Ships in the night
Earlier this week, I was talking to Dave, who knew one of the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy. Honestly, I had been self absorbed and not been in contact with the outside or the details about the tragedy. So while I was chatting with Dave and sharing in his pain, I browsed articles to learn more.
The more links I followed, the more senseless the violence. This is no surprise of course, the killing of innocent people always is. But in reading one of the descriptions of the shooter, something clicked in my mind.
Loner.
Socially Awkward.
Rough and unwanted overtures to women.
Does anyone else remember Ken? What more would have pushed him over? It could have been so much worse then him ripping a door off in the bathroom and threatening to throw himself out a window. He could have easily acquired a gun and mowed down Aundrea at any time - and who knows who might have gotten in the way. We joked about him going postal, but how much of a stretch would it have taken for him to do it?
What can a school do to protect students? They do too little and blamed for a lack of action, do too much and they over reacted and inconvienced the student body. And how easy is it to lock down an urban campus? I mean at DPU it would have been no big deal, but I can see with going to IUPUI that it would be nearly impossible to protect and warn all students when they are coming and going from so many different places. Goodness knows I woudln't know anything was going on until I was already on campus and in a gunman's sights. Where is the line between crazy harmless and crazy homicidal? We all have met those people, avoided them...or been them from time to time. On NPR they were talking about mental health industry and students. Many of the experts testified of having concerns about patients, but didn't want to take definitive action till they were sure of the person's decision to do harm or risk exposing the patient as 'crazy' to society - esp if the patient was in an academic environment - and risk further damaging the patient.
There is no win win in this - but it's awful that the victims final and terrifying moments have become a media circus. Maybe more so that a killer like Cho would think to send a media package to a major network, knowing that our society would air it - making himself a martyr for the awkward and those slighted by society/individuals.
I realize there is freedom of speech and such, but what harm would it have been for the networks to sit on their hands and just passed off the package to the police for them to deal with? Perhaps to air at a more responsible time and place? But where would the ratings and shock journalism in that? It's just like the high school shootings that scared our high school experience. I remember the shootings in Paducah , Kentucky. It was the lead story for months, rehashing the most minute detail and creating even more drama when there was nothing new to report. It kept the wound open and people scared. Did it help society deal with the issue? I'm not sure.
People need to know and not kept in the dark, but society (media) should also recognize and remember that every time a face is flashed across the TV screen or YouTube and people are seen as blurs through a cell phone video. These are people's lives, their last moments - played out for the world and thrown in the faces of the ones who loved them. I mean if you (heaven forbid) would have a loved one taken from you, killed in the most tragic and terrifying way, would you want to hear those gunshots and see their faces on the evening news every time you turned around? Knowing that 17th shot, that blast of light, was your friend or loved one taken from this world with so much left undone?
The more links I followed, the more senseless the violence. This is no surprise of course, the killing of innocent people always is. But in reading one of the descriptions of the shooter, something clicked in my mind.
Loner.
Socially Awkward.
Rough and unwanted overtures to women.
Does anyone else remember Ken? What more would have pushed him over? It could have been so much worse then him ripping a door off in the bathroom and threatening to throw himself out a window. He could have easily acquired a gun and mowed down Aundrea at any time - and who knows who might have gotten in the way. We joked about him going postal, but how much of a stretch would it have taken for him to do it?
What can a school do to protect students? They do too little and blamed for a lack of action, do too much and they over reacted and inconvienced the student body. And how easy is it to lock down an urban campus? I mean at DPU it would have been no big deal, but I can see with going to IUPUI that it would be nearly impossible to protect and warn all students when they are coming and going from so many different places. Goodness knows I woudln't know anything was going on until I was already on campus and in a gunman's sights. Where is the line between crazy harmless and crazy homicidal? We all have met those people, avoided them...or been them from time to time. On NPR they were talking about mental health industry and students. Many of the experts testified of having concerns about patients, but didn't want to take definitive action till they were sure of the person's decision to do harm or risk exposing the patient as 'crazy' to society - esp if the patient was in an academic environment - and risk further damaging the patient.
There is no win win in this - but it's awful that the victims final and terrifying moments have become a media circus. Maybe more so that a killer like Cho would think to send a media package to a major network, knowing that our society would air it - making himself a martyr for the awkward and those slighted by society/individuals.
I realize there is freedom of speech and such, but what harm would it have been for the networks to sit on their hands and just passed off the package to the police for them to deal with? Perhaps to air at a more responsible time and place? But where would the ratings and shock journalism in that? It's just like the high school shootings that scared our high school experience. I remember the shootings in Paducah , Kentucky. It was the lead story for months, rehashing the most minute detail and creating even more drama when there was nothing new to report. It kept the wound open and people scared. Did it help society deal with the issue? I'm not sure.
People need to know and not kept in the dark, but society (media) should also recognize and remember that every time a face is flashed across the TV screen or YouTube and people are seen as blurs through a cell phone video. These are people's lives, their last moments - played out for the world and thrown in the faces of the ones who loved them. I mean if you (heaven forbid) would have a loved one taken from you, killed in the most tragic and terrifying way, would you want to hear those gunshots and see their faces on the evening news every time you turned around? Knowing that 17th shot, that blast of light, was your friend or loved one taken from this world with so much left undone?