<p>I don’t know enough about the facts of this case - much less this guy’s mental-health issues (assuming he in fact has them) - for any of this to be anything other than highly speculative, but I’m not at all sure that any of the factors referred to in skisaloman89’s last post would be inconsistent with the possibility that bipolar illness played, at a minimum, a significant contributing role here.</p>
<p>But ski, similar to what epistrophy just posted, the fact that the Seattle shooter thought it through is not evidence he was sane. Just because people are, as kluge pointed out, “crazy as a loon”, doesn’t mean they must also be impetuous. The ability to plan is not the definition of sanity. The BTK murderer was a great planner - but he also seems a total nutcase. (The use of the words “crazy”, “loon” and “nutcase” obviously show you I am not a medical practitioner ! )</p>
<p>I truly sympathize with a lot of the opinions on this thread. But sympathy does not mean agreement. I believe we have to be very careful not to attribute the sins of the believer onto the religion. I, as a Christian, do not want the sins of that guy who was bombing and killing people in the name of stopping abortions, to be held against Christianity.</p>
<p>One of the issues we have to deal with in the Mideast is the role of religion. But can it be overplayed? In other words, if we created a new state in the middle of any area of historic strife - regardless of religion - would we have a benign outcome? Scottish Protestants were plonked down in Catholic Ireland several hundred years ago, and I think they are still trying to work that one out, aren’t they?</p>
<p>I am willing to go waaaaaaay out on the limb here and suggest this was probably a hate crime, committed by a mentally ill person.</p>
<p>Kumbaya!</p>
<p>yates also called the police so does that make someone sane? can’t have it both way</p>
<p>Yates waited till she was alone, methodically slaughtered her children, and then called 911 and she was deemed psychotic</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>climbin’ out on the limb with -Allmusic- … Hope it’s sturdy! ;)</p>
<p>~b.</p>
<p>They will have a hard time proving all the preparation involved was done while in a legally insane state. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>As long as we’re going out on limbs:</p>
<p>I don’t need to know anything more about this guy’s mental-health issues than I know now - which ain’t much - to be confident that he’ll never be found not guilty by reason of insanity, no matter how crazy he is. </p>
<p>Why? Because his homicides, unlike those in the Yates case, are the sort to strike fear in the hearts of the jurors - to make them feel afraid for themselves, their loved ones, and their community. </p>
<p>Jurors who feel pity for a defendant may find her not guilty by reason of insanity. (And don’t for a minute underestimate how much of an impact Yates’ gender may have had on that verdict.) Jurors who fear a defendant won’t.</p>
<p>Epistrophy is undoubtedly correct about insanity as a legal defense - which is, of course, a completely different thing from insanity as a root cause of the acts. The jury’s decision not to give Moussaoui the death penalty shows that juries are not necessarily ruled by emotion, but insanity is a very tough defense to use successfully (and doesn’t, as noted in the “Yates” thread, result in freedom for the perpetrator anyway.) My prediction is that the guy’s lawyers will want to plead insanity and he won’t let them.</p>
<p>As the woman tried to get away after being shot in the chest he leaned over and shot her again, in the head, killing her.
I hope they go for the death penalty and get it. The DA pretty much said he would go that way.</p>
<p>this is different than yates. Immensly different. Yates killed her own children. She suffered from post-partum (not an excuse) and her children were some sort of connection to that. This muslim guy picked the woman bc she was jewish. It was no different than eichmann except that eichman took millions, and while eichmann was doing it for the benefit of the world…this man was doing it at the bidding of islamic law</p>
<p>my point was that she called 911, had a plan, and did it flawlessly and yet was still deemed psychotic</p>
<p>a poster here said that because the shooter had a plan, was organized, etc, that he MUST be sane</p>
<p>I was merely pointing out that even the mentally ill are capable of having a plan, knowing what they did was wrong, and executing that plan</p>
<p>That was the reason for my post</p>
<p>She also used religion for her actions, her children were not good enough Christians in her mind, she didn’t raise them well enough</p>
<p>She had a plan- waited until she was alone, did it quiclky, actually had kind of had a run through before by filling the tub, she called the police and said, I did a bad thing…and she was deemed “insane”</p>
<p>Again your missing alot of things. What Yates said after her children we all know. With a good lawyer you can do alot (OJ Simpson) This man sought out a gun, sought out Jews, waited patiently to gain access into a building, shot a woman once, shot her again in the head, while saying something or another about Jews and Islam. This man could have found Jews outside of the Jewish Federation, it would not have been very hard at all. However, the Jewish Federation was an important target because it is a symbol of Judaism. It is where Jews gather. Why kill some jew on the street when one gun shot can frighten thousands of others. It was a similar tactic to those who choose an argentinian JCC a target. Also this guy wasnt some trailor trash, uneducated person. He had a degree in Engineering and everything. Lived comfortably. In fact his profile is similar to that of a terrorist. Nice middle class to upper-middle class lifestly, educated and so on. And then you dont know what kind of affect bipolarism had on him. For all you know it had 0 effect and this was just another terrorist act. On the other hand it could have had a huge effect, but what is known is that he is Muslim and if that had no effect it must be very very coincedental that he chose a jew as his target at the Jewish Federation and was saying stuff about islam and jews.</p>
<p>Nice middle class to upper-middle class lifestly
In Pasco?
Ive been to Pasco.
He also has been marginally employed for the last 10 years- pretty difficult to maintain an upper income lifestyle when you are working as a 7-11 clerk</p>
<p>He started his life middle class. He had a good education too.</p>
<p>he was fired from his telemarketing job- how good could it have been?</p>
<p>You can get a good education but still make the wrong choices in life. The guy ended up killing a jew because she was a jew.</p>
<p>He was fired for being non-compliant with company directions. I guess you might call it having an attitude problem. You can be well educated and smart and still have a bad attitude.</p>
<p>he had an extended history of getting jobs that lasted a couple weeks to a couple days because he either quit or was fired.
</p>
<p>He does have a degree in enginering that he received from Washington states campus in teh Tri Cities, but he didn’t have meaningful work.</p>
<p>I am certainly not saying that he didn’t know what he ws doing and wasn’t culpable. BUt I think there were strong indications that he was pretty messed up for a long time.</p>
<p>He does have a degree in enginering that he received from Washington states campus in teh Tri Cities, but he didn’t have meaningful work.</p>
<p>Actually what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Does it mean he is not culpable for planning and executing a plan to kill Jews?</p>
<p>“Actually what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Does it mean he is not culpable for planning and executing a plan to kill Jews?”</p>
<p>It means the guy was mentally ill for awhile. We don’t know yet how well he planned in advance to do this. From his past experiences, it looks like he wasn’t a big planner. We as a society always try to understand the why of a situation, that’s all this is. </p>
<p>Up here we’re still at a loss about the guy from Montana that took a shotgun to a bunch of ravers and killed a bunch of them before himself. It’s just a natural tendency to try and understand these mentally ill people.</p>