All the world's problems are a result of one asshole or another.
And before you all get too carried away with this crap. Assholeness knows no boundries. Assholeness does not descriminate, nor is assholeness selective.
Assholes come in all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities. Nor does it matter if one is poor, middleclass, rich or wealthy. You will find assholes littered generoulsy throughout.
absolutely, how many times does one have to type that before people pick up on that??
Millions and millions of people are not living according to "society standard", you can say they're marginal, and they're obviously marginalized. Our society is in search for more secure security and it seem like the way to achieve it is to make everyone the same, homogeneous society seem to be the solution. Look good, train hard, work hard, be intelligent, be productive, love your neighbour, pray, go to school, eat well... of course this modern world ideals doesn't and cannot fit to everyone, but it doesn't mean that everyone sharing this killer personality trait, will soon become dangerous for everyone else, and become a psychos.
Listening to all these "experts" and psychiatrist just makes me feel bad, i just hope that it won't become a witch/communist/terrorist hunt, where the guy lifting weights in his basement, will just have to make a phone call to make the weird guy in his class arrested, in the name of this so called homogenous society.
This suspect was declared mentally ill, and was not treated, it seems like it's not his social status that made him a killer, but his mental illness. That's just my opinion of course...
"L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers"
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Frats, as they are known, are practically non-existant outside of the states as far as I'm aware. I think there ARE fraternities in the big universities here but they're different to what's shown on tv of the American ones... MUCH different. I don't think people get away with acting like that over here.
acting like what? im just curious what you all see of frats over there.
Also about this "Virginia Massacre" (CNN title), just a little side question, haven't you seen how peoples were praying after those incidents and singing God's song and the likes? Isn't it God who create all that? Isn't it part of what God "created"?
"L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers"
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Also about this "Virginia Massacre" (CNN title), just a little side question, haven't you seen how peoples were praying after those incidents and singing God's song and the likes? Isn't it God who create all that? Isn't it part of what God "created"?
Yes.
But apparently "God" doesn't take blame for the bad, negative, horrific things in this life and on this planet. He only takes credit for some goofball scoring a touchdown, hitting a homerun, for someone narrowly escaping almost certain death or someone overcoming a severe addiction.
And as the religious will till you, it "all part of God's plan" and it's not for us to question why "God" allows these things to occur.
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago
Long before he snapped, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness and the strange way he talked when he was a schoolboy in the Washington suburbs, former classmates say.
Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior who graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., with Cho in 2003, recalled that the South Korean immigrant almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.
Once, in English class, the teacher had the students read aloud, and when it was Cho's turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled. Finally, after the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said.
"As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, `Go back to China,'" Davids said.
The high school classmates' accounts add to the psychological portrait that is beginning to take shape, and could shed light on Cho's state of mind in the video rant he mailed to NBC in the middle of his rampage Monday at Virginia Tech.
He shot 32 people to death and committed suicide in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
In the often-incoherent video, the 23-year-old Cho portrays himself as persecuted and rants about rich kids.
"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," says Cho, who came to the U.S. in 1992 and whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything."
Among the victims of the massacre were two other Westfield High graduates: Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson. Both young women graduated from the high school last year. Police said it is not clear whether Cho singled them out.
Stephanie Roberts, 22, a fellow member of Cho's graduating class at Westfield High, said she never witnessed anyone picking on Cho in high school.
"I just remember he was a shy kid who didn't really want to talk to anybody," she said. "I guess a lot of people felt like maybe there was a language barrier."
But she said friends of hers who went to middle school with Cho told her they recalled him getting picked on there.
"There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him," Roberts said Wednesday. "He didn't speak English really well and they would really make fun of him."
Virginia Tech student Alison Heck said a suitemate of hers on campus — Christina Lilick — found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the dry erase board on her door. Lilick went to the same high school as Cho, according to Lilick's Facebook page. Cho once scrawled a question mark on the sign-in sheet on the first day of a literature class, and other students came to know him as "the question mark kid."
"I don't know if she knew that it was him for sure," Heck said. "I do remember that that fall that she was being stalked and she had mentioned the question mark. And there was a question mark on her door."
Heck added: "She just let us know about it just in case there was a strange person walking around our suite."
Lilick could not immediately be located for comment, via e-mail or telephone.
On Wednesday, NBC received a package containing a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement from Cho, 28 video clips and 43 photos — many of them showing Cho brandishing handguns. A Postal Service time stamp reads 9:01 a.m. — between the two attacks on campus.
The package helped explain one mystery: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building.
"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," a snarling Cho says on video. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."
Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said Thursday that the material contained little they did not already know. Flaherty said he was disappointed that NBC decided to broadcast parts of it.
"I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it," he said.
On NBC's "Today" show Thursday, host Meredith Vieira said the decision to air the information "was not taken lightly." Some victims' relatives canceled their plans to speak with NBC because they were upset over the airing of the images, she said.
"I saw his picture on TV, and when I did I just got chills," said Kristy Venning, a junior from Franklin County, Va. "There's really no words. It shows he put so much thought into this and I think it's sick."
Some of the pictures in the video package show him smiling; others show him frowning and snarling. Some depict him brandishing two weapons at a time, one in each hand. He wears a khaki-colored military-style vest, fingerless gloves, a black T-shirt, a backpack and a backward, black baseball cap. Another photo shows him swinging a hammer two-fisted. Another shows an angry-looking Cho holding a gun to his temple.
There has been some speculation, especially among online forums, that Cho may have been inspired by the South Korean movie "Oldboy." One of the killer's mailed photos shows him brandishing a hammer — the signature weapon of the protagonist — and in a pose similar to one from the film.
The film won the Gran Prix prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. It is about a man unjustly imprisoned for 15 years. After escaping, he goes on a rampage against his captor.
Authorities on Thursday disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho had been accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment.
The disclosure added to the rapidly growing list of warning signs that appeared well before the student opened fire. Among other things, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and sullen, vacant-eyed demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling.
uhhh ... how many times does one have to type that this is not a justification for his actions whatsoever?? ... seriously, you put a disclaimer in the post and no one reads it ... oh well ...
it's a simple matter that i believed was overlooked ... there are many parts in this story however big or small ... this is just but one ...
It's a joke of a reason and shouldn't even be considered. Everyone feels picked on sometimes, everyone feels their parents are unfair. Everyone feels the social outcast at times. Haven't you ever seen The Breakfast Club?
When 99.99999999999999% of society can deal with life I don't place any blame on society for one fucked up individual.
“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
It's a joke of a reason and shouldn't even be considered. Everyone feels picked on sometimes, everyone feels their parents are unfair. Everyone feels the social outcast at times. Haven't you ever seen The Breakfast Club?
When 99.99999999999999% of society can deal with life I don't place any blame on society for one fucked up individual.
interesting ... i wonder how you would respond if you were picked on for speaking funny? ... i guess women who are verbally abused should stop complaining also ...
interesting ... i wonder how you would respond if you were picked on for speaking funny? ... i guess women who are verbally abused should stop complaining also ...
i was picked on for a speach impediment for a long time. Big deal. I dealt with it.
Nowhere have I said not to complain and work for change. Only if you have the emotional makeup to not be able to handle what 99.9999999999999% of people handle daily and instead decide to go kill 32 people I take zero responsibility for what you do.
“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
i was picked on for a speach impediment for a long time. Big deal. I dealt with it.
Nowhere have I said not to complain and work for change. Only if you have the emotional makeup to not be able to handle what 99.9999999999999% of people handle daily and instead decide to go kill 32 people I take zero responsibility for what you do.
There is an ugly society pressure for sure, but i also don't think it makes every one who have problems to deal with society killer materials. It's a personal mental illness case, he should have been treated in the first place.
"L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers"
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
i was picked on for a speach impediment for a long time. Big deal. I dealt with it.
Nowhere have I said not to complain and work for change. Only if you have the emotional makeup to not be able to handle what 99.9999999999999% of people handle daily and instead decide to go kill 32 people I take zero responsibility for what you do.
why work for change if you are not willing to take an ounce of responsibility?? ... if i was the one who was picking on this kid - i should have no guilt?? ...
again - not a justification for mass murder but i'm not gonna absolve the people who have played a part ... however big or small ...
Sometimes a brain tumor in the prefrontal lobe will cause people to be homicidal.
Keep in mind that the prefrontal lobe is underdeveloped in people less than 20 years of age, typically.
If you ask me, this is a combination of physiology and the common ideology of society, which is to hold everyone morally blame worthy for everything they do.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Sheesh, I was picked on through out most of my childhood for being short. I had to fight some new wise guy every week and fight the same old two other wise guys once a week, each. Or else they would have kicked my ass every day.
So I learned how to fight well and I eventually kicked all of their asses. Then high school rolled around and a new round of picking-on commenced from a new group of assholes. So I fought them, too.
By the summer after sophmore year, they left me alone because they grew weary of broken teeth, broken noses, bloody noses and mouths, black eyes, bruised ribs, and dislocated jaws; and having to explian to mommy, daddy and anyone else -how some kid 4' 8" kicked their asses so bad.
Then I grew a foot between Junior and Senior year.
We all encountered arrogant, douchey kids from families who had a lot of money. They were more fun to beat up when they started shit with me.
Most of us encountered bullies and idiots who made fun of people. There's a right way to deal with it and a wrong way.
But not I or anyone else went on a shooting spree.
Sheesh, I was picked on through out most of my childhood for being short. I had to fight some new wise guy every week and fight the same old two other wise guys once a week, each. Or else they would have kicked my ass every day.
So I learned how to fight well and I eventually kicked all of their asses. Then high school rolled around and a new round of picking-on commenced from a new group of assholes. So I fought them, too.
By the summer after sophmore year, they left me alone because they grew weary of broken teeth, broken noses, bloody noses and mouths, black eyes, bruised ribs, and dislocated jaws; and having to explian to mommy, daddy and anyone else -how some kid 4' 8" kicked their asses so bad.
Then I grew a foot between Junior and Senior year.
We all encountered arrogant, douchey kids from families who had a lot of money. They were more fun to beat up when they started shit with me.
Most of us encountered bullies and idiots who made fun of people. There's a right way to deal with it and a wrong way.
But not I or anyone else went on a shooting spree.
*Sigh*
Everyone is different
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I agree with you that at some point in our lives we have been bullied or had to deal with some asshole, but I don't think that this is a cause of these shootings. It may be the reason expressed by the shooter but there is definetly an underlying problem there. The majority of the people who are bullied do not resort to such violent actions to deal with the problem. As a kid we might get into a fist fight with the person and as responsible adults we deal with it in more civilized manners but in any case it is usually the person(s) who carried out the acts against us that we deal with not innocent bystanders. I am no psychologist but to me it seems that there is a disconnect with reality with these shooters. Some type of underlying pschosis that causes them to inflict an incermountable amount of pain and suffering an anyone and everyone because of the inadequences they where made to feel by a one or a small group of people. That is not rational nor logical behavior and to simply say that bullying is cause, not that this is what you are implying, is ignoring the true cause of their actions.
... if polaris asks I throw in my 2cents
and I agree with mammasan but would like to add:
maybe it has also something to do with our time?, our way of living?, the pictures we see daily in TV shows, computer games and news broadcast?
Not that I would blame any of those outside influences... I agree with the statement of mammasan: those shooters suffer of some kind of psychosis or other psychological lack or disorder out of my view.
but still: the results and outcomes of those problems have become more cruel, more crazy then ever before.
In earlier times those lost ones may have fought with their fists or maybe killed themselve in silence where as now they do the big bumm for the media and then kill themselves or so.
it's now all about revange, a spotlight in the evening news, or some believe in some god as we find it in the terrosim... but in eather way:
to me it is somewhat of a reflection of the inner awareness and judgement that got formed over years by pictures we seen on screen over and over again and teachers we hear... while those lonesome ones (aka social outsiders!!!) are loosing any moral ground at the same time.
Taking fiction for fact while being more individual every day?
so to me the cause and effect is also related to a shift of moral ground,
that nowadays makes mass murderers out of those that are just alone, hence, not stable, therefore just not in peace with themselves and their surroundings and just not been loved by anyone for too long.
there is no way to peace, peace is the way!
...the world is come undone, I like to change it everyday but change don't come at once, it's a wave, building before it breaks.
Sheesh, I was picked on through out most of my childhood for being short. I had to fight some new wise guy every week and fight the same old two other wise guys once a week, each. Or else they would have kicked my ass every day.
So I learned how to fight well and I eventually kicked all of their asses. Then high school rolled around and a new round of picking-on commenced from a new group of assholes. So I fought them, too.
By the summer after sophmore year, they left me alone because they grew weary of broken teeth, broken noses, bloody noses and mouths, black eyes, bruised ribs, and dislocated jaws; and having to explian to mommy, daddy and anyone else -how some kid 4' 8" kicked their asses so bad.
Then I grew a foot between Junior and Senior year.
We all encountered arrogant, douchey kids from families who had a lot of money. They were more fun to beat up when they started shit with me.
Most of us encountered bullies and idiots who made fun of people. There's a right way to deal with it and a wrong way.
But not I or anyone else went on a shooting spree.
uhhh ... but your reaction is of a violent one ... yours is acceptable? ... what about that kids that don't try and get "even"? ... those that end up committing suicide or what not?
why don't we hold people who are aholes responsible for their actions?
why don't we hold people who are aholes responsible for their actions?
Yes, great idea. Hold me responsible for my actions, but not for how you react to them. So those who made fun of this recent idiot all deserve a one hour detention after class today. Now can we stop assigning causation to everyone but the killer
“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Yes, great idea. Hold me responsible for my actions, but not for how you react to them. So those who made fun of this recent idiot all deserve a one hour detention after class today. Now can we stop assigning causation to everyone but the killer
Causation doesn't stop.
"In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity." - Baruch Spinoza
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Causation stops when you take responsibility for yourself and your life. No one can make you do anything. Period. No other psycho-babble or excuses. No one can make you do anything.
“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Yes, great idea. Hold me responsible for my actions, but not for how you react to them. So those who made fun of this recent idiot all deserve a one hour detention after class today. Now can we stop assigning causation to everyone but the killer
ok ... what would you do to someone who tried to molest your son? ... nothing? ... give the guy a detention?
ok ... what would you do to someone who tried to molest your son? ... nothing? ... give the guy a detention?
In high school the appropriate punishment for name calling is a detention. So let's hold people accountable for their actions. Unless you want to compare name calling and attempted molestation as comparable offences. It seems a pretty invalid comparison to me. But an appropriate punishment for attempted molestation is probably 5 years in jail. So I'm fine if this is the punishment. An appropriate punishment for actual molestation is life in jail.
“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
uhhh ... but your reaction is of a violent one ... yours is acceptable? ... what about that kids that don't try and get "even"? ... those that end up committing suicide or what not?
why don't we hold people who are aholes responsible for their actions?
I wasn't get even. I was defending myself. Never did I start the fights. I simply defended myself. There's a big diference.
Is it acceptable? Probably not. That whole two wrongs don't make a right, thing. I'm not perfect, that's for sure.
But certainly my way didn't get anyone killed. When I was growing up that's how we handled things. If you had a problem with someone you tried to work it out by talking. If that didn't work, a fight ensued.
If someone attacked you (or started a fight) you tried to verbally work it out (which usually didn't work), so you defended yourself.
We fought with our fists. One on one. No weapons, no kicking, no hair-pulling, no eye-goughing, no banging each other's heads against the ground, walls, cars, railings or anything else.
Whether you think it's right or wrong, you have admit it was a much more rational approach than the way kids today settle things.
In high school the appropriate punishment for name calling is a detention. So let's hold people accountable for their actions. Unless you want to compare name calling and attempted molestation as comparable offences. It seems a pretty invalid comparison to me. But an appropriate punishment for attempted molestation is probably 5 years in jail. So I'm fine if this is the punishment. An appropriate punishment for actual molestation is life in jail.
but now you are assigning responsibility to name calling ... the actual offence is irrelevant ... the issue is whether or not those people should be held accountable ...
he has apparently been picked on all his life without anyone ever being held accountable ... the issue isn't whether or not he is justified in killing people nor whether he is blameless ... those issues have been agreed upon by everyone ...
the issue is whether or not we hold people who were bad to him accountable in some way ...
And it's sad the world (and the people in it) are this way. But that is human nature and we have to deal with reality. Not idealistic fantasies.
But him shooting 33 people and wounding countless others, is not an acceptable response. Nor can I bring myself to feel sorry for the guy.
I feel sorry for the victims of his shooting spree.
Someone should have helped this guy deal with his anger, alienation and twisted thought process.
so true, he should have been treated, specially since he was diagnosed dangerous, but how does it work exactly, they tell you " you're dangerous, go get help"? Then what?
"L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers"
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I wasn't get even. I was defending myself. Never did I start the fights. I simply defended myself. There's a big diference.
Is it acceptable? Probably not. That whole two wrongs don't make a right, thing. I'm not perfect, that's for sure.
But certainly my way didn't get anyone killed. When I was growing up that's how we handled things. If you had a problem with someone you tried to work it out by talking. If that didn't work, a fight ensued.
If someone attacked you (or started a fight) you tried to verbally work it out (which usually didn't work), so you defended yourself.
We fought with our fists. One on one. No weapons, no kicking, no hair-pulling, no eye-goughing, no banging each other's heads against the ground, walls, cars, railings or anything else.
Whether you think it's right or wrong, you have admit it was a much more rational approach than the way kids today settle things.
i'm not saying your response is right or wrong ... but the point is you had a response to what you considered to be unfair ...
are the people that picked on you absolved of all responsibility in your mind?
the issue is whether or not we hold people who were bad to him accountable in some way ...
Hold the name callers accountable for name calling and nothing else. Give them an hour detention, the appropriate punishment for name calling.
Leave them 100% out of any discussion regarding the killings. They did not do the killings, they did not cause the killings, they did not in any way do any thing to justify the killer's actions.
“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Causation stops when you take responsibility for yourself and your life. No one can make you do anything. Period. No other psycho-babble or excuses. No one can make you do anything.
Accountability only works so long as it holds an operational purpose, and not just to self-satisfy your need for revenge, but apparently revenge is justified in modern society.
"Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the free will to select his course." - Clarence Darrow
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Comments
absolutely, how many times does one have to type that before people pick up on that??
Listening to all these "experts" and psychiatrist just makes me feel bad, i just hope that it won't become a witch/communist/terrorist hunt, where the guy lifting weights in his basement, will just have to make a phone call to make the weird guy in his class arrested, in the name of this so called homogenous society.
This suspect was declared mentally ill, and was not treated, it seems like it's not his social status that made him a killer, but his mental illness. That's just my opinion of course...
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
acting like what? im just curious what you all see of frats over there.
7,359,986..........times.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Yes.
But apparently "God" doesn't take blame for the bad, negative, horrific things in this life and on this planet. He only takes credit for some goofball scoring a touchdown, hitting a homerun, for someone narrowly escaping almost certain death or someone overcoming a severe addiction.
And as the religious will till you, it "all part of God's plan" and it's not for us to question why "God" allows these things to occur.
Va. Tech shooter was laughed at
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago
Long before he snapped, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness and the strange way he talked when he was a schoolboy in the Washington suburbs, former classmates say.
Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior who graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., with Cho in 2003, recalled that the South Korean immigrant almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.
Once, in English class, the teacher had the students read aloud, and when it was Cho's turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled. Finally, after the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said.
"As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, `Go back to China,'" Davids said.
The high school classmates' accounts add to the psychological portrait that is beginning to take shape, and could shed light on Cho's state of mind in the video rant he mailed to NBC in the middle of his rampage Monday at Virginia Tech.
He shot 32 people to death and committed suicide in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
In the often-incoherent video, the 23-year-old Cho portrays himself as persecuted and rants about rich kids.
"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," says Cho, who came to the U.S. in 1992 and whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything."
Among the victims of the massacre were two other Westfield High graduates: Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson. Both young women graduated from the high school last year. Police said it is not clear whether Cho singled them out.
Stephanie Roberts, 22, a fellow member of Cho's graduating class at Westfield High, said she never witnessed anyone picking on Cho in high school.
"I just remember he was a shy kid who didn't really want to talk to anybody," she said. "I guess a lot of people felt like maybe there was a language barrier."
But she said friends of hers who went to middle school with Cho told her they recalled him getting picked on there.
"There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him," Roberts said Wednesday. "He didn't speak English really well and they would really make fun of him."
Virginia Tech student Alison Heck said a suitemate of hers on campus — Christina Lilick — found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the dry erase board on her door. Lilick went to the same high school as Cho, according to Lilick's Facebook page. Cho once scrawled a question mark on the sign-in sheet on the first day of a literature class, and other students came to know him as "the question mark kid."
"I don't know if she knew that it was him for sure," Heck said. "I do remember that that fall that she was being stalked and she had mentioned the question mark. And there was a question mark on her door."
Heck added: "She just let us know about it just in case there was a strange person walking around our suite."
Lilick could not immediately be located for comment, via e-mail or telephone.
On Wednesday, NBC received a package containing a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement from Cho, 28 video clips and 43 photos — many of them showing Cho brandishing handguns. A Postal Service time stamp reads 9:01 a.m. — between the two attacks on campus.
The package helped explain one mystery: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building.
"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," a snarling Cho says on video. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."
Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said Thursday that the material contained little they did not already know. Flaherty said he was disappointed that NBC decided to broadcast parts of it.
"I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it," he said.
On NBC's "Today" show Thursday, host Meredith Vieira said the decision to air the information "was not taken lightly." Some victims' relatives canceled their plans to speak with NBC because they were upset over the airing of the images, she said.
"I saw his picture on TV, and when I did I just got chills," said Kristy Venning, a junior from Franklin County, Va. "There's really no words. It shows he put so much thought into this and I think it's sick."
Some of the pictures in the video package show him smiling; others show him frowning and snarling. Some depict him brandishing two weapons at a time, one in each hand. He wears a khaki-colored military-style vest, fingerless gloves, a black T-shirt, a backpack and a backward, black baseball cap. Another photo shows him swinging a hammer two-fisted. Another shows an angry-looking Cho holding a gun to his temple.
There has been some speculation, especially among online forums, that Cho may have been inspired by the South Korean movie "Oldboy." One of the killer's mailed photos shows him brandishing a hammer — the signature weapon of the protagonist — and in a pose similar to one from the film.
The film won the Gran Prix prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. It is about a man unjustly imprisoned for 15 years. After escaping, he goes on a rampage against his captor.
Authorities on Thursday disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho had been accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment.
The disclosure added to the rapidly growing list of warning signs that appeared well before the student opened fire. Among other things, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and sullen, vacant-eyed demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling.
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When 99.99999999999999% of society can deal with life I don't place any blame on society for one fucked up individual.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
interesting ... i wonder how you would respond if you were picked on for speaking funny? ... i guess women who are verbally abused should stop complaining also ...
Nowhere have I said not to complain and work for change. Only if you have the emotional makeup to not be able to handle what 99.9999999999999% of people handle daily and instead decide to go kill 32 people I take zero responsibility for what you do.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
There is an ugly society pressure for sure, but i also don't think it makes every one who have problems to deal with society killer materials. It's a personal mental illness case, he should have been treated in the first place.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
why work for change if you are not willing to take an ounce of responsibility?? ... if i was the one who was picking on this kid - i should have no guilt?? ...
again - not a justification for mass murder but i'm not gonna absolve the people who have played a part ... however big or small ...
Keep in mind that the prefrontal lobe is underdeveloped in people less than 20 years of age, typically.
If you ask me, this is a combination of physiology and the common ideology of society, which is to hold everyone morally blame worthy for everything they do.
So I learned how to fight well and I eventually kicked all of their asses. Then high school rolled around and a new round of picking-on commenced from a new group of assholes. So I fought them, too.
By the summer after sophmore year, they left me alone because they grew weary of broken teeth, broken noses, bloody noses and mouths, black eyes, bruised ribs, and dislocated jaws; and having to explian to mommy, daddy and anyone else -how some kid 4' 8" kicked their asses so bad.
Then I grew a foot between Junior and Senior year.
We all encountered arrogant, douchey kids from families who had a lot of money. They were more fun to beat up when they started shit with me.
Most of us encountered bullies and idiots who made fun of people. There's a right way to deal with it and a wrong way.
But not I or anyone else went on a shooting spree.
*Sigh*
Everyone is different
... if polaris asks I throw in my 2cents
and I agree with mammasan but would like to add:
maybe it has also something to do with our time?, our way of living?, the pictures we see daily in TV shows, computer games and news broadcast?
Not that I would blame any of those outside influences... I agree with the statement of mammasan: those shooters suffer of some kind of psychosis or other psychological lack or disorder out of my view.
but still: the results and outcomes of those problems have become more cruel, more crazy then ever before.
In earlier times those lost ones may have fought with their fists or maybe killed themselve in silence where as now they do the big bumm for the media and then kill themselves or so.
it's now all about revange, a spotlight in the evening news, or some believe in some god as we find it in the terrosim... but in eather way:
to me it is somewhat of a reflection of the inner awareness and judgement that got formed over years by pictures we seen on screen over and over again and teachers we hear... while those lonesome ones (aka social outsiders!!!) are loosing any moral ground at the same time.
Taking fiction for fact while being more individual every day?
so to me the cause and effect is also related to a shift of moral ground,
that nowadays makes mass murderers out of those that are just alone, hence, not stable, therefore just not in peace with themselves and their surroundings and just not been loved by anyone for too long.
...the world is come undone, I like to change it everyday but change don't come at once, it's a wave, building before it breaks.
uhhh ... but your reaction is of a violent one ... yours is acceptable? ... what about that kids that don't try and get "even"? ... those that end up committing suicide or what not?
why don't we hold people who are aholes responsible for their actions?
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Causation doesn't stop.
"In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity." - Baruch Spinoza
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
ok ... what would you do to someone who tried to molest your son? ... nothing? ... give the guy a detention?
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
I wasn't get even. I was defending myself. Never did I start the fights. I simply defended myself. There's a big diference.
Is it acceptable? Probably not. That whole two wrongs don't make a right, thing. I'm not perfect, that's for sure.
But certainly my way didn't get anyone killed. When I was growing up that's how we handled things. If you had a problem with someone you tried to work it out by talking. If that didn't work, a fight ensued.
If someone attacked you (or started a fight) you tried to verbally work it out (which usually didn't work), so you defended yourself.
We fought with our fists. One on one. No weapons, no kicking, no hair-pulling, no eye-goughing, no banging each other's heads against the ground, walls, cars, railings or anything else.
Whether you think it's right or wrong, you have admit it was a much more rational approach than the way kids today settle things.
True.
And it's sad the world (and the people in it) are this way. But that is human nature and we have to deal with reality. Not idealistic fantasies.
But him shooting 33 people and wounding countless others, is not an acceptable response. Nor can I bring myself to feel sorry for the guy.
I feel sorry for the victims of his shooting spree.
Someone should have helped this guy deal with his anger, alienation and twisted thought process.
but now you are assigning responsibility to name calling ... the actual offence is irrelevant ... the issue is whether or not those people should be held accountable ...
he has apparently been picked on all his life without anyone ever being held accountable ... the issue isn't whether or not he is justified in killing people nor whether he is blameless ... those issues have been agreed upon by everyone ...
the issue is whether or not we hold people who were bad to him accountable in some way ...
so true, he should have been treated, specially since he was diagnosed dangerous, but how does it work exactly, they tell you " you're dangerous, go get help"? Then what?
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
i'm not saying your response is right or wrong ... but the point is you had a response to what you considered to be unfair ...
are the people that picked on you absolved of all responsibility in your mind?
Leave them 100% out of any discussion regarding the killings. They did not do the killings, they did not cause the killings, they did not in any way do any thing to justify the killer's actions.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Accountability only works so long as it holds an operational purpose, and not just to self-satisfy your need for revenge, but apparently revenge is justified in modern society.
"Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the free will to select his course." - Clarence Darrow