Shooting on Virginia Tech campus

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 17 2007, 02:14 PM) [snapback]424886[/snapback]</div>

Perhaps the most famous experiment along these lines was the Stanford Prison Experiment

What's very sobering is the degree of depredation a human being will succumb to where context completely overrides personal ethics. "Good" vs "Evil" is so simplistic and inadequate as to be wholly irrelevant to any meaningful study of human behavior - kind of like attempting to understand entire oceanic systems, currents, tides, undersea topography, all the phyla of marine life, etc. in terms of "wet" or "dry".

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Apr 17 2007, 02:11 PM) [snapback]424736[/snapback]</div>

Come on people, let's please stop the second-guessing!

It's so easy for us to sit in our easy chairs and play Monday morning quarterback. We weren't there. We don't know the facts. We're not the ones making critical and often split-second decisions with limited information. I am not about to criticize the university until and unless all the facts, once they're known and evaluated by experts, point to a problem.

As for the victim's handling, I will speak as a fire department paramedic of 24 years with firefighter training (no longer fighting fires). As others have observed, the cops most likely weren't certain of the scene's security at the time this picture was taken. Otherwise, they probably would have had EMS enter to remove the victims. I admit the victim could have been handled more gracefully than what the picture presents. More effectively? It ain't pretty, but their technique looks pretty effective for a hot zone. Equally as safe? Any carry with one person carrying the total load of another is a ticket to a back injury. I would use the fireman's carry only as a last resort. What's safest -- for the victim and the rescuers -- is to move the victim with multiple people (to distribute the load) as quickly as possible out of the hot zone. The picture appears to portray that.

Let's reserve judgement, folks. I am already tired of the talking heads on TV looking to spread blame and find fault with anything and anybody. I guess they feel they have to. We shouldn't.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JimboK @ Apr 17 2007, 02:54 PM) [snapback]424918[/snapback]</div>

For a few years now, I have completely quit watching almost all TV - especially, I never watch broadcast news. Not any broadcast news, not on any station.

I read from internet sites, filtered carefully, and my local newspaper's web page.. and that's about it. I find that I'm overall a happier and yet still reasonably informed person.

I despise the talking heads. Reminds me of the song "Dirty Laundry," which is a low in Don Henly's career but it's a propos.

I just wish the media could be bludgeoned into some semblance of proper respect for those who are suffering.

 

I'm an infrequent poster here at best, but I have a child at Virginia Tech and I lived in West Ambler Johnston years and years ago.

I agree with JimboK. It is very easy for anyone to "Monday morning quarterback" any situation especially after one has more facts and time. The people on campus made decisions based on the information that was available at the time the decisions needed to be made.

How many things in your lives would you have done differently if you had known then what you know now?

Now, take a break from arguing and criticizing and go hug your children. And while you are taking the break, if you are a person who prays, please say a prayer for the friends and families of the people who were lost.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zapranoth @ Apr 17 2007, 06:14 PM) [snapback]424928[/snapback]</div>

Good for you! I should wean myself off it. But since I haven't ....

NBC just had a brief segment of an interview with the family of the young man in the picture. They seemed grateful their son was alive, not resentful towards how he was handled. Obviously we don't know what was edited out of this pre-recorded piece. But I suspect if they had raised the issue, we would have seen it.

Part of my interest in watching this story is to learn the names of the casualties as they are released. The student body and faculty have a lot of local connections. Of those whose names have been released, at least one of the dead is from this area. She and one of my kids may have been at the same school many years ago, though a couple of years apart.

 

It does indeed seem like the news are trying to throw blame on someone or something. I think that's one of the things that strikes all of us--he's the only person, he's dead, and there's no place to put the anger (oh wait--I know a place, but I won't mention it here...).

It's apparent the guy had a psychotic break. That's not an excuse for what he did--I'm glad he's dead.

And a guy on a psychotic break really doesn't give a good g-d if he's going up against an army...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(desynch @ Apr 17 2007, 02:46 PM) [snapback]424908[/snapback]</div>

Trying to identify a cause to reduce events like this in the future is a lot different than making excuses. It's quite possible that he wigged out on his own, but if there is any contributing factor that can be eliminated it should be investigated.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Apr 17 2007, 09:24 AM) [snapback]424706[/snapback]</div>

I think we should also differentiate between those speaking in grief and the pundits. People in grief will say all sorts of things, and they really should be allowed to. I heard a quote today about dealing with people who are grieving attributed to a Rabbi Kuschner (?): "Show up and shut up." Be there and listen to them, and let them talk it out.

Anyone who has lost someone close knows that grief goes bone-deep, and doesn't go away for a long time. Maybe it never goes away, but with time, it does change, and you learn to deal with it. One thing that seems to help people is to talk about the person they have lost, who they were, and how much they miss them. That's not the time for philosophy, or religion, or "cheer up" statements. It is the time to "show up, and shut up."

I don't have too much patience right now for the pundits on the left and right making political statements about this. Its too early, even for those of us who are dispassionate observers. There are thousands ... thousands ... of people affected by this who have lost someone they loved, or knew, or sat next to.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JimboK @ Apr 17 2007, 01:54 PM) [snapback]424918[/snapback]</div>

Besides, she or he is a gunshot victim, not someone you have to tie to a backboard to prevent paralysis. The only thing I really see in that picture is some awfully brave people risking their lives to try and save someone.

If any of you see me bleeding on the ground from gunshot wounds, and you decide to risk your lives to save mine, I hereby give you permission to pull me out by my hair if you want to.

 

Today, a beautiful sunshiny day, while driving my Prius and listening to the news on the radio they broadcast a small portion of the Virigina Tech convocation. I didn't catch who the woman speaker was but it was an emotionally stirring speech and it reminded me a bit of Churchill's "We shall fight on . . ." address to the House of Commons. At the moment she ended the crowd of students spontaneously broke into the school fight song..... I couldn't hear it very well but I think they said "Let's go HOKIES, We ARE Virginia Tech!"

I had to pull over the wipers just wouldn't keep up. [attachmentid=7538]



Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Apr 18 2007, 01:42 AM) [snapback]425151[/snapback]</div>

Excellent point.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Apr 18 2007, 01:42 AM) [snapback]425151[/snapback]</div>

:lol:

Another thought on this victim that didn't hit me right away. His pelvic area and upper leg(s) appear bloody in the picture. In the NBC interview his parents said he indeed had a significant leg wound. To use a fireman's carry would expose the unprotected rescuer to significant amounts of the patient's blood. Safer for them in this regard is to do what they're doing.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 18 2007, 03:33 AM) [snapback]425190[/snapback]</div>

I watched most of it, though I fell asleep toward the end. I missed that piece, unfortunately.

[EDIT: I just realized that to say I fell asleep might suggest to some that I was bored or uninterested. I was home and under the weather, and had been awake since 4:00 a.m.]

I gotta put in a plug for our governor too. I don't always agree with his politics, and his delivery yesterday was not as smooth as that of past speeches. That's totally forgivable -- he had just arrived in Japan from Virginia on a trade mission when the shootings occurred, was awakened at zero-dark-thirty to be notified, and then made an abrupt return. He had to be exhausted. But more to the point: He used no notes or script. His words all came from the heart. And they were words of comfort and inspiration. One of his finer moments.

 

Goodmorning!!!

It's now about 48hrs since this thing started, went bad and ended. Now that America and our short attention span has forgotten that it even happened, what's next?

Oh yeah... Let's head to Sears and charge up a flat screen TV... um... oh yeah, let's run the president of the college and the chief of campus police out of town on a rail of shame... and.. oh... what was that other thing we were going to do?? Dangit, I know there was 3 things, but I can only think of two right now. Have a great wednesday!

What were we talking about?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 18 2007, 03:33 AM) [snapback]425190[/snapback]</div>

That was Nikki Giovanni, probably our most elite professor in the English department. She is an internationally acclaimed/awarded poet, and she certainly demonstrated her abilities when it comes to word choice and communicating a message. The whole scene was extraordinarily moving.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zapranoth @ Apr 17 2007, 03:14 PM) [snapback]424928[/snapback]</div>

No television input in my house. There's a TV set, but the only input to it is the DVD player, and it sits in the basement, in front of the treadmill. I watch a movie or Teaching Company lectures while exercising.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 18 2007, 12:33 AM) [snapback]425190[/snapback]</div>

Well I guess the radio did some creative editing and the commentator was speaking during the broadcast but I caught it on YouTube and the actual speech was titled "We are Virginia Tech" and the song was the crowd chanting "Let's GO HOKIES!" after a standing oviation for her speech.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(livelychick @ Apr, 05:45 AM) [snapback]425234[/snapback]</div>

She had the shooter removed from one of her classes in 2005 because her students were so disturbed by him that many of them refused to show up for class.

Apparently, the shooter mailed a package to NBC between the 2 shootings, which they received today. NBC news tonight (the program with Brian Williams) is going to talk about what was in the package.

 

TJ, what are your thoughts, with your experience talking the suicidal away from the abyss (and having survived being shot at by one such anguished soul)? I know that many (most) have zero interest in plumbing the mind of someone who commits such atrocity, but it'll keep happening until we grit our teeth and make that effort, learning eventually either to foresee the incipient acts in time to intervene, or, more hopefully, how to relieve the tortured minds among us so that they never feel the need to lash out in the first place.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

man. i look back and when i was on the brink of suicide (many, many years ago), i said whatever people wanted to hear to get them off my case. i wanted nothing more than to be left alone. i don't remember much from that time period but the things i wrote back then say a lot.

if you want to slip through the cracks, it's not all that hard with mental health... after all, we're talking about an experience only the patient has, the doctor/medical professional can only guess what they're going through and kinda has to take their word on it. plus, the stigma it carries in society, being labeled with mental health trouble and such. nobody wants that label.

that kid was seriously messed up... and i'm sure he strongly believed every word he said and in his little twisted world, it all made perfect sense. frightening.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Apr 18 2007, 08:09 PM) [snapback]425801[/snapback]</div>

Doesn't schizophrenia show up often in the late teens and early 20's? I know of two cases where the person was "normal" until the early 20's and then started with the paranoid delusions. A kid could start school "normal" and before 4 years is up be as sick as this person was.