These shootings ARE to be expected, LakeWashington. We have done absolutely zero to attempt to curb them so of course they’re going to continue to happen.
As I say on every thread like this- I’m numb to this but I am furious. I have never, ever thought of school as a “safe” place because I don’t remember a time pre-Columbine. But I am absolutely sick to my stomach that we have done NOTHING to stop these, because really- we haven’t. As a nation, we have not done a g** d*** thing.
So our young people will continue to die while those in charge continue to be controlled by you-know-who. Afterall, the victims are nameless, faceless statistics to 99+% of the population. Every single politician who sits by either ignoring the problem or actively fighting to keep the status quo has blood on his/her hands and I hope that haunts them every day for the rest of their lives. But it won’t.
The shooter at Umpqua Community College on Thursday asked people to state their religion and then started firing, one student said.
Kortney Moore, an 18-year-old, told the News Review she was sitting in her writing class when a bullet blasted through the window. She saw her teacher shot in the head then noticed that the shooter was in the classroom.
Moore said the shooter told people to get on the ground. He then asked people to stand up and state their religion but started firing anywhere. She was on the ground next to people who’d been shot.
They just interviewed a student (25 year old former Navy serviceman) that was on the campus today and got a glimpse of the student. He told Brian Williams that he was also on campus when there was a high school shooting in nearby Roseburg(?) in 2006. Can you imagine being in 2 school shootings?
Maybe it’s just my anger and frustration, but the photos of police frisking students and searching their bookbags after the fact bothers me. I know that obviously securing the scene is priority, but I hope they first went in to search for survivors and possible weapons/traps laid by the madman.
I went to a psych conference last Friday, and one speaker, a MD, was very in depth about this topic “Youth Violence, Mass Murder and Mental Illness”. He talked about a few incidences I had not heard of (West Paducah KY 1997, and Jonesboro AK 1998).
A few really early school guns and homicides, 1764 in Greencastle PA where a schoolmaster and 9 students were murdered; gang of lads and robbery 1909 in Nevada City CA - organized gang robbing a hardware store of revolvers of all sizes and several rifles - one of the boys was shot and slightly wounded in a class room; the sheriff learned that many of the boys went armed all the time, and some purchased weapons from other boys.
There was a New Jersey Fusion Center examination of 29 mass shootings since 1999, and nearly half of the shootings happened at a workplace. All but one of the shooters were male between the ages of 17 and 48. Columbine had two active shooters - all the others were one attacker. CDC, between 1999 and 2006, a total of 116 students were killed in 109 school-associated incidents. Avg 21 deaths a year school related shooting, and common themes. Talked about some planned shootings but were averted (sad that this young man’s social media posts were not heeded to avert this terrible tragedy).
Generally three categories of shooter - traumatized, psychotic, or psychopathic.
The Oregon State Attorney expressed her condolences about “this unspeakable tragedy.” Well folks, in fact it is quite speakable since it’s happening over and over again in this country. Dane Cook said it best in his tweet a short while ago: “pathetic and abhorrent.”
I’m sure there are many more shootings averted than ever make the news. I’ve mentioned on CC before that when my D was in high school, an acquaintance was ranting to her that he was going to shoot people, that he’d made a list, and set a date. My D was very upset and although she had the usual teenager’s fear of reporting on someone, she told me about it that night. I called the police, and they interviewed her. They found guns hidden under the boy’s bed in his house, and he was committed to a facility for a while. I can’t tell you how nervous I was when he got out, but he told her that he wasn’t mad, and her reporting him ended in him getting help and he said it was the best thing that could ever have happened to him. It never got into the paper, but I’ll always think of my D as a hero for having the courage to tell me.
I’ll just say what I said on the other thread about this - we should have a mass shooting thread stickied. There will another one next week. 142 mass shootings since Sandy Hook.
So the shooter, told folks online what he was going to do, even told them not to be in the area and NO ONE bothered to tell anyone, smdh…I have no words. This is why I love twitter, always first with the news.
@hayden:
It took a lot of guts for her to tell you, it can be so hard, both from a sense of loyalty to someone you consider a friend, and also fear of what will happen if it cames out you blew the whistle, either from the person you are notifying authorities about or sadly, from their friends and family when they say all the kid was doing was ‘venting’.
I don’t know why the shooter did this, what his story was, there is so much anger out there, so many people with hate, and things like this come from that. The guy may have been someone with a serious mental illness, or they could be someone full of anger and hate at their life, which probably has been fanned by the rhetoric that is so common in society from all corners, that someone who isn’t like you must be the ‘enemy’. I don’t know if there is any one answer to this issue, but what I do think is that these things happen, people get upset, call for X, Y and Z to be done, then people forget, and in the end we don’t try anything, either because people go on with their lives until the next incident, or because they see one solution, Y, and won’t even think of pushing for X and Z.
From what I have read it sounds like the social media posting was on a message board thread and was vague about the details. It also seems that this site is one that the posts disappears after posting.
A student at the Oregon community college where a mass shooting occurred says the gunman shot her teacher and asked others in her classroom about their religion before spraying more bullets.
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Eighteen-year-old Kortney Moore of Rogue River tells the Roseburg News-Review newspaper that she was in a writing class at Umpqua (UHMP’-kwah) Community College in Roseburg on Thursday when a shot came through a window.
The gunman entered her classroom and told people to get on the ground.
Moore says the man started asking people to stand up and state their religion and then opened fire.
The shooting left 13 people dead and at least 20 injured.
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin says authorities responded and exchanged gunfire with the man. He says the shooter died at the scene, but he didn’t say whether the man killed himself or was shot by police.
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Another report mentioned that the murdered prof that was teaching was Jewish…don’t know if that’s why he was targeted by this murderer.
Condolences and an observation of the times we live in;
The American Association of Community Colleges and the Association of Community College Trustees called the Umpqua shooting a “tragedy” but also said it was not unusual.
“We are deeply saddened by these events, and our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the shooting. Sadly, these types of occurrences are not unheard of at community colleges. We are committed to supporting on-campus safety and security measures at our colleges, with a priority emphasis on prevention whenever possible. While campus safety is of the utmost priority, due to their open nature, college and university campuses are susceptible to these types of events.”
You know what, I don’t want the name of the shooter. I think they shouldn’t publish any information about the shooter. I think the fame (or infamy) these shooters get just encourages other young men to think about becoming a shooter themselves.
I would love if the media would decide not to release any shooter info. Let all these school shooters remain anonymous and forgotten. I think that might help deter future shooters.
I agree that if anyone thought this would not happen again is living under a rock. I’m sadly not surprised, all too common in this country. People fear to go to college, movie theaters, the mall…the only way this is ever going to change is stronger laws. People should DEMAND that their legislators work harder to protect citizens. Better background checks, no internet sales of guns and ammunition, and for the love of God, responsible gun owners be sure that your guns are secured in a locked gun safe! Sure some will fall through the cracks but let’s at the very least make it a little tougher for guns to end up in the wrong hands.