Another high school shooting

[LSN80]

And I don't mean to trivialize it, as the headline would suggest I'm doing. It just seems is has a "been there, done that" sort of feeling to it, something I never want to think or feel when it comes to these types of things. But in every incident since Columbine, it seems less shocking by the incident, with almost a feeling of desensitization coming with it.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/27/justice/ohio-school-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

One student was killed and four more were injured when T.J. Lane, a student at Chardon High School walked up to a table of four fellow students he may have known and opened fire. The incident occurred around 7:30 am, police say, as the students Lane fired upon were waiting for their bus to take them to vocational trade school. The violence could have been much worse had he not been chased from the school by a football coach who was supervising the students. U.S. secretary of education Arne Duncan had the following to say regarding Frank Hall, the football coach responsible for breaking up the incident:

"Preliminary reports indicate were it not for the extraordinary courage of a teacher who chased the shooter out of the school, and if not for the speedy reaction of school leaders, the toll of these shootings could have been much worse".

With all due respect to the football coach, who I do respect and admire for heroicly going after Lane, despite him wiedling a gun, so much of me is angry, as this was a preventable situation. Little has been said thusfar about possible motive, Lane's social status, or the way he's received by his fellow students, but Facebook posts by Lane entered almost two months ago revealed a very disturbed individual. On December 30, 2011, Lane wrote:

"In a quaint lonely town, (where there) sits a man with a frown (who) longed for only one thing, the world to bow at his feet. He was better than the rest, all those ones he detests, within their castles, so vain."Feel death, not just mocking you. Not just stalking you but inside of you. Wriggle and writhe. Feel smaller beneath my might. Seizure in the Pestilence that is my scythe. Die, all of you."

I'm sorry, but how does a post like this slip through the cracks? I don't know a great deal about Facebook, admittedly, but did noone read this post, and become the slightest bit concerned? Did noone read this and feel the need to intervene, whether it be an adult or a friend? However poetic this may sound, and words full of symbolism, did noone take this as a serious threat, and get him help? This was written a full two months before the incident took place. Further, if he was writing things such as this, how erratic must his behavior have gotten? I'm disapointed and appaled that his parents didn't see some sign of trouble, and get him help. I felt the same way when the Columbine shooting occurred, and subsequent incidents afterwards. How do the warning signs slip by, unnoticed? It baffles me, truly.

Fellow student Nate Mueller, who was wounded in the incident, said the following:

"I was sitting with others at a table in the cafeteria when he approached us. I didn't recognize him, myself. My friends were crawling on the floor, and one of my friends was bent over the table, and he was shot. It was almost like a firecracker went off. I turned around and saw (Lane) standing with a gun, and I saw him take a shot. It's pretty fake to me, still, it all feels like a movie."

Being in Mueller's position is one I can't fathom in the slightest. He was shot in the ear himself, and watched as one of his friends die. Four other students are hospitilized with two in critical condition, and two are in stable condition.

Put yourself into Mueller's position. You're sitting with frienders, waiting for the bus, and someone you don't know approaches you and opelns fire on you. How do you rationalize or make sense of the incident? Mueller may have been the biggest bastard in the school, and may have harrassed or given a hard time to students like Lane, with Lane taking notice. But he doesn't deserve this, and now his life will be forever changed by this incident.

I'm interested in several takes on this story, and I talked about some of it in the opening. We've seen incidents like this so many times that they almost seem commonplace. I don't know Lane's home life, but we've seen so many troubled kids slip through the cracks, and actions such as thishave resulted. This isn't something that simply happens over time, as the building anger and rage in the young man built to a point where he acted out in the most extreme way.

In the age of social media, with his post open and viewable for others to see, how does something like this slip through the cracks? How does a student become this disturbed without anyone noticing?

Have we as a society become disillusioned by such incidents that the shock, anger, and overflow of emotions are no longer there?

How would you personally recover if you were Nate Mueller, and you not only were injured yourself, but saw the death of a friend?

All thoughts and discussion on the incident in any direction you please is more then welcome.

 

[Captain Morgan Freeman]

As soon as i read this post i instantly thought of a show i watched a year ago. Newswipe by Charlie Brooker. It involved him taking a look at the media in general and one episode saw him talk about news channels effect on the story's they cover. I was able to find a clip of it in Youtube that relates perfectly to this story as he uses a shooting in a school in Germany as an example. It's really worth spending the 3 minutes to watch it.
[YOUTUBE]PezlFNTGWv4[/YOUTUBE]
Basically he criticizes the media for basically promoting these shootings all day every day in an effort to fill time on their 24 hour news channels while also portraying the shooters as a type of anti-hero to people who feel the same way.

In the age of social media, with his post open and viewable for others to see, how does something like this slip through the cracks? How does a student become this disturbed without anyone noticing?
I don't understand why someone didn't raise their concerns to a teacher or a parent. It could have been brushed off as a cry for attention by some but when he mentions killing in the post and taking into account how erratic his behavior must have been for the last few months it's absurd that not one person could raise their concerns with someone who could at least talk to him.


How would you personally recover if you were Nate Mueller, and you not only were injured yourself, but saw the death of a friend?
Honestly i don't think i could, or at least i wouldn't be the same person again after something like that. Weather the person was a friend or not having someone die in front of you is something i wouldn't wish on anyone. That's not even taking into account the near death experience of getting shot and surviving. I would imagine Mueller will have to undergo a lot of counseling before he begins to lead a normal life again. He will probably undergo a lot of paranoia if he ever falls out with people.
Having to deal with that is something i wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

 

[Mustang Sally]

....He was better than the rest, all those ones he detests, within their castles, so vain."Feel death, not just mocking you. Not just stalking you but inside of you. Wriggle and writhe. Feel smaller beneath my might.

People want to make their mark in the world. As recently as a generation ago, many of them were content to do this by spraying graffiti on the walls of public buildings. Everyone walking by saw this artwork and the author felt great about himself., not because of what he accomplished, but because others were seeing what he accomplished. Others admired this, and since most people possess the originality of paper napkins, they decided to "express their originality" too. All it took to fix the damage was a coat of paint to cover up the graffiti.

After Columbine, people found a new method of making their mark (or rather, they had the way pointed out to them by others, which is how most folks get their ideas) and decided: "Hey, these dudes just took guns to school and shot up their fellow students. I'm gonna do that, too!"....and we wound up with a wave of copycat killings that has grown almost into a cottage industry. Yeah, those Columbine bastards were real pioneers, that's for sure.

This Lane kid will probably be described as a loner, but he doesn't fit the definition: Lane's thoughts revolved around other people (He's better than the rest......they all should die, etc) and the way he chose to demonstrate his superiority to his peers was to open fire on them and take their lives.

To Lane, this was showing he was better than the people he killed. Personally, I don't know how you combat something like that, nor can I fathom how his parents and teachers could have forecast what he was going to do. Now, with Facebook, we see all kinds of people issuing all kinds of statements, most of them designed by the writer to make himself look good in the eyes of others. After all, if these are your private thoughts, why put them on-line unless you want others to see them?

And if you do read a disturbing entry on someone's Facebook page; what do you do? Tell his parents? His teachers? The police? Even if they're willing to pursue it, how far can they take it? What if they throw the kid into therapy, then determine he didn't really mean anything by what he wrote.....and then he commits violence after being cleared? All that would do is allow people to engage in the great American pastime: blaming someone else when bad things happen. Now we can sue his parents! Now we can sue the cops! The cause of the violence isn't stopped, but it's forgotten in the rash of litigation that follows the violence.

Sure, many people claim to have the goal of making sure things like the Lane killing never, ever, ever happen again. Some of them actually think it's possible to accomplish this. In hindsight, we know that what Lane wrote on Facebook was clearly the product of a disturbed mind. But I don't know how we're going to root out the sickos without tossing everyone who does anything remotely strange into therapy or jail. In the case of this so-called "normal" teenage boy, it's hard to know where to begin.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

In the age of social media, with his post open and viewable for others to see, how does something like this slip through the cracks? How does a student become this disturbed without anyone noticing?

I understand it, but I think its pretty disgusting. My guess is people saw that facebook post and simply brushed it off and ignored a very serious problem. I remember when I was I 7th grade and there was a suicide in my school. I never met this person myself but I heard from a lot of people the Friday before he died that he threatened to kill himself but instead of students listening to him they brushed him off and made fun of him, by Monday he was dead. The problem is warnings like this often fall through the cracks because people either think its drama so they poke the bear more or they simply don't care enough to do something. If the parents saw a post like that and did nothing then that is ridiculous, I can believe they didn't (maybe they don't have facebook) but they should have noticed a problem and at least tried to deal with it. The worst part is this all could have been avoided (possibly) if someone actually took interest in the shooter and his problems. If someone did I commend them for at least trying.

Have we as a society become disillusioned by such incidents that the shock, anger, and overflow of emotions are no longer there?

I would say to a point yes. I don't think people have come to the point where they don't care but when you sear or hear something enough times you do become decensitized to an extent. Columbine had all that emotion because it was the first widely publicized school shooting, it was more shocking. Sadly the more and more it happens the lest emotion a person shows. I live in Calgary and a little while after Columbine there was a school shooting in Taber, a town about 2-3 hours north of Calgary. Even though it was much closer to home people to considerably less interest in it for whatever reason, you would think they would take more as its closer to home but the shock was gone.

How would you personally recover if you were Nate Mueller, and you not only were injured yourself, but saw the death of a friend?

It would be extremely difficult and I don't think I would fully recover. I would think that incident would to some extent haunt me for the rest of my life. If a person is strong enough they can most certain mostly get over it and function but watching your friend die, not only that coming awfully close to death yourself its something I think would always be a part of you. The poor kid will probably have his guard up every time a stranger approaches his group of friends. I don't really know but I would think something that traumatic would be something that you would never forget and fully get over.

 

[Smooth Sexual Chocolate]

I'm sorry, but how does a post like this slip through the cracks? I don't know a great deal about Facebook, admittedly, but did noone read this post, and become the slightest bit concerned? Did noone read this and feel the need to intervene, whether it be an adult or a friend? However poetic this may sound, and words full of symbolism, did noone take this as a serious threat, and get him help? This was written a full two months before the incident took place. Further, if he was writing things such as this, how erratic must his behavior have gotten? I'm disapointed and appaled that his parents didn't see some sign of trouble, and get him help. I felt the same way when the Columbine shooting occurred, and subsequent incidents afterwards. How do the warning signs slip by, unnoticed? It baffles me, truly.

Well, I wanted to finish reading; but after this paragraph I felt I should just respond directly to this.

Firstly, you're putting way to much faith into society here, and I don't believe this truly baffles you like you say.

Second thing here, a kid who's unpopular in highschool is almost certainly not going to have many friends on facebook, he's most likely just as big of an outcast online as he was in real life, what I mean by this is I doubt anyone payed much attention to this kids social media page or anything he did online. So I'm assuming nobody read it, and the few who did probably didn't think much of it. It's so easy for this crap to slip through, especially when your not that sociable, and judging by the poem this kid had major superiority issues. Most importantly, somebody in real life should have picked up on these issues, the parents, a teacher a concerned student, not somebody on the internet. The internet is such a scapegoat for everything when the internet has nothing to do with it, the people around him in his everyday life should have stepped up to the plate.

This is no fucking different than blaming Manson for Columbine, everyone always wants to look for someone or something else to blame. You want to blame someone, blame his parents, his teachers, the people he had direct contact with on a daily basis; but don't fucking blame social networking, it couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[LSN80]

Well, I wanted to finish reading; but after this paragraph I felt I should just respond directly to this.

You should have kept reading just a little bit further.

You want to blame someone, blame his parents, his teachers, the people he had direct contact with on a daily basis; but don't fucking blame social networking, it couldn't be further from the truth.

I mentioned social networking as a means by which this could and possibly should have been picked up on. I did ask a question relating to social media, and how it was possible for noone to pick up on his post. Perhaps I do hold too much faith in society, and the kids that read it just "laughed it off" as some misguided sense of grandiosity from the "weird kid in the corner." But the information in on the boy is very limited at this point, as is motive and means. So while I did question the social media aspect of it, I also said this:

Further, if he was writing things such as this, how erratic must his behavior have gotten? I'm disapointed and appaled that his parents didn't see some sign of trouble, and get him help. I felt the same way when the Columbine shooting occurred, and subsequent incidents afterwards. How do the warning signs slip by, unnoticed? It baffles me, truly.

Perhaps my focus wasn't as much as you would have liked it to be, as this was just a small snippet from the thread. But I did question how possible behavior, be it withdrawal or other forms of social impropriety, went unnoticed. Yes, we're all busy these days, parents have jobs, and they can't keep an eye on their kids 24/7. But I did mention the word appalled with regards to his parents, and their inability to recognize something was going on, and intervene.

In the end, this isn't about social media. This isn't about the parents, friends, or teachers of the boy. It's not about the standards that have been set by those such as the Columbine boys who have done this before. In the end, we're all responsible for our own actions. I don't assign ultimate blame to social media, or his parents, although once again, I question how between the Facebook posts and possible erratic behavior that this wasn't caught.

At this point, most of what we know right now about the boy is the post he made on Facebook, hence my questioning of it.

The person I point the finger at is T.J. Lane. Social outcast or varsity quarterback, mentally disturbed or well-adjusted, noone forced him to walk up to five students and start shooting. Stripping back all the layers of who's to blame and should have done what, there's no guarantee that any intervention would have mattered, that anything said or done by the boys parents, peers, or teachers would have matterred.

Having said such, he's to blame for his actions. And I'm sure just about now the possible ramifications for said actions are starting to sink in.

___________________________________________________________________________________

In an update, the shooter's lawyer issued the following statement on behalf of Lane and his family.

"T.J. is extremely remorseful.He's very, very scared and extremely remorseful. He is a very confused young man right now. He's very confused. He is very upset. He's very distraught, and extremely remorseful. The family also has been left grappling for an explanation. This is something they could never have been predicted. T.J.'s family has asked for some privacy while they try to understand how such a tragedy could have occurred and while they mourn this terrible loss for their community".

He also said the following regarding T.J. himself:

"He is a fairly quiet and good kid with good grades who was doubling up on classes to graduate in May.
He pretty much sticks to himself but does have some friends and has never been in trouble over anything that we know about."

I'm not surprised that the family has asked for privacy, or that these events are something they "never predicted." You'ld like to think that a parent would take a long look in the mirror following this, but I'm not holding my breath that they come out and say "We should have seen this coming."

What does surprise me is both the description of and the state of mind of T.J. Lee. If the lawyer is to be believed, his thought process is different from most of the previous shootings we've seen from Columbine and forward. In most cases, the shooters have been remorseless and cold, with an "I'd do it again if I had the chance" type of attitude. Rarely in these situations do we see a student feel remorse for such cold-blooded actions, with the body toll now up to three.

It's a shame he didn't consider how he might feel before the shooting spree, rather then experiencing what it's like afterwards. It could have spared alot of lives and heartbreak for all parties involved. The follow up article can be found here.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/28/justice/ohio-school-shooting/index.html

 

[Larry]

In the age of social media, with his post open and viewable for others to see, how does something like this slip through the cracks? How does a student become this disturbed without anyone noticing?

As far as the Facebook post going unnoticed or even being noticed and not taken seriously, I don't find it all that shocking. It slips through because until something like this happens people don't take this kind of stuff very seriously. People seem to look at it and think it's a cry for attention rather than a veiled threat and keep going on with their day paying it no attention.

How does a student become that disturbed without anyone noticing? Easy, they hide it until the moment they explode. Look at the kids from Columbine, although all the signals were there, they were very private about all of it, not even the parents knew what was going on, and because these kids were social outcasts no one was paying attention anyways. Then, when the bullets start flying, suddenly everyone pays attention. I think part of it is that these kids who do this ARE overlooked in general, no one seems to give a shit about them and they know it. People couldn't seem to care less about what state they are in or what is bothering them because they don't count in social circles, so this is how they let people know they are fed up with being treated poorly, being overlooked as if they don't exist, and made to feel like less than their peers. If anyone WAS paying attention, and DID care about them they would have been watching, they would have been involved enough in their lives to know something was wrong or to at least have a better insight into the kids life to know they were experiencing a great deal of emotional distress because of all these outside factors.

I'm not saying that the acts are warranted, that anyone deserves to be a victim of those kinds of attacks, or placing blame on anyone specifically as no one else made any of those people pull the trigger. However, the way you treat people does matter, caring about other people does make a difference, and in cases like this if these people had felt more social acceptance, and if someone had cared enough about them to be paying attention and seeing what was going on it may have been preventable. People don't just wake up and decide to go spray their classmates, it's a product of built up emotions erupting in a final act of frustration and anger.

Have we as a society become disillusioned by such incidents that the shock, anger, and overflow of emotions are no longer there?

Possibly. After so many occurrences with it becoming an almost common thing, you just aren't as surprised by it so that shock is gone. I don't know if the anger of overflow of emotions has fled most peoples reactions because this is a growing issue, but being stunned by such an occurrence is definitely a thing of the past at this point. I think it goes to show that kids are no less cruel towards their peers than they have ever been, that bullying and treating people like shit for various reasons is running strong in our schools, and that despite the rules you try to enforce to prevent that kind of treatment or the positive anti-bullying campaigns you try to promote it is a major major issue and one that does not have a definitive solution. How do you make everyone get along? How do you stop people from treating other people like shit to the point that they want to come back to school and shoot every motherfucker in sight?

You can't. Assholes are going to be assholes, their going to torment the people they think are less than them and they are going to make those people feel like they are less than them. The only thing you can do is try to prevent this kind of thing from happening and I think part of that prevention is giving kids better ways to deal with it. What are you going to do when some kid who is the golden-child in the eyes of authority figures you need to intervene keeps tormenting you and getting away with because of their social status opposed to your own? Kids are virtually powerless to do anything to end the torment and mistreatment. Authority figures want to play it down and act like it's not a big deal, and the people who perpetuate the mistreatment of these kids who go fucking crazy just keep it up until something like this happens and THEY become the victim.

How would you personally recover if you were Nate Mueller, and you not only were injured yourself, but saw the death of a friend?

There isn't a lot you can do. You have to try and just pick up and go on with your life. Of course it's not as simple as that, but that's what you've got to do. Cope the best you can and move forward. It's not something that you can point to a cure-all solution to, it's a process that takes time. You've got to heal physically and do your best to heal mentally and emotionally if you can. If I was the parent on Nate Mueller I would probably ask him if he felt that some kind of therapy or counseling of some kind would help and get him that kind of support first and foremost and see where that goes and if it helps. Then, as the parent I would be there for support in every way I could. If I were Nate Mueller I would probably seek out that therapy and counseling to deal with that if I am having issues resolving the whole thing. Otherwise there just isn't much you CAN do.

 

[lalaineB]

I fell bad for what had happened. A school lockdown must be improved and tighten to prevent further shooting or accidents to happen again.