The media goes into investigating possible motivations and foreboding patterns for shooting sprees, because a segment of the public wants to know what to look out for in order, they hope, that it’ll give them a clue as to how to avoid being the ones caught in the shooting spree. Heck, the police and the shrinks usually want to know what were the early signs of an oncoming shooting spree!
OK, so that leads to stupid decisions such as schools banning, or referring to counseling, for wearing trenchcoats, writing stories about death, or submitting yearbook pictures posed in front of the cannon at the War Monument. I didn’t say that the answers you get from that line of inquiry are always applied in a useful manner, just that people want them.
Faced with something like this,** people WILL ask “why”**. And the press feels compelled to find an answer, any answer, or even a speculation.
The people’s mind resists the alternative that it’s random violence coming out of nowhere in the clear blue sky that can take you out like being struck by a meteorite (and thus, and here’s what scares them most, there is absolutely no way to prevent it happening to you) , because it was an actual sentient human being that grabbed a weapon and made a decision to set out to kill; and we no longer accept the idea that evil demons just took someone over one morning (which is also scary in that it means they may take YOU over one day). This is not “turning the perp into a victim”, but trying to figure out, perhaps in vain, what went wrong.
Y’see, that’s the thing: getting to the bottom of the full setting of the scene, the history of the downward spiral, understanding under what circumstances he went over the edge does NOT preclude someone from reaching the conclusion: “Fuck him.”
Explanation IS NOT justification.
Again,
Explanation IS NOT justification.
So it does not make it wrong for the public to ask for an explanation and CNN obliging with one.
VarlosZ : (Yeah, is that how they’d want every crime report to go?)
There, now that the OP has a story to his liking, I’ll just make the fairly obvious point that the news media ought to be reporting the truth, not excising it in a fit of moral pique. If it’s true that both the perpetrator and those close to him suggested that the murders had a lot to do with perceived racial prejudice, then that’s relevant and it belongs in the story. To write a story that ignores that aspect is, at best, a lie of omission.
You seem to have read the article and miraculously escaped unscathed. You know who’s the victim and who’s the perp. Do you think CNN does? Cause if you do, then this seems like another “Won’t someone think of the sheeple?!?!” thread. You know, where the OP assumes they’re the only ones smart enough to read between the lines but the stupid, unwashed masses won’t see through it?
You got it. We can have an explanation, and then still say “To hell with him”. I don’t give a hoot if he did get harassed by someone (and I do NOT believe they ALL did it). He became a murderer. He killed, and I am pretty confident that not ALL of his victims harassed him. I think the whole “they harassed him and made him do it” is nonsense anyway.
It doesn’t say what she thinks about his so-called “breaking point,” nor does it imply that she’s offering it up as an excuse. She could well be thinking that the asshole she thought she knew snapped like a dry twig and that quote would still make sense.
That was just my knee-jerk reaction to the “breaking point” quote. Of course, you’re right that it didn’t imply that she was excusing him–or that CBS was agreeing with the sentiment.
Geez… I think that’s only responsible journalism. Any right thinking person would be able to figure out that being ostrascized at the break room or being called "rufus"in a bad attempt at humor doesn’t equate bringing the gatt to work and taking down the whole second shift…
When I have to write a report like everyone else here… you generally have to include facts… Sparky I think you’re assuming a certain amount of sympathy or empathy for the murderer that I haven’t seen nor heard.
The bulk of the speculation about his alleged harassment is hearsay times two:
Company officials claim he never filed any complaints, contrary to what his girlfriend’s mother says. Nevertheless, she is somehow presented as the ultimate authority on his motives and character:
Whatever the real, full story, which we’ll probably never know, girlfriend’s mom gave them the juiciest quotes, so that’s what they ran with. The article is clearly heavily weighted toward one hot-button unsubstatiated aspect of the situation. And that doesn’t do justice to his victims, essentially concluding that they died because they were racists.
Eh, you’re nitpicking. I’m counting girlfriend and her mother as family. They interviewed three different people who knew the man as to his motives and they all reported that he felt he was being harassed. It may or not have been true, but there’s not any reason not to report it.
No she isn’t, you’re making stuff up. She’s just a source for his character and motives, as she’s someone who knew him, they interviewed several people, including the company officials you mention who say he never filed any complaints, a good counter-argument to claims he was feeling harassed. I’m sure anyone reading the article understands that the mother of his girlfriend isn’t going to be an unibiased source.
The race thing isn’t mentioned in the headline, or until they interview the gf in the ninth paragraph. You may be most interested in the race-angle, but the CNN reporter apparently was not.
Where does it say that his victims died because they were racists?
The article also isn’t “weighted.” Looking for a motive is just a necessary part of reporting the story, and that necessitates talking to those close to him. They reported what family members said, but they also reported that he hadn’t filed any complains of harrassment and quoted people from the job saying he had NOT been harrassed.
The story is completely objective, unslanted and endorses no conclusions as to motive. It sure as hell doesn’t try to excuse anything.
(Yeah, is that how they’d want every crime report to go?)