooting took place on Wednesday, October 10, 2007, at SuccessTech high school in Cleveland, Ohio. The shooter, Asa H. Coon, wounded at least four people, including two teachers and two students; another student was injured fleeing from the school.
The Jokela school shooting occurred on November 7, 2007 at Jokela High School (Finnish: Jokelan koulukeskus), a public secondary school in the town of Jokela, Tuusula municipality, Finland. The gunman was 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen.
The incident resulted in the deaths of nine people: five male students (ages 16-18) and one female adult student (age 25); the school principal, Helena Kalmi (age 61); the school nurse (age 43); and Auvinen himself, who was also one of the school's students. One other person suffered gunshot wounds, and eleven people were injured by shattering glass while escaping from the school building. The day before the incident, Auvinen posted a video on YouTube predicting the massacre at the school.
This was the second time that a school shooting occurred in Finland. The previous incident occurred in 1989 at the Raumanmeri school in Rauma, when a 14-year-old fatally shot two fellow students.
At approximately 11:44 local time (09:44 UTC) gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen fired his first shot. Most victims were found in the entrance hallway of the school. At 11:44, following the first shot, school principal Helena Kalmi had ordered all students and teachers to barricade themselves in their classrooms. Instead of doing this herself, the principal placed herself in the way of the gunman and tried to compel him to surrender. Watching from their classroom window, they saw Kalmi first fleeing the attacker, but later she went back. She was shot seven times in front of a group of ninth graders (last grade in junior highschool) in the school yard. Later the school nurse, 43, tried to help injured students, but Auvinen shot her too.
The gunman then began walking around the school, knocking and pounding on classroom doors, then firing through the doors and shooting people at random. He shouted orders at some of the students, proclaimed revolution, and urged the students to destroy school property. Witnesses described a scene of mayhem at the school in this lakeside community, saying the shooter prowled the building looking for victims while shouting slogans for “revolution.” He pointed his gun at some people whom he did not shoot. The victims had sustained multiple injuries to the upper body and head.
A police patrol arrived at 11:55, followed later by some hundred police officers, including the Karhuryhmä special operations unit, and even off-duty police officers arrived and surrounded the school. When the police tried to start negotiations the gunman answered by firing a shot at the police at 12:04 local time. No officers were hit.
The attack ended after 40 minutes when Auvinen turned the gun on himself, inflicting an ultimately fatal wound to his head. He was found in a school toilet still alive but unconscious at 13.53 local time. However, the police, as a precaution in case of other gunmen, were not able to secure the building until before 16:00. The police officers did not open fire at any time.
Auvinen was taken to the Töölö Hospital of the Helsinki University Central Hospital at 14:45, but died the same evening at 22:15 from his injuries.
Weapon
Auvinen had received his licence to own a gun three weeks before the school shootings. He was a registered member of the firing range at the Helsinki Shooting Club. A spokesman for the club revealed that Auvinen had only ever attended a one-hour training session.
The weapon, which has been described by the media as a "small-calibre handgun", was a SIG Mosquito .22 calibre pistol that had been legally obtained and registered to Auvinen on October 19, 2007. He had been given the licence since he was a member of a local shooting club and had no previous criminal record.
In Finland the police usually require a shooting hobby to begin with a .22 calibre weapon. The police cannot mandate that sports shooting should take place in a club, or even in any kind of company; in the case of relatively low risk weapons, the permit decision can be based entirely on information provided by the applicant. Membership in a shooting club is nevertheless considered a risk control. Auvinen himself wanted to buy a more powerful Beretta 9 mm pistol, but the application was rejected by police.
Auvinen described himself as "a cynical existentialist, antihuman humanist, antisocial socialdarwinist[sic], realistic idealist and godlike atheist" on his YouTube user page Sturmgeist89. In the investigation by the police it was confirmed that he had been a victim of school bullying for years.
According to one of his teachers, he was above average academically, and took an interest in history, philosophy and both extreme right and left wing movements.
The Auvinen family lives in Jokela. The family comprises a father, who is a part-time musician, a mother who was a deputy member of the Tuusula municipal council, and an 11 year old brother.
Movies and writings
Pekka-Eric Auvinen uploaded a home-made movie entitled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007" to YouTube announcing the "massacre" hours prior to the shooting. KMFDM's "Stray Bullet" was used as background music. Movies of him shooting his new gun had been uploaded weeks prior to the shooting. One video, titled “Jokela High School Massacre,” showed a picture of what appeared to be the Jokela school and two photos of a young man holding a handgun. Electronic music played in the background with a growling voice singing “I am your apocalypse.”
Another video clip showed a young man clad in a dark jacket loading a clip into a handgun and firing several shots at an apple placed on the ground in a wooded area. He smiled and waved to the camera at the end of the clip.
A third clip showed photos of what appeared to be same man posing with a gun and wearing a T-shirt with the text “Humanity is overrated.”
Several hours after the event, YouTube suspended some videos belonging to the username Sturmgeist89 due to relations with the shootings. This may very well be a reference to KMFDM, as Sturm had been a member of the band. Dylan Klebold, and Eric Harris (Columbine's shooters, were also KMFDM fans and Eric wore a KMFDM hat during the shooting) may have idolized by him. His previous YouTube account name was "naturalselector89", which he used from March until it was suspended in October. Many of his videos were about other shootings and violent incidents, including the Columbine High School massacre, the Waco Siege, the Tokyo sarin gas attack, and bombing during the Iraq invasion.
According to his YouTube profile, his interests were natural selection and hate for humanity. This is also reminiscent of Harris and Klebold. He did not want anything or anyone to be blamed for the shooting, and had planned it "in [his] own head".
He left a media package on Rapidshare, a hosting site, explaining his actions and his motives for the shooting. It includes details of the attack, a manifesto, his "loves & hates", some images of himself and a video of him firing a handgun. "I am prepared to fight and die for my cause," read a posting by Sturmgeist. "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection."
Sturmgeist means "Stormspirit" in German, and was the YouTube username of the Tuusula killer.
Police said Auvinen left a suicide note, “saying goodbye to his family and a message ... indicating his will against society.” They said he appeared bent on causing maximum bloodshed as he opened fire inside Jokela High School in Tuusula, about 30 miles north of Helsinki.
Police said they also seized books and other printed material that suggested Auvinen had “radical thoughts” and was planning an attack, Haapala said.
Investigators believe Auvinen revealed plans for the attack in postings on YouTube in which he urges revolution and grins after taking target practice.
One posting called for a popular uprising against “the enslaving, corrupted and totalitarian regimes” and appeared to anticipate a violent attack.
Several newspapers suggested similarities between and inspirations for Auvinen's actions in the Columbine shootings. Auvinen's YouTube videos included footage related to Columbine. The KMFDM track used in his video, "Stray Bullet", was also used on the website of Columbine shooter Eric Harris.
Criminal investigation
The police found 76 shells and hundreds of rounds of ammunition at the scene. Flammable liquid was found poured on the walls and floors of the second floor, suggesting Auvinen had attempted to set the school on fire. They also found Auvinen's suicide note and have begun analysing his Internet postings.
Spokesman for the cyber crime department of Helsinki police has stated that "it's highly probable that there was some form of contact between Pekka-Eric Auvinen and Dillon Cossey." The 14-year-old Cossey was arrested in October 2007 on suspicion of planning an attack on his school in a suburb of Philadelphia.
Copycat effect
A few copycat incidents occurred in the wake of the Finland shootings.
On November 9, 2007, the Finnish police rushed to three schools due to threats of attacks posted on the Internet. One of the schools was in Tuusula and the others in Kirkkonummi and Maaninka. The 16-year-old boy who posted a video titled "Maaninka massacre" on YouTube was arrested on November 11. The suspect has stated that the video was a joke.
Some three weeks after the Jokela shootings, the Finnish police, flooded with hoax threats, made a public plea for threats against schools to cease. The police reminded prospective perpetrators of severe judicial consequences as well as of the feelings of the families touched by the Jokela events.
In neighbouring Sweden, two boys, aged 16 and 17, allegedly inspired by the school shooting in Finland, were arrested in Stockholm on November 9, 2007, for conspiring to murder their school's principal and janitor. According to the principal, "they had spoken about and glorified Columbine High and what happened in Finland."
The boys, 16 and 17, were arrested in Stockholm after police received information that they were planning murder, Karin Solberg, a police spokeswoman said. One of them was also suspected of making threats.
The SuccessTech Academy shooting took place on Wednesday, October 10, 2007, at SuccessTech high school in Cleveland, Ohio. The shooter, Asa H. Coon, wounded at least four people, including two teachers and two students; another student was injured fleeing from the school.
The Jokela school shooting occurred on November 7, 2007 at Jokela High School (Finnish: Jokelan koulukeskus), a public secondary school in the town of Jokela, Tuusula municipality, Finland. The gunman was 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen.
The incident resulted in the deaths of nine people: five male students (ages 16-18) and one female adult student (age 25); the school principal, Helena Kalmi (age 61); the school nurse (age 43); and Auvinen himself, who was also one of the school's students. One other person suffered gunshot wounds, and eleven people were injured by shattering glass while escaping from the school building. The day before the incident, Auvinen posted a video on YouTube predicting the massacre at the school.
This was the second time that a school shooting occurred in Finland. The previous incident occurred in 1989 at the Raumanmeri school in Rauma, when a 14-year-old fatally shot two fellow students.
At approximately 11:44 local time (09:44 UTC) gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen fired his first shot. Most victims were found in the entrance hallway of the school. At 11:44, following the first shot, school principal Helena Kalmi had ordered all students and teachers to barricade themselves in their classrooms. Instead of doing this herself, the principal placed herself in the way of the gunman and tried to compel him to surrender. Watching from their classroom window, they saw Kalmi first fleeing the attacker, but later she went back. She was shot seven times in front of a group of ninth graders (last grade in junior highschool) in the school yard. Later the school nurse, 43, tried to help injured students, but Auvinen shot her too.
The gunman then began walking around the school, knocking and pounding on classroom doors, then firing through the doors and shooting people at random. He shouted orders at some of the students, proclaimed revolution, and urged the students to destroy school property. Witnesses described a scene of mayhem at the school in this lakeside community, saying the shooter prowled the building looking for victims while shouting slogans for “revolution.” He pointed his gun at some people whom he did not shoot. The victims had sustained multiple injuries to the upper body and head.
A police patrol arrived at 11:55, followed later by some hundred police officers, including the Karhuryhmä special operations unit, and even off-duty police officers arrived and surrounded the school. When the police tried to start negotiations the gunman answered by firing a shot at the police at 12:04 local time. No officers were hit.
The attack ended after 40 minutes when Auvinen turned the gun on himself, inflicting an ultimately fatal wound to his head. He was found in a school toilet still alive but unconscious at 13.53 local time. However, the police, as a precaution in case of other gunmen, were not able to secure the building until before 16:00. The police officers did not open fire at any time.
Auvinen was taken to the Töölö Hospital of the Helsinki University Central Hospital at 14:45, but died the same evening at 22:15 from his injuries.
Weapon
Auvinen had received his licence to own a gun three weeks before the school shootings. He was a registered member of the firing range at the Helsinki Shooting Club. A spokesman for the club revealed that Auvinen had only ever attended a one-hour training session.
The weapon, which has been described by the media as a "small-calibre handgun", was a SIG Mosquito .22 calibre pistol that had been legally obtained and registered to Auvinen on October 19, 2007. He had been given the licence since he was a member of a local shooting club and had no previous criminal record.
In Finland the police usually require a shooting hobby to begin with a .22 calibre weapon. The police cannot mandate that sports shooting should take place in a club, or even in any kind of company; in the case of relatively low risk weapons, the permit decision can be based entirely on information provided by the applicant. Membership in a shooting club is nevertheless considered a risk control. Auvinen himself wanted to buy a more powerful Beretta 9 mm pistol, but the application was rejected by police.
Auvinen described himself as "a cynical existentialist, antihuman humanist, antisocial socialdarwinist[sic], realistic idealist and godlike atheist" on his YouTube user page Sturmgeist89. In the investigation by the police it was confirmed that he had been a victim of school bullying for years.
According to one of his teachers, he was above average academically, and took an interest in history, philosophy and both extreme right and left wing movements.
The Auvinen family lives in Jokela. The family comprises a father, who is a part-time musician, a mother who was a deputy member of the Tuusula municipal council, and an 11 year old brother.
Movies and writings
Pekka-Eric Auvinen uploaded a home-made movie entitled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007" to YouTube announcing the "massacre" hours prior to the shooting. KMFDM's "Stray Bullet" was used as background music. Movies of him shooting his new gun had been uploaded weeks prior to the shooting. One video, titled “Jokela High School Massacre,” showed a picture of what appeared to be the Jokela school and two photos of a young man holding a handgun. Electronic music played in the background with a growling voice singing “I am your apocalypse.”
Another video clip showed a young man clad in a dark jacket loading a clip into a handgun and firing several shots at an apple placed on the ground in a wooded area. He smiled and waved to the camera at the end of the clip.
A third clip showed photos of what appeared to be same man posing with a gun and wearing a T-shirt with the text “Humanity is overrated.”
Several hours after the event, YouTube suspended some videos belonging to the username Sturmgeist89 due to relations with the shootings. This may very well be a reference to KMFDM, as Sturm had been a member of the band. Dylan Klebold, and Eric Harris (Columbine's shooters, were also KMFDM fans and Eric wore a KMFDM hat during the shooting) may have idolized by him. His previous YouTube account name was "naturalselector89", which he used from March until it was suspended in October. Many of his videos were about other shootings and violent incidents, including the Columbine High School massacre, the Waco Siege, the Tokyo sarin gas attack, and bombing during the Iraq invasion.
According to his YouTube profile, his interests were natural selection and hate for humanity. This is also reminiscent of Harris and Klebold. He did not want anything or anyone to be blamed for the shooting, and had planned it "in [his] own head".
He left a media package on Rapidshare, a hosting site, explaining his actions and his motives for the shooting. It includes details of the attack, a manifesto, his "loves & hates", some images of himself and a video of him firing a handgun. "I am prepared to fight and die for my cause," read a posting by Sturmgeist. "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection."
Sturmgeist means "Stormspirit" in German, and was the YouTube username of the Tuusula killer.
Police said Auvinen left a suicide note, “saying goodbye to his family and a message ... indicating his will against society.” They said he appeared bent on causing maximum bloodshed as he opened fire inside Jokela High School in Tuusula, about 30 miles north of Helsinki.
Police said they also seized books and other printed material that suggested Auvinen had “radical thoughts” and was planning an attack, Haapala said.
Investigators believe Auvinen revealed plans for the attack in postings on YouTube in which he urges revolution and grins after taking target practice.
One posting called for a popular uprising against “the enslaving, corrupted and totalitarian regimes” and appeared to anticipate a violent attack.
Several newspapers suggested similarities between and inspirations for Auvinen's actions in the Columbine shootings. Auvinen's YouTube videos included footage related to Columbine. The KMFDM track used in his video, "Stray Bullet", was also used on the website of Columbine shooter Eric Harris.
Criminal investigation
The police found 76 shells and hundreds of rounds of ammunition at the scene. Flammable liquid was found poured on the walls and floors of the second floor, suggesting Auvinen had attempted to set the school on fire. They also found Auvinen's suicide note and have begun analysing his Internet postings.
Spokesman for the cyber crime department of Helsinki police has stated that "it's highly probable that there was some form of contact between Pekka-Eric Auvinen and Dillon Cossey." The 14-year-old Cossey was arrested in October 2007 on suspicion of planning an attack on his school in a suburb of Philadelphia.
Copycat effect
A few copycat incidents occurred in the wake of the Finland shootings.
On November 9, 2007, the Finnish police rushed to three schools due to threats of attacks posted on the Internet. One of the schools was in Tuusula and the others in Kirkkonummi and Maaninka. The 16-year-old boy who posted a video titled "Maaninka massacre" on YouTube was arrested on November 11. The suspect has stated that the video was a joke.
Some three weeks after the Jokela shootings, the Finnish police, flooded with hoax threats, made a public plea for threats against schools to cease. The police reminded prospective perpetrators of severe judicial consequences as well as of the feelings of the families touched by the Jokela events.
In neighbouring Sweden, two boys, aged 16 and 17, allegedly inspired by the school shooting in Finland, were arrested in Stockholm on November 9, 2007, for conspiring to murder their school's principal and janitor. According to the principal, "they had spoken about and glorified Columbine High and what happened in Finland."
The boys, 16 and 17, were arrested in Stockholm after police received information that they were planning murder, Karin Solberg, a police spokeswoman said. One of them was also suspected of making threats.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Cleveland's Coon: A Columbine Copycat
The Cleveland school shooter Asa H. Coon was Caucasian. He was a "death Goth" Columbine copycat in a trenchcoat.
You won't read or hear about that too many other places. I've not seen one photograph of the shooter anywhere on the web in the 24 hours since he tried to kill his teachers and fellow students, then ended his own life.
Buried in a Yahoo News story on October 11, 2007, you will find his one line:
"Coon, who was white, stood out in the predominantly black school for dressing in a goth style, wearing a black trench coat, black boots, a dog collar and chains...."
Is it important? I think so. It is not about "causes" and "blaming." It is about understanding the evolution and changing landscape of school shootings.
School shootings follow predictable patterns, and this one was no different. Coon was suspended, and was a suicidal young man, full of rage, ready to go off. This is common.
On October 10, 2007, Asa Coon, a 14-year-old student at SuccessTech Academy high school in Cleveland, Ohio shot four people, including two teachers and two students. Coon had been suspended for fighting two days previously, and returned on October 10 with a .22- caliber revolver and .38-caliber revolver shooting. He had a duffel bag filled with ammo and three knives. (SuccessTech is a 250 mostly African American student specialized school that concentrates on math and technology, funded by a Gates Foundation grant.)
The four shooting victims who were seriously injured (none died) are identified as:
Michael Peek, 15, shot in the left side;
Darnell Rodgers, 17, wounded in the elbow;
Michael Grassie, 42, shot in the chest; and
David Kachadourian, 57, shot in the back.
Teachers Kachadourian and Grassie, as well as 15-year-old Peek, remained hospitalized in stable condition on October 11, 2007. Additionally, a 15-year-old girl sustained a knee injury while fleeing.
Coon killed himself.
Reports of Coon being in and out of mental health treatment, slapping his mother in 2000, and being a twin are in the news. That his 19 year old brother was arrested the day after the shooting is inexplicable, so far. Digital video recordings of mass confusion in the halls are being playing unedited on Fox News. Other cable channels are mixing in the Cleveland shooting with Iraq and politics, the day after. At least, the Cleveland Indians in the playoffs haven't been mentioned as being a factor. But thoughtful analysis is lacking and understanding is hardly there.
I've written in recent years of the diverse and ethnic underpinnings that must be acknowledged in these school shootings, and the shifting trend from white rural to white suburban to more ethnicities taking on the mantle of Columbine, over and above their own cultural background. This school shooting cries out for further analysis on that level too.
The shooter had a name that hardly can be ignored, and must have been a burden to carry. "Coon" is an insulting term for a black person. "Coon" is known as a derogatory term for African Americans, and is similar to the n-word. Its origins are traced back to a shortened form of the word "raccoon," used in reference to the animal. The black eye masks and noctural habits of the animal paralleled the characteristics of typical robbers and thiefs. The stereotype was then applied to black people. It was used extensively in the South, but then followed blacks into the Northern urban areas where they settled.
This young man named Coon was a white student living alone with a Goth Columbine mentality among AfricanAmericans. He is said to have liked Marilyn Manson versus God. Allegedly, the fight that resulted in his suspension was related to an argument about his Devil worship. Simplistic ways to describe a life, I know, but that is what you get from the media after a shooting.
No one that was shot was killed, other than the shooter. One hundred percentage of educationally-based school shooters are suicidal. Are we surprised this young male walked into the lion's den the way he did?
The media has grabbed this shooting with a second tier fantastic overkill they did with the Virginia Tech killings of 32 + 1 (i.e. the Korean-American Columbine copycat shooter). The news about Coon will last out the week, to be replaced by other news, while the wait is now for the next shooter.
The fingerprints of the copycat effect are all over this shooting. Beside the long-term behavior contagion from the Trenchcoat Mafia of Littleton, there's the short-term media effect of other recent shooting rampages.
On September 21st, two 17-year-old students were wounded when they were shot by a gunman at Delaware State University. Delaware State is a historically black college established in 1891. It was an atypical "school shooting."
Over this last weekend, on Sunday, a "school shooting" occurred in every detail but the fact it wasn't in a school. On October 7, 2007, Crandon, Wisconsin's Tyler Peterson, an employee of the Forest County Sheriff's Department and a part-time officer for the Crandon Police Department, shot seven people, wounding one and killing six in the town. The supposed reason was a broken relationship and the fact he was belittled. The dead ranged in age from 14 to 20 years old. All were current or former Crandon High School students. Peterson killed himself.
When school shootings begin to increase their frequency, so do workplace rampages. Suicidal people are triggered, forgive the pun, by these events. In Alexandria, Louisiana, on Friday, October 5, police shot and killed a man who shot five people in a downtown law office, killing two of them. On Tuesday, October 9th, two people were killed and two were in critical condition after a shooting at a tire store in Simi Valley, California, northwest of Los Angeles. The gunman was also dead.
"Suicide by cop" is merely another form of suicide.
Then, in the scheme of things, Asa Coon, with black trenchcoat, having told people what he was going to do, with black-painted fingernails, walked into the darkness. He found a way into the school, undetected, decided to go into a bathroom, changed his outfit apparently, and came out with guns in his hands, to kill. His suicidal rage ended in only his death, but it may push someone, somewhere over the edge in its wake to kill others. Perhaps even another Columbine cult copycat.
The fall of 2005 had several of the nine school-related incidents that got widespread media attention. People especially remember Montreal's Dawson College shootings (an Indian Sikh-Canadian Columbine copycat) and the Amish School killings. Then in the spring of 2006, other school shooting events preceded the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16th.
The "warm" fall, "cold" winter, and "hot" spring pattern may be at our doorsteps again for 2007-2008, in a shifting sea of culturally diverse shootings that may surprise even the seasoned law enforcers and newspeople.
You won't read or hear about that too many other places. I've not seen one photograph of the shooter anywhere on the web in the 24 hours since he tried to kill his teachers and fellow students, then ended his own life.
Buried in a Yahoo News story on October 11, 2007, you will find his one line:
"Coon, who was white, stood out in the predominantly black school for dressing in a goth style, wearing a black trench coat, black boots, a dog collar and chains...."
Is it important? I think so. It is not about "causes" and "blaming." It is about understanding the evolution and changing landscape of school shootings.
School shootings follow predictable patterns, and this one was no different. Coon was suspended, and was a suicidal young man, full of rage, ready to go off. This is common.
On October 10, 2007, Asa Coon, a 14-year-old student at SuccessTech Academy high school in Cleveland, Ohio shot four people, including two teachers and two students. Coon had been suspended for fighting two days previously, and returned on October 10 with a .22- caliber revolver and .38-caliber revolver shooting. He had a duffel bag filled with ammo and three knives. (SuccessTech is a 250 mostly African American student specialized school that concentrates on math and technology, funded by a Gates Foundation grant.)
The four shooting victims who were seriously injured (none died) are identified as:
Michael Peek, 15, shot in the left side;
Darnell Rodgers, 17, wounded in the elbow;
Michael Grassie, 42, shot in the chest; and
David Kachadourian, 57, shot in the back.
Teachers Kachadourian and Grassie, as well as 15-year-old Peek, remained hospitalized in stable condition on October 11, 2007. Additionally, a 15-year-old girl sustained a knee injury while fleeing.
Coon killed himself.
Reports of Coon being in and out of mental health treatment, slapping his mother in 2000, and being a twin are in the news. That his 19 year old brother was arrested the day after the shooting is inexplicable, so far. Digital video recordings of mass confusion in the halls are being playing unedited on Fox News. Other cable channels are mixing in the Cleveland shooting with Iraq and politics, the day after. At least, the Cleveland Indians in the playoffs haven't been mentioned as being a factor. But thoughtful analysis is lacking and understanding is hardly there.
I've written in recent years of the diverse and ethnic underpinnings that must be acknowledged in these school shootings, and the shifting trend from white rural to white suburban to more ethnicities taking on the mantle of Columbine, over and above their own cultural background. This school shooting cries out for further analysis on that level too.
The shooter had a name that hardly can be ignored, and must have been a burden to carry. "Coon" is an insulting term for a black person. "Coon" is known as a derogatory term for African Americans, and is similar to the n-word. Its origins are traced back to a shortened form of the word "raccoon," used in reference to the animal. The black eye masks and noctural habits of the animal paralleled the characteristics of typical robbers and thiefs. The stereotype was then applied to black people. It was used extensively in the South, but then followed blacks into the Northern urban areas where they settled.
This young man named Coon was a white student living alone with a Goth Columbine mentality among AfricanAmericans. He is said to have liked Marilyn Manson versus God. Allegedly, the fight that resulted in his suspension was related to an argument about his Devil worship. Simplistic ways to describe a life, I know, but that is what you get from the media after a shooting.
No one that was shot was killed, other than the shooter. One hundred percentage of educationally-based school shooters are suicidal. Are we surprised this young male walked into the lion's den the way he did?
The media has grabbed this shooting with a second tier fantastic overkill they did with the Virginia Tech killings of 32 + 1 (i.e. the Korean-American Columbine copycat shooter). The news about Coon will last out the week, to be replaced by other news, while the wait is now for the next shooter.
The fingerprints of the copycat effect are all over this shooting. Beside the long-term behavior contagion from the Trenchcoat Mafia of Littleton, there's the short-term media effect of other recent shooting rampages.
On September 21st, two 17-year-old students were wounded when they were shot by a gunman at Delaware State University. Delaware State is a historically black college established in 1891. It was an atypical "school shooting."
Over this last weekend, on Sunday, a "school shooting" occurred in every detail but the fact it wasn't in a school. On October 7, 2007, Crandon, Wisconsin's Tyler Peterson, an employee of the Forest County Sheriff's Department and a part-time officer for the Crandon Police Department, shot seven people, wounding one and killing six in the town. The supposed reason was a broken relationship and the fact he was belittled. The dead ranged in age from 14 to 20 years old. All were current or former Crandon High School students. Peterson killed himself.
When school shootings begin to increase their frequency, so do workplace rampages. Suicidal people are triggered, forgive the pun, by these events. In Alexandria, Louisiana, on Friday, October 5, police shot and killed a man who shot five people in a downtown law office, killing two of them. On Tuesday, October 9th, two people were killed and two were in critical condition after a shooting at a tire store in Simi Valley, California, northwest of Los Angeles. The gunman was also dead.
"Suicide by cop" is merely another form of suicide.
Then, in the scheme of things, Asa Coon, with black trenchcoat, having told people what he was going to do, with black-painted fingernails, walked into the darkness. He found a way into the school, undetected, decided to go into a bathroom, changed his outfit apparently, and came out with guns in his hands, to kill. His suicidal rage ended in only his death, but it may push someone, somewhere over the edge in its wake to kill others. Perhaps even another Columbine cult copycat.
The fall of 2005 had several of the nine school-related incidents that got widespread media attention. People especially remember Montreal's Dawson College shootings (an Indian Sikh-Canadian Columbine copycat) and the Amish School killings. Then in the spring of 2006, other school shooting events preceded the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16th.
The "warm" fall, "cold" winter, and "hot" spring pattern may be at our doorsteps again for 2007-2008, in a shifting sea of culturally diverse shootings that may surprise even the seasoned law enforcers and newspeople.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Bomb Threat Copycats
The Daily Pennsylvanian has published an article on September 5, 2007, written by Katie Karas on the wave of bomb threats that are sweeping across the United States. Is copycatting behind what is occurring?
The bomb threats have been received for three months, but in a concentrated fashion between August 24th and 27th, and in the days afterward. Media this week are reporting that 13 colleges and universities have been the targets of the threats. I've tracked more than 13, including Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Middle Tennessee State University, Princeton University, Cornell University, University of Iowa, University of New Hampshire, University of Alaska at Anchorage, Oregon State University, University of Akron, Clemson University, Western Illinois University, William & Mary College, Clarkson University, and Swarthmore College. There are probably several others.
This comes during a time when threats and extortion attempts against U.S. stores, banks, and businesses continue with more bomb threats being called in nearly every day, according to U.S. officials and the FBI. By last count yesterday, at least 24 threats have been received by businesses in more than 17 states.
The university bomb threat itself doesn’t mention any college by name, and lists the sender of the e-mail as George Orwell@mixmaster.it., an Italian Web site. No bomb has been found in any situation, and the threat has been considered a hoax in each case.
I mentioned to Karas that in the cyclic nature of school shootings, there are often waves of bomb threats occurring afterward. For example, during the month after Columbine, over 400 false bomb threats were reported, mostly in high schools, across the United States. If this current wave is any indication of what is going to present itself in the wake of the Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia) shootings of April 16, 2007, we all may have to be prepared for a busy fall and spring on the campuses of the nation.
The following is the text of the Karas' article:
Over a dozen American universities received bomb threats within the past ten days, though no explosives were found at any of the threatened sites.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations is still examining the apparent hoaxes.
"We're working with the college and university police and the local police to investigate these matters," FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said. "Due to today's world, none of these threats can be taken lightly."
Schools have been especially on edge since last April's shootings at Virginia Tech, and many universities - including Penn - have instituted emergency alert systems in the event of a scare.
The Massachusetts Instiute of Technology and Princeton, Cornell and Carnegie Mellon universities were among the campuses targeted.
Kolko declined to comment on whether the FBI thought the threats could be related.
It is not unusual for so many threats to be received in such a short period of time, said Loren Coleman, the author of The Copycat Effect.
"I think what we generally find is there are waves of these situations where copycats do occur, and they come in clusters," Coleman said.
Vice President of Public Safety Maureen Rush said Penn rarely receives bomb threats.
The last one occurred last fall, when certain buildings of the Quadrangle were evacuated while police specialists responded to a bomb threat in the SEPTA line that runs underneath the area.
In the case of a threat, Rush said, building administrators and the police would be notified by PennComm, and police would then determine the level of threat and decide the appropriate course of action.
"We always err on the side of caution," Rush said, "but we try not to be trigger happy."
Police and security forces responded to the recent threats by sweeping certain buildings and sometimes evacuating them, though many of the threats did not specify which buildings were being targeted.
At M.I.T., for instance, the threat received did not mention any specific location on campus.
Officials at Princeton said the number of threats actually allayed their fears.
"After learning that there were other universities [that received threats, it] actually reinforced in our minds that it was not a credible threat," Princeton spokeswoman Cass Cliatt said.
Mario Scalora, a professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an expert on threat assessment, agrees that in many cases the threats are not worthy of a full-fledged response.
"If someone really wants to hurt you, they're not going to tell you in advance," he noted. "You take them all seriously because the threat still could materialize, but you have to take a bigger-picture look at things."
But with the sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks approaching, Scalora suspects that the flow of hoaxes will not abate anytime soon.
Source: "Several universities receive bomb threats: Princeton, Cornell, others threatened, but safety officials find no explosives," by Katie Karas, The Daily Pennsylvanian, September 5, 2007.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Snow Closes Colleges: Why Not Shootings?
Universities close down schools all the time. They do it on "snow days." The VA Tech Report is in and you should be upset.
To say that a widespread message to the college community is difficult to broadcast, far and wide, is a mistruth. I find it incredible that there seems to be some kind of gray area in the current "school shootings prevention" debate about whether or not colleges have any control over the ebb and flow of information to their students, staff, and professors.
The Virginia Tech report was released late on the evening of August 29, 2007, as the new college and university academic year begins anew across North America.
"Warning the students, faculty and staff might have made a difference ... so the earlier and clearer the warning, the more chance an individual had of surviving," said the report.
The eight-member panel, appointed by the Virginia governor, Timothy Kaine, said the Virginia Tech police "erred" in not issuing a campus-wide alert after the first killings, urging all students and staff to be cautious.
No kidding!
"Senior university administrators, acting as the emergency policy group, failed to issue an all-campus notification about the WAJ killings until almost two hours had elapsed. University practice may have conflicted with written policies," the report said.
However, we are told by the report that a lockdown of the campus could not have stopped the mass shootings. "There does not seem to be a plausible scenario of university response to the double homicide that could have prevented a tragedy of considerable magnitude on April 16," it said. "Cho had started on a mission of fulfilling a fantasy of revenge."
Frankly that last paragraph sounds like a psychological cop-out. It reminds me of the "lone nut" posturing that occurs after a presidential assassination when we hear that "he was so insane that if he really wanted to kill the president, he was going to find a way." Useless words employed to relieve someone's guilt.
If there is a shooting in one part of the campus, in the age of Columbine, I find it unbelievable nothng is done immediately. At VA Tech, the two hours of inactivity were unexcusable. No two ways about it.
I'll say it again: "Snow days" close campuses at the drop of a hat, all the time. Email messages are sent out, information phone messages are changed, messages are written on chalkboards, printed sheets are posted on glass windowed doors, and other methods to get the word out are used. A college campus can look like a desert in 15 minutes after a "snow day" is declared. Give college students a chance to sleep in, and they will. Tell professors they can stay at home or in their offices to catch up on their research, their correspondence, and their papers to grade, and they will. Let campus security and local law enforcement officers do their jobs, and close the campus. Keep people safe.
From the beginning, this whole lame excuse that the community of 35,000 people at VA Tech was "too large" to notify has never flown true in my mind. I've worked as an instructor, associate professor, visiting professor, and fulltime research staff at a half dozen New England colleges and universities for over two decades. I've never seen a situation where a "snow day" notification wasn't almost instantly communicated throughout a wide area encompassing commuter and residential students.
Sorry, I don't buy what happened at VA Tech. The lapse in notification at VA Tech should not have happened. There is no excuse not to close down campuses, if there is any hint of a wider event occurring.
Frankly, for all educational institutions to also ignore the impact of the copycat effect on other potential school shootings is part of what must be considered. The VA Tech incidents happened in a predictable pattern, for God's sake, during the temporal window of intense predictable activity I had shared widely that would be occurring around the anniversary time of Columbine.
It does not surprise me what has been revealed in this report about the VA Tech's shooter's initimate relationship with Columbine.
In 1999, following the Columbine shootings, Seung-Hui Cho's schoolteachers observed suicidal and homicidal themes in his writings and recommended psychiatric counseling, which he alleged received. He also received medication for a short time.
Privacy laws do not apply if there is danger to others or the person who may kill or harm himself or herself. When will universities receiving new students with a history such as Cho's be notified of their incoming new members' dangerous pasts?
The panel was critical of the university for failing to pick up the various alarm signals about Cho's mental state.
"During Cho's junior year at Virginia Tech, numerous incidents occurred that were clear warnings of mental instability," the report said.
"Although various individuals and departments within the university knew about each of these incidents, the university did not intervene effectively. No one knew all the information and no one connected all the dots."
Start connecting the dots, folks. Look more broadly than your own campus. I did. I predicted a "Columbine" with a bigger body count (which today we would call a "VA Tech") would take place during the week it did. Who at VA Tech was listening?
To say that a widespread message to the college community is difficult to broadcast, far and wide, is a mistruth. I find it incredible that there seems to be some kind of gray area in the current "school shootings prevention" debate about whether or not colleges have any control over the ebb and flow of information to their students, staff, and professors.
The Virginia Tech report was released late on the evening of August 29, 2007, as the new college and university academic year begins anew across North America.
"Warning the students, faculty and staff might have made a difference ... so the earlier and clearer the warning, the more chance an individual had of surviving," said the report.
The eight-member panel, appointed by the Virginia governor, Timothy Kaine, said the Virginia Tech police "erred" in not issuing a campus-wide alert after the first killings, urging all students and staff to be cautious.
No kidding!
"Senior university administrators, acting as the emergency policy group, failed to issue an all-campus notification about the WAJ killings until almost two hours had elapsed. University practice may have conflicted with written policies," the report said.
However, we are told by the report that a lockdown of the campus could not have stopped the mass shootings. "There does not seem to be a plausible scenario of university response to the double homicide that could have prevented a tragedy of considerable magnitude on April 16," it said. "Cho had started on a mission of fulfilling a fantasy of revenge."
Frankly that last paragraph sounds like a psychological cop-out. It reminds me of the "lone nut" posturing that occurs after a presidential assassination when we hear that "he was so insane that if he really wanted to kill the president, he was going to find a way." Useless words employed to relieve someone's guilt.
If there is a shooting in one part of the campus, in the age of Columbine, I find it unbelievable nothng is done immediately. At VA Tech, the two hours of inactivity were unexcusable. No two ways about it.
I'll say it again: "Snow days" close campuses at the drop of a hat, all the time. Email messages are sent out, information phone messages are changed, messages are written on chalkboards, printed sheets are posted on glass windowed doors, and other methods to get the word out are used. A college campus can look like a desert in 15 minutes after a "snow day" is declared. Give college students a chance to sleep in, and they will. Tell professors they can stay at home or in their offices to catch up on their research, their correspondence, and their papers to grade, and they will. Let campus security and local law enforcement officers do their jobs, and close the campus. Keep people safe.
From the beginning, this whole lame excuse that the community of 35,000 people at VA Tech was "too large" to notify has never flown true in my mind. I've worked as an instructor, associate professor, visiting professor, and fulltime research staff at a half dozen New England colleges and universities for over two decades. I've never seen a situation where a "snow day" notification wasn't almost instantly communicated throughout a wide area encompassing commuter and residential students.
Sorry, I don't buy what happened at VA Tech. The lapse in notification at VA Tech should not have happened. There is no excuse not to close down campuses, if there is any hint of a wider event occurring.
Frankly, for all educational institutions to also ignore the impact of the copycat effect on other potential school shootings is part of what must be considered. The VA Tech incidents happened in a predictable pattern, for God's sake, during the temporal window of intense predictable activity I had shared widely that would be occurring around the anniversary time of Columbine.
It does not surprise me what has been revealed in this report about the VA Tech's shooter's initimate relationship with Columbine.
In 1999, following the Columbine shootings, Seung-Hui Cho's schoolteachers observed suicidal and homicidal themes in his writings and recommended psychiatric counseling, which he alleged received. He also received medication for a short time.
Privacy laws do not apply if there is danger to others or the person who may kill or harm himself or herself. When will universities receiving new students with a history such as Cho's be notified of their incoming new members' dangerous pasts?
The panel was critical of the university for failing to pick up the various alarm signals about Cho's mental state.
"During Cho's junior year at Virginia Tech, numerous incidents occurred that were clear warnings of mental instability," the report said.
"Although various individuals and departments within the university knew about each of these incidents, the university did not intervene effectively. No one knew all the information and no one connected all the dots."
Start connecting the dots, folks. Look more broadly than your own campus. I did. I predicted a "Columbine" with a bigger body count (which today we would call a "VA Tech") would take place during the week it did. Who at VA Tech was listening?
Thursday, July 19, 2007
McDonald's & Luby's
Called the "San Ysidro McDonald's Massacre," the mass shooting incident resulted in 21 deaths and 15 injuries at a McDonald's restaurant in the San Ysidro section of San Diego, California, on Wednesday, July 18, 1984. The "rampage murders" were carried out by James Oliver Huberty, a 41-year-old former welder from Canton, Ohio. In January 1984, Huberty had moved to San Ysidro with his wife and children, where he worked as a security guard until his dismissal one week prior to the mass shootings.
Despite the media at the time telling us that Huberty used a 9mm Uzi semi-automatic (the primary weapon fired in the massacre), a Winchester pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun, and a 9mm Browning HP in the restaurant, to kill 21 people and wound 19 others, such details didn't change the gun laws; instead they created immediate and long-term copycats.
Huberty's victims were predominantly Mexican and Mexican-American and ranged in age from 8 months to 74 years. The massacre began at 4 p.m. and lasted for 77 minutes. Huberty had spent 257 rounds of ammunition before he was fatally shot by Chuck Foster, a SWAT team sniper perched on the roof of a nearby post office.
Now in 2007, we see a seemingly coincidental mirror of this July 18th date has surfaced in a situation in which a McDonald's employee died after being shot at a drive-through window.
On Wednesday, July 18, 2007, Shawnee M. Koch, 40, of Reading, Pennsylvania, an assistant manager at a McDonald's restaurant was shot in the head while working at the drive-through window, and later died at a hospital.
Koch was the second person to be shot dead while working in the drive-through window of the McDonald's restaurant at Ninth and Spring streets in Reading, Pennsylvania. The previous one was a man killed in 2004.
No suspect has been identified or caught. Sgt. Guy S. Lehman said: "It doesn't appear there was any dialogue between the two. She was standing at the cash register, the car pulled up and 'bam.'"
The copycat effect regarding the case of San Ysidro McDonald's Massacre and the Luby's Cafeteria Massacre has been discovered to be rather apparent and clear.
On October 16, 1991, George Hennard drove a 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck into Killeen, Bell County, Texas’ Luby's Cafeteria. He jumped out and screamed: “This is what Bell County has done to me!”
Hennard shouted this while opening fire with a Glock 17 and then a Ruger P89, shooting to death 23 people, and finally killing himself with a shoot to his head. At the time, this was the worst mass murder in US history, only to be surpassed by the Virginia Tech shootings of April 16, 2007.
On Hennard's dead body police found a ticket for The Fisher King, a 1991 Robin Williams movie. The film stars Jeff Bridges as a shock radio DJ Jack Lucas, who has a fan that takes the character Lucas's rants literally and goes to a restaurant with a gun, murdering guiltless diners. The motion picture’s massacre resembles the one carried out by Hennard.
Before George Hennard crashed his truck into Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, on October 16, 1991, he had watched a documentary (on videotape) at his home about a similar mass murderer, James Huberty, who killed 21 people at the San Ysidro California McDonald's on July 18, 1984. Some reports indicate Huberty viewed the tape several times.
Despite the media at the time telling us that Huberty used a 9mm Uzi semi-automatic (the primary weapon fired in the massacre), a Winchester pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun, and a 9mm Browning HP in the restaurant, to kill 21 people and wound 19 others, such details didn't change the gun laws; instead they created immediate and long-term copycats.
Huberty's victims were predominantly Mexican and Mexican-American and ranged in age from 8 months to 74 years. The massacre began at 4 p.m. and lasted for 77 minutes. Huberty had spent 257 rounds of ammunition before he was fatally shot by Chuck Foster, a SWAT team sniper perched on the roof of a nearby post office.
Now in 2007, we see a seemingly coincidental mirror of this July 18th date has surfaced in a situation in which a McDonald's employee died after being shot at a drive-through window.
On Wednesday, July 18, 2007, Shawnee M. Koch, 40, of Reading, Pennsylvania, an assistant manager at a McDonald's restaurant was shot in the head while working at the drive-through window, and later died at a hospital.
Koch was the second person to be shot dead while working in the drive-through window of the McDonald's restaurant at Ninth and Spring streets in Reading, Pennsylvania. The previous one was a man killed in 2004.
No suspect has been identified or caught. Sgt. Guy S. Lehman said: "It doesn't appear there was any dialogue between the two. She was standing at the cash register, the car pulled up and 'bam.'"
The copycat effect regarding the case of San Ysidro McDonald's Massacre and the Luby's Cafeteria Massacre has been discovered to be rather apparent and clear.
On October 16, 1991, George Hennard drove a 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck into Killeen, Bell County, Texas’ Luby's Cafeteria. He jumped out and screamed: “This is what Bell County has done to me!”
Hennard shouted this while opening fire with a Glock 17 and then a Ruger P89, shooting to death 23 people, and finally killing himself with a shoot to his head. At the time, this was the worst mass murder in US history, only to be surpassed by the Virginia Tech shootings of April 16, 2007.
On Hennard's dead body police found a ticket for The Fisher King, a 1991 Robin Williams movie. The film stars Jeff Bridges as a shock radio DJ Jack Lucas, who has a fan that takes the character Lucas's rants literally and goes to a restaurant with a gun, murdering guiltless diners. The motion picture’s massacre resembles the one carried out by Hennard.
Before George Hennard crashed his truck into Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, on October 16, 1991, he had watched a documentary (on videotape) at his home about a similar mass murderer, James Huberty, who killed 21 people at the San Ysidro California McDonald's on July 18, 1984. Some reports indicate Huberty viewed the tape several times.
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