Another spree killing....How many this year? this decade? This one seems to ask us to believe mostly atrocious press reports that assume a 20 year old Asperger's sufferer (with no apparent violent history or small arms training) loaded his mother's weapons (after killing her) and filed hundreds of destructive rounds into children and adults before killing himself; succeeding in taking the lives of 27 innocents plus himself! I am going to check whatever small amount is left of my trust in what I read at the door for now. Actually, I am going to lock that sense of trust under a big fat lock and key for quite awhile. Maybe for a long time.
The press reporting (with certain exceptions) has been awful here and the national response has resulted in a a kind of internet collectivized paparazzi-amateur-sleuth-'troll till I die' pseudo-journalism that initially fingered the suspected killer's older brother! Decidedly not one of the world wide web's finest moments. Among all the reports, I found the first responder broadcasts the most informative.
Radioreference.com material has been
uploaded to the web and the first five minutes are especially provocative. In what appears to be the opening moments of the tragedy, a local policemen appears (to my untrained ears) to chase down two suspects and
put at least one in custody:
1:10 "Reports that teachers saw two shadows running past the building, past the gym which would be in the rear...they are shooting."
1:23 "Yea, we got `em. They`re coming at me down Kirk's (
sp?) way! Coming up the driveway on the left side!"
1:36 "We got `em"
1:42 "...Last known gun shots were in the front of the building."
1:50 "I got them proned (
sp?) out!"
2:08 "Last known shots were were in the front...maybe the roof..."
2:40 "To the party in custody..."
2:38 "He's in the driveway...between the [inaudible]"
3:45 "One suspect down...
3:47 "Where?"
3:51 "Probably to the left."
4:23 "Be advised we have multiple weapons including one rifle and shotgun."
Whether the current nationally appointed suspect, one
Adam Lanza, is actually guilty of his crimes may be difficult to determine. Not only did he supposedly kill himself, he murdered his victims thoroughly with multiple shots and destructive ammunition. Actually it appears (at least for now) that
he fatally shot almost anyone that could possibly have seen or identified him! For now, there appears to be only one possible (injured) witness to the shootings. Pardon my cynicism if I point out that there are some very skilled
and highly trained teams of assassins and special forces who possess exactly the same type of prowess and foresight.
I'm not trying to seem bitter and cynical. I am father of small children myself. This event is atrocious and incomprehensible to almost all of us. And that's precisely my point. There have been far too many spree killings in America that seem to fit exactly this pattern: allegedly mentally ill young 20 somethings, an almost improbable amount of multiple deaths (sometimes of political figures), with the perpetrators themselves having little previous violent history. I'm checking my tendency to believe whatever police spokesperson, pro-gun, anti-gun, morally presumptuous psycho-rabble spew reaches my ears on the subject of spree killings. Something is very wrong here. That something is worth thinking about deeply.
