This guy was wrong, but the school sure aint blameless either

The BBQ Pit
1

Well this goes under the "Well this sure could have been prevented with a bit more sense’ files-

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?

This guy snapped after this school blocked his driveway and prevented him going about his business and after a long time of this and them not listening to his complaints well, he went ahead and ran over some kids. A horrible horrible tragedy. What he did was wrong and I don’t condone it for a second, but God! if that school had had a little more courtesy and not blocked people’s damn driveways in the first place then this tragedy would never have happened.

Blocking people’s access to their own houses like that is extremely selfish and discourteous. (and this guy’s livelihood depended on being able to get in and out without being blocked) Not listening to justifiable complaints about that and acting on them accordingly is appalling. This was a tragedy just waiting to happen. Perhaps now the school will realise they should have listened to this guy before he snapped and ran some kids over!

What a disgraceful example to set to children too. That it is okay if you inconvenience people in their own homes. When I was a child I was taught that putting other people to trouble like that was never okay! It makes me quite angry that this school thought it could do this. (and yes, I know the fact that 2 children are dead makes this point trivial by comparison by a loooooong way but the fact remains that this stupidity and selfishness was a direct cause of this tragedy! It appalls me.)

Don’t get me wrong, again I do not condone what he did, it was a horrible thing and I would never have done it (nor most people )but God, I can see the frustration he must have felt!

2

oh I should mention-that apparantly he had complained about this before and this was a long-running thing, (the person on the page where I found the link said this though this story doesn’t emphasise that.) Had this been the first time the School heard the complaint by him-well that would change things slightly. Still makes him incredibly in the wrong though

3

Sorry, I know I’m sick, but I’m amused. I just know I’ll keep sniggering about this story all day.

4

Here’s a different link with a little more detail on Nietos point of view.

While I can’t condone the guys actions, I can understand his frustration. If this guy is truly being denied access to his own home because of some beaurocratic nonsense, I can see how he’d eventually snap.

The question I’d ask him, though, is: was it worth it?

5

This I cannot even begin to understand.

I can’t even call you sick. I just don’t comprehend.

pan

6

It’s a good idea to keep it always in mind that some small percentage of people will react in a way-out-of-proportion way to any mistreatment. You can’t guess in advance who is likely to “just snap” and go psycho. It is therefore worthwhile to make a concerted effort to avoid mistreating people, even in minor ways.

7

What you say is correct, Hazel, but I think part ofInfectious Lass’s point ( and I agree with it) is that it is good manners to try not to inconvenience people unnecessarily even when you are sure there is no danger of their turning psychotic.

8

Jeez… I can sympathise with the guy, but running down children?

I appreciate it must have been a spur of the moment thing, but killing innocent kids is slightly disproportionate to being blocked off from your property. This guy should go to jail for a long time, but the teachers and local authorities who invaded his rights and ignored his complaints should be warned or punished as well in my opinion.

What a waste of life. Firing a water canon at the crowd would have made the point in a still extreme but not life threatening way!

9

Inconvenience? Okay, sure. Take it up with the school principal. Take it up with the cops if you have to. Just don’t run down kids with a truck.

That’s just sick.

If you’re going to ram a truck into a crowd of 100 kids, aiming for the teacher, don’t you think you’d be likely to hit a kid? HELLO??? I can somehow wrap my brain around his inconvenience and his problem, but can’t condone his actions. Ever.

Wasn’t targetting the kids but the teacher? There are more civilized ways to deal with conflicts. Killing people just doesn’t sound right to me.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a soft-hearted Canadian.

Elly.

10

Okay, reading the OP’s link, I see he had complained.

But a judge gave the school the permission to do this daily thing, in the end.

So yeah, he’s inconvenienced. But these are KIDS, fer crissakes.

He’d actually driven his truck in the crowd before, stopping short of hitting anyone. I can’t imagine this daily procession lasts more than an hour, no?

E.

11

Oh, please. What’s next? Driving into a school bus because the driver dares to stop traffic whilst the children get on or off the bus?

12

And I’m curious as to how much say those innocent children had in ‘inconveniencing’ this man. Or even the teacher for god’s sake. Running over little kids accomplishes nothing but me thinking he’s a complete asshole.
j

13

Oh, I don’t know. When I first read it I have to admit I got a chuckle out of it too. I know it wasn’t meant to be funny, nor was the incident funny either, but I chortled the same way I chortle after reading, say, a News of the Weird article.

I don’t know about you, but I actually look forward to getting a laugh out of those stories. And in those stories, as with this one, there’s almost always an element of someone suffering something bad.

It isn’t so much that the incident is funny, hardly, it’s the notion that one can relate to this guys frustration and feel empathetic towards him one minute, and in the next, feel complete disgusts with this guys actions. It’s that dichotomy that makes it funny- how the hell did this guy think this would resolve the problem (Outside of the obvious, getting rid of the children)?

It was such a knee-jerk, self-centered, short-sighted solution that anyone with half a brain wouldn’t even consider doing what he did. But he did it, and how he must have gotten to that point that he thought this was a proper solution to his problem to me, at least, is humorous.

It isn’t that you find the incident funny, or find people’s suffering somehow amusing. I doubt Billy Baroo and others who chuckled at this story would ever for a second sit and laugh at the incident itself, or laugh at the loss of life, but when reading it, far away and far removed from the actual trauma of it all, can find a bit of humor in it.

14

Well… okay. I have similar reactions to many such stories.

But this one, to me, is not really "News of the Weird"ish. It’s just… tragic.

Your reaction is your reaction though. It is what it is.

pan

15

No argument from me on the tragic-ness of it all, especially if you have kids. All of it sounds tragic.

Just thought that since I too had chortled a bit when reading the story, I should include why someone might find humor in it.

Now, if Billy Baroo does, in fact, giggle about this all day long, well then, I might have to start looking at him funny too.

16

Chalk me down for one who doesn’t comprehend even “a bit of humour” in this story. I certainly don’t understand why anyone would “keep sniggering about this story all day.”

Of course this incident happened in far, far away, in a place I’ve never been and to people I’ll never meet. But, geez, dead kids… NOT funny in my book, ever.

17

Frustrated? Fuck him. He killed two children.

I hope he burns in hell.

18

Also I think it’s funny how this rant is balanced. She’s MOSTLY upset that the school inconvenienced him and CASUALLY mentions that he made the poor decision to run over some kids.

Rather than a CASUAL mention that she is upset at his inconvenience and is HORRIFIED that he ran over some kids.

I don’t get it.

19

Nor do I.

If he’d swung a baseball bat at the principal, that would still have been an overreaction, but at least one that would have left room to ask about his frustration.

But killing innocent children because you’re upset at the people who run the school - that’s tragic, and evil. And what he had to endure is completely trivial compared to what the parents of those kids are now going through.

20

Neither of the articles give us one key piece of information: For how long was his driveway blocked? One of the former schools where I worked had a flag ceremony each day. It lasted all of 10 minutes. I’ve seen others, and 10-15 minutes would be on the upper end. If his drive was blocked for 10 minutes, this is a minor inconvenience, not in any way a threat to his livlihood. If it’s more like 30 minutes, it would be a major inconvenience. In any case, it’s not even a case of a disproportionate response. Any violence whatsoever was out of line. Killing someone, anyone, over a blocked driveway is both a matter of the wrong type and degree of response.

I worked summer school a couple of years ago at a school located on a major secondary thoroughfare. School was dismissed at 1:10, busses loaded at that time and left at about 1:20. In CA, when a bus is loading or unloading children, and is not in a protected pullout, it is illegal to pass the bus going either direction. This means that if people were obeying the law, they were stopped for about 10-15 minutes. Many ignored the law and cruised right through at 40+ mph, despite signs announcing that this was a school loading/unloading zone and the times. The police were notified, and began posting a cruiser at the site during morning unloading and afternoon loading. We were informed that the police issued warnings only for the first week. A press release was sent to the local papers, and all of the local newscasts were happy to oblige by doing a one minute segment announcing times and places where traffic would be obstructed by loading and unloading. Radio stations made “summer school traffic” announcements every morning for a week. People finally got clued in, and started avoiding the area at 7:30 and 1:30.

Still, every day some asshole would end up blaring his horn at another motorist who was properly stopped waiting for the bus loading to finish and the flashing red stop signs to be retracted. One particular motorist got out of his car, walked up the line to the young woman at the front, and yelled at her to move her car, along with a string of obsceneties. When she ignored him, as she should have, he returned to his car and came back with a tire iron and proceeded to begin banging on her car with it. Fortunately, one of the other teachers on bus duty had a cell phone and had called the police when he first approached, and a cruiser arrived during the assault. In an interview the next day, he was blaming the school, the woman he assaulted, the law, and the police.

Blame the person responsible. When the man chose to get in a truck and kill in response to a temporarily blocked driveway, he gave up any claim to sympathy. The school’s actions in no way, to no degree, mitigate his.