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Sadness

edited April 2007 in Everything Else
This sucks, my thoughts and prayers goes to the families affected :(

Comments

  • I know ALOT of people that go there. I have yet to hear from anyone though...
  • edited April 2007
    Jack Thompson is already on the T.V stations saying this guy was trained by playing "Doom." I have a feeling that we are going to be seeing alot more of Mr. Thompson; Lawyer, School Shooting Expert (Well according to CNN at least).
    Post edited by Andrew on
  • Jack Thompson is already on the T.V stations saying this guy was trained by playing "Doom." I have a feel that we are going to be seeing alot more of Mr. Thompson; Lawyer, School Shooting Expert (Well according to CNN at least).
    /sigh

    I really thought we wouldn't see much of him anymore.
  • I'll reserve final judgment until all of the facts are in.... but it seems like 20 students should still be alive. A gunman is on the loose from a 7:15am murder, and goes on to kill 20 more people at about 10:00am? Shouldn't the school have been locked down until they found the gunman?

    The school did not admit that the incidents were related, but they went on to say that there was one gunman and he was dead. Therefore, one can reasonably conclude that it was the same shooter.
  • edited April 2007
    I'll reserve final judgment until all of the facts are in.... but it seems like 20 students should still be alive. A gunman is on the loose from a 7:15am murder, and goes on to kill 20 more people at about 10:00am? Shouldn't the school have been locked down until they found the gunman?

    The school did not admit that the incidents were related, but they went on to say that there was one gunman and he was dead. Therefore, one can reasonably conclude that it was the same shooter.
    Well, there is a question of whether or not the gunman could have relatively inconspicuously left the dorm (when few college students would have been awake at 7:15 am) before the gunshot could be reported to (or evern heard by) campus/local police and then police could arrive on the scene to enact the lockdown.

    Not to mention that the main administrative staff of the school likely would not have arrived in to handle matters until around 8 am, and even that assumes that they were immediately appraised of the situation upon their arrival.

    If the shooter did in fact use a 9 mm gun (or two, not sure exactly what the news was saying), it and the ammunition could have reasonably been concealed in a jacket or a backpack and he could have blent in with the early risers heading off to classes. It also sounded like he might have been chaining off the building to prevent entrance exit from the second site, so the backpack notion seems a likely possibility.
    Post edited by Your Mom on
  • Based on the few interviews I have heard, the school was aware of the first shooting well before the second shooting. They had obviously not found the killer, which means that a prudent person could only assume that a killer could be on campus.

    The school should have had plans if the administrators were not there. That's what crisis planning is all about.
  • At this point, I have not seen any information that suggest that anyone had seen the gunman at the intial site(s) within the dormitory. The panic that was mentioned at the dormitory (presumably after students were awakened by the gunshots or the ensuing commotion) would have provided ample opportunity for the gunman to escape, unless there was security posted outside every possible exit from the dormitory within 3-5 minutes of the last shooting. Tell me how often you have seen a police car get on scene within that time frame. Every aspect of the crime that has been mention thus far suggests a fair amount of pre-meditation, which would presumably include an escape plan from the first site to the second.

    Relative to the crisis planning, trust even such emergency situations will take a fair amount of time to enact that chain. Top school officials would be called on the chain as soon as they can be contacted, and information would trickle down as appropriate.

    As far as the first response would be able to tell, there might not have been any indication that this would be anything more than an isolated incident which seriously shifts the priorities. But there is no telling who was initially alerted to the crime scene, how long their arrival would take, how many officers would be deployed to the scene of the crime, how long it would take to handle the emergency health services of the dead/wounded (as that is #1 priority for the first responding police officers on site and a further complication to locking down the dorm building), and how long it would take to contact that administration after that has been completed. Not to mention crowd control.

    I admit, what I am saying is pure conjecture based on limited facts, but there would be a great deal for both the responding police forces and campus administration to think over before any decision to lock down the campus would necessarily be made.
  • Well... security experts and retired police are all saying that this was inexcusable. I guess I'll go with their opinion.
  • I have to agree with kilarney on this one. If they knew that there was a number of students shot that was not zero, they should've shut the campus down. It might've panicked the students, but there's a good chance it would've saved a lot of lives too.

    I do have to concur that this whole thing seemed VERY premeditated. Most random shootings don't wind up with 30 deaths, nor do most gunmen get away only to return later.

    This whole thing is, without a doubt, terrible.
  • edited April 2007
    If they knew that there was a number of students shot that was not zero, they should've shut the campus down. It might've panicked the students, but there's a good chance it would've saved a lot of lives too.
    And how would they have handled the thousands of students who reside on campus, particularly when the shooter could get inside the dorm and the students were already potentially vulnerable to attack? (Just to play devil's advocate here.)
    Well... security experts and retired police are all saying that this was inexcusable. I guess I'll go with their opinion.
    Well, I'm just drawing from the crime scene and emergency planning information I learned from current FBI (agents and professional staff), police (retired and not), current and former military, and AT security experts for my Masters degree. They would cite limited capacity of resources and large scale homicide experience from a small town/rural police force and a campus police force (who may or may not be armed), the scale of crime scene and large search radius (as I already mentioned the short time frame required for the shooter to potentially leave the premises), the emergency health services aspect, and the crowd control of several thousand students (at least those in the dorms on site) as severe complications to the situations. Time was required to bring in help to supplement their limited force (and they did, including state and federal law enforcement for the manhunt), but as was stated by the local police chief, there was no indication that the first incident was anything more than a domestic dispute gone horribly wrong...and haven't we seen that in the news a good deal lately?

    It is incredibly easy to criticize, especially in retrospect. I choose to give this police force a lot of credit for everything that they did manage to do, although it was not enough to stop someone who clearly wanted to kill as many as he could and planned for it. A lock down would have helped those police not held up in other duties related to the primary site to enact the search. According to the news that I heard, the campus was locked down, although not immediately. I will say that I would expect the University to have taken no more than an hour to make their decision and act on on closing down the campus, enacting lock down procedures, or at least providing information and warning to University students and faculty through as many different avenues as possible. That is an obvious failing and one that will cost the school in many ways. I have not seen an official time frame for the lock down aside from what bits and pieces were mentioned early on. (However, I am also slightly inclined to give the University a little benefit of the doubt as I have seen local and national news media absolutely wrong on reported time frames in emergency situations before, particularly two that I've either been personally involved in or know someone who has been personally involved in.)

    This is a situation without a relative precedent to describe the open nature of the campus and the dual site school shooting, as opposed to the closed campus situation with Columbine and the single location in the University of Texas shooting...and as with each situation before, it will bring about further reform in the way that all situations are handled, so that lives may better be preserved.
    This whole thing is, without a doubt, terrible.
    Indeed. The situation is incredibly sad...and the loss of life is high enough that it is fairly hard to mentally and emotionally process.
    Post edited by Your Mom on
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