E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSUniversity of Maryland student vowed to go on "shooting rampage". WRC's Darcy Spencer reports.
Updated at 2:50 p.m. ET: COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- A University of Maryland student has been arrested and charged with posting an Internet threat claiming he planned to go on a shooting rampage on campus hoping to kill as many people as possible.
Campus police said in a statement that 19-year-old Alexander Song, of Fulton, Md., had been identified as the person who posted plans on a website for a rampage.
"I will be on a shooting rampage tomorrow on campus," police quoted Song as saying in the Saturday posting. "Hopefully I kill enough people to make it to national news."
The message also warned people to "stay away from the mall." Police did not elaborate.
Capt. Marc Limansky told the Baltimore Sun that police were informed of the alleged threats after a former student noticed them on reddit.com. Two people also contacted the university after chatting with Song on omegle.com, Limansky added.
A sophmore honors student, Song was taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after his arrest Sunday.
Song, who was not armed when he was arrested, faces a misdemeanor charge of disturbing school activities.
A police spokesman said it was unclear if Song had an attorney.
The university website describes Song as a member of a campus research program for select honors students who explore how science and technology relates with society. The Gemstone Program lists Song as scheduled to graduate in 2014.
Song was one of the leaders of a student research team, Be Pure, that was studying ways to make methane gas safe for energy consumption, said James Wallace, a mechanical engineering professor and director of the Gemstone Program.
Steven Hutcheson, the team's advisor, said Song had once been one of the more vocal members of the team but had recently appeared quieter. Hutcheson and a couple students who knew Song said there was no indication that he was unhappy or capable of violence.
"I wish there had been something because I would have loved to have helped him," Hutcheson said.
Anjana Sekaran, another member of the Be Pure team, said she had known Song since last year, "and he is a very intelligent, good-natured individual. He would never hurt anyone."
After the arrest, some students complained on Twitter that the school's emergency alert system was not activated after police learned of the threat. University President Wallace Loh said in a statement Monday that officials decided that sending out a campus-wide alert before Song was in custody threatened to interfere with their investigation.
"The police are confident that any threat to our community was mitigated once the student was taken into custody," Loh said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
Leave a Comment:
University = Shooting Gallery
This guy should be permanently expelled from the University. There is absolutely no justification for taking the risk of ever letting this person back on the campus. Making terroristic threats is not a joke and not something that should be treated lightly or in any way tolerated. As far as I am concerned, this guy just forfeited his right to ever set foot on any college or university campus ever again.
Any person can walk onto practically any university anytime.
Um, anyone think to check whether or not he was conducting an experiment related to this research program?
He threatened the Mall, so he should be banned from there too. I know, ban him from life, he should be in the electric chair now because the cost to follow this kid over the span of his life is going to cost millions!! Can you really ever trust him? Going to have to wait for him to do something for real before he gets put away for good.
Chris
If he was he sure should have cleared it with someone that would have told him; "DON'T BE STUPID"
A little over the top paranoid are we people? Simply put he is 19 years old and immature. Tried to get a little attention and got burned what an idoit lol. The stupid mistakes of youth...
oh well c'est la vie
I completely agree with JS in SD's comment. This kid should now only have the right to home schooling or on-line courses. They definitely should not let this kid allowed anywhere near any such campus.
Uh depending on the size of the campus a ban is almost useless. If he wanted to kill people, do you honestly think a ban is going to keep him off campus? Or any campus? That's just the sad reality of it all.
At the very best, law enforcement can keep an eye on him and take action if he ever purchases firearms.
OLE' One eye
That'd be the logical thing to do, but 19-year-olds, even the smart ones, aren't exactly known for being the most logical creatures on the planet. A lot of people in this generation are so accustomed to the anonymity of the internet that they don't really think about the things they post being traced back to them.
.
Need not worry. Campuses are patroled by the best security guards. I recall walking across the campus of Appalachian State University in Boone, NC one time with my golden retriever off the leash. I was immediately surrounding by three patrol cars by a bunch of Barney Fife's and harrassed and threatened with a citation, just because I dared to let my dog run without a leash. With such law enforcement, what does a student have to worry about? LOL
Just goes to show, that even a genius honors student can destroy his whole careerand life in 1 stupid move... Even if hes been an A+ up til now... Gotta constantly pray over our children.. Getting them to college and then thinking they are grown and set for release is not the way it works anymore..
KF,
Really? I suppose that with all the recent shootings this should just be ignored, huh? What would you recommend that would not be 'over the top'? While you're at it, please let us know where the next campus shooting is going to be so that we can stop it.
Thanks,
let him have a little time in the clink with Bubba and the community shower. that will make him mature real quick! we have to take this stuff seriously now because the moron just may have the rocks and the idiocy to do it. if he shows up on campus and goes all Rambo on those students and his threats were ignored, somebody's gonna be in some serious trouble!
lock him up and throw away the key...for a little while.
bologna sandwich
"let him have a little time in the clink with Bubba and the community shower"
Oh, yah. That's a great idea...should calm him right down now...I'm sure he wouldn't retaliate after those experiences...(sarcasm)
No joking matter, but I just think the kid needs to get laid. He'll have a new perception of life after that.
Finally!! One caught before the tragedy! Unfortunately others like this individual left "subtle" messages of their intentions prior to the fact or even made outright threats and nothing was done, leaving death and ruined lives in their wake. At least he gave specific advance notice to put a halt to things.... whehter they were going to occur or not.
@bologna sandwich
you r on the money...bubba will put a whole new meaning to stupid fun that may put u in jail !
If this had been a white or black kid he would have been charged with felony terroristic threatening.
I'm glad he's off the streets. I'm glad that if he did intend to carry this out, he was caught early.
Though he wouldn't have had to work hard at making national news. Just the threat of something will do it. Inclement weather, missing pets and anything to do with a Kardashian will make it there too.
Mac are you for reals, you need to get out more, stop living in your mom's basement.
what's up with this trend among youth to grab a gun and randomly shoot people to get attention?
very disturbing
Sounds like he was just being a drama queen, look at the smug look on this punkass. I'm glad they took the threats seriously though.
Send him back to where he came from.
I wonder if he got a student visa, courtesy of Bill Gates?
Mac's just a loser daydreaming about something he can't get.
Mac is right.
thepunisher and scales67 I see stories almost every week about white and black kids who are charged with the felony for less serious sounding threats to their school or fellow students.
@Road Warrior-252445: Gotta keep an eye on those Goldens--they might force a tummy rub out of some poor unsuspecting innocent.
You want to write him off as 19 and immature? In other words give him a pass because it was just a joke to you. Had he actually turned his threat into reality, you wouldn't be so ready to laugh it off. In fact you would have been doing the exact opposite blaming his parents, or saying how youth are spoiled rotten. You can't have it both ways.
I'm not going to jump on the hate wagon, instead I'm going to assume for now he did this for a social media experiment. (maybe his own.) Socially not acceptable of course but university students work by a different playbook that's judged by a microcosm of peers and environment. could it be that this social unbalance tilted his judgement to go "Verbal Ballistic" on the web??? So what is this guys mental history, what do his peers have to say about him. Does this 19 year old's mistake mean we need to pull him out of school instead of trying to understand the real issue or does it mean we make his life direction lean toward producing America's best product, "The American Criminal."
Anyone else wonder why it's always some crazy deranged Asian kid?
I love all of the ignorant comments like this one from
Wow did you know you can walk onto practically ANY property anywhere anytime? It's called freedom.
To JTM and others like him thanks for the laughs and the proof that the majority of Americans don't have the sense God gave them to come inside out of the rain.
its actually mostly white people who do alot of shootings and fuk things up.
It's true that threats like this have to be taken seriously, but the number of false-positives that occur deserve more media spotlight. A high schooler was arrested in my county last week because he sent a text message reading, "Gunna go by the school later." Gun was extracted from Gunna and voila, instant threat. Free speech is dying right in front of us.
Mac: It just so happens that white and black kids are usually more numerous than other nationalities in the schools where this happens. Each culture probably has the same percentage of crazies, it's just that the numbers bear out differently depending where you go.
To me this is just sad and pathetic; what has happened in this world when young people think the best way to get attention is to make death threats?!? I agree that this kid should not be allowed near a college campus again for at least several years; I know, if he's truly determined to do something that a restraining order won't do much but if school officials know who he is and see him near the campus maybe they can get the cops to haul him away before he does something stupid!
Just be thankful that someone took the threat seriously or this story could be the report of a horror story. If he is indeed unbalanced be glad that he will receive medical attention and if it was a prank post he'll learn a hard lesson. Either way his life has been ruined.
A misdemeanor? Are you kidding me? In this day and age he actually has to kill someone to be taken seriously? No wonder people get away with some of the horrible things they do.
I have a question for all you folks out there who collapsed the comments before me. What was so offensive? Just because you don't agree with someone is no reason for collapse. Disagree or ignore if you want but geez, what happened to free speech on Newsvine people? Watch me get it too.
His parents?
The psych ward would be a good place for him and his stupid ideas. Yeah, looking at this goof ball, that would be a good place!
Aunt of 8 re-read what i said I wasn't talking about the number of instances but rather the seriousness of the charges filed against him vs the charges filed against whites and blacks for similar comments.
Comment # 1 restored for clarity.
You just know that this preemptive move by the police is going to result in a lawsuit.
Hopefully the Conservatives won't discover he's gay, the new rule in Texas is that his mom has to have a forced vaginal exam twice under those circumstances (If your a Mormon I think you just have to submit either two of your 8 wives for the exam, I am not sure of the details, but I do believe your wife has to be at least 12 for the forced vaginal exam)
You can go on the Texas.gov website and read all about it, kids like this are all Liberals don't you know, when they are not trying to save trees and help animals from being abused they kill everyone (o wait, I mean he's a conservative, my bad, I get the two mixed up all the time :) well anyway the ones trying to kill everyone on the face of the earth and convert them to Christianity, those people, the good guys :)
Lawsuit for what? What he did was against the law. Making threats is illegal, whether it's online or in person. Thankfully they caught him before he could act out his threats.
He should be expelled from the University for sure. But does that save anyone? What's to stop him from coming onto the campus at any time.
I don't know where these people get their ideas. There's so much of it going on lately. From grade schools to colleges.
Maybe a lawsuit, but would be pretty groundless in light of the threats he made. I'm betting this was a good thing he was arrested.
Terrorist threat = criminal offense.
Everything you do on a computer is viewable and search by other people. It tracks you constantly. Look at Newsvine. Your on MSNBC and it knows it's you. You created a account using your name and e-mail address that address is tracked. Put your credit card on a site to buy something you might as well tattoo it to your forehead. Facebook is a goldmine for criminals. Since 911 the government has a lot of cops on the world wide web. They don't even need warrants.
"average guy" needs a psycological evaluation!! Good gosh!!!
Janine-1645002
I'm curious, why is it illegal to threaten to kill a lot of people, but not illegal to threaten to kill your girlfriend or ex-wife? And please show me the law that makes it illegal because I have never heard of one.
Attention G.I. Joe,
FYI, police cannot be sued for arresting someone who uttered death threats. What is wrong with you?? And if no one did anything you would be the first to say "If they knew beforehand what this guy was planning to do, why didn't they act on it".......right???? Get a life.
As often as these tragedies have happened, the police have no choice but to investigate. If enough of this guy's friends were concerned enough to report it and thought him capable of doing something like this, certainly the police have an obligation to check it out. Perhaps a tragedy has been prevented and he can get some intense professional help. If he wasn't really intending to commit a mass murder and just play-talking about it, he still needs to learn that threats are not acceptable either.
This guy sounds as if he is seriously deranged. But so far, he is only charged with disturbing campus activities, a misdemeanor offense. So he'll probably be out in the near future.
Better to be safe than sorry...Virginia Tech should be fresh in everyone's minds. On another note, it is a shame and travesty that people want to be infamous...instead of being known for achievements and hard work, they resort to the basest denominator. Hopefully there will be enough good souls out there to keep them in check. Who knows? It could be you or me.
Better be safe than sorry... Put Wm. Sanders in jail before he spreads AIDS to the men in his community.
virginia tech? what about columbine. Just another white guy trying to blame all of his problems on other cultures. look at the news moslty white people are on it for all sorts of crimes there charlie manson!
WilliamJenkins_III, you are suspended for a week for violating rule # 1 of the Code of Honor.
Interesting, obviously well educated, in an honors program, due to graduate in 2014.
Yet, he chooses to blow everything by making public threats. Who in their right mind would hire him once he
graduates?
I think he knew that he was going to be in prison, or kill himself like the guy from V.tech. His last name is populart amogst Koreans not that it has any relevence. I remember my College, our security consisted of showing our IDs.
People in their right mind have a good healthy balance between educationa and social relationships. Seems this kid had too much education and no social skills. He should have done a study between internet life and real life and what are the impact of the itnernet on young kids social skills developments. I really think the digtal age has hindered the younger generation's social skils in real life and some just can't cope witht he real world.
I feel compassion for the young people. They have to deal with so much these days. Specially at a time when being different , well groom and hard worker, and a good student with morals is not popular. I think he have some kind of mental anguish. He is smart, I hope everything can turn out for his best. We need God in our lives.
Yea...... next time don't tell millions of people via the internet that you are going to go on a shooting spree.
As Nike would say, Just do it! Just kidding, I am glad they are taking people seriously when they say they are going to kill scores of random people, you have to assume they are, and offer them help however you can.
Too much like the Virginia Tech incident with the same type of logic. Looks like we finally learned from history. Hope he is getting the care he so much needs.
Too bad. Seems like a smart guy. Lack of social skills, friends or being picked on may have put him on the wrong path. Maybe pressure to excel from his parents, aka Tiger Mom. I don't know the exact reasons, but it's a shame regardless.
ahhh tiger mom, buzzword. aren't they so grand? tigermom much? (saying much after a word now is a cool new slang thing going on in vocabulary). what new buzzword will be next?
scir91onYouTube, you're a douche. No idea what you just said. Something about buzzword, blah, blah, blah. You should comment how "douche" is overused and not contribute to the story whatsoever.
Jim, if he is a "Douche" you must be a "Butt-Plug"!
A.K.A.: $h!thead!
wtf is tiger mom? and scir does sound retarded. another pissed off white guy probably that needs to blame all of his problems on someone else. lol
I just read up on this Gemstone Program at UMD where there is an " interdependence of science and technology with society". Since there is no particular discipline needed to get into the program, this kid could be performing research on how people re-act to a chat. The kid was unarmed and chatted on at least two social websites. If this was research, he took it to a major extreme but then the program was designed to take things out of the box. On the other hand he could need years of treatment. I'm hoping for the former in which case the program may need to be tweaked but preparing for latter. At any rate, the police and university took the proper actions.
That's exactly what crossed my mind, Bob. I'm thinking he might claim it was research.
Research??? That's idiotic.
I have two 19 year-old sons attending UMD. If this is a research project, it was poorly conceived, executed and unfortunate. Since his friends felt strongly that he is capable of such action, I have to assume that it was not a project. I want this "student" in a hospital and NEVER on the campus of UMD again.
Now this is definitely a "different Song"....all the other killers did not muse about their great desires...they just did them.
He'll probably sing a high-pitched song in jail....
Bob I guess you never heard of Columbine? They did create a website weeks before it happened. People read it and contacted police who did little.
Bob: Apparently you haven't been around very long.
another foreigner...go home if you don't like it here...
Nice, his ancestors probably have been here longer than yours have but he's a foreigner? What is most foreign to me is how people like you think you good Americans.
I think he was born in America.
Mary, get back in the kitchen and make us some sandwiches.
Hmm Mary. Which Native American tribe is that name from? I know you can't be one of those scary "furriners" whose parents came to this country with their horrible anchor babies right?
BLS, I prefer bacon and eggs!
Mary, you can cut the sexual tension with a knife right now. I think yo just got popular!
"Mary, get back in the kitchen and make us some sandwiches."
Now, what's a good comeback for that?
Best come back with a sandwich!
Go Home? mary, umm ok. didn't know he visited you at your house, but if you want him to go home I guess that's your right. But mary you need to get out of your house more often, you will see it's not so foreign.
Mary, I second the motion!
mary and where did your family come from? foreigner? Didnt you white people come here flocking in the millions like some immigrants killing indians with your disease and @!$%# because your so dirty. Oh wait no you guys acted nice and gave natives small pox infected gifts and let it spread like some damn terrorists. No one will ever forget this in history. Ha.
Mary52---If people listened to that love it or leave it jingoist bull@!$%# we'd still be in Vietnam. Go in the kitchen and fix yourself a nice big cup of tea!
This was a project and he was exploring how science and technology relates with society when technology is used instead of leaflets to make an announcement!!!!!
Boy, he is smart.
Sounds like someone who wanted some attention. Well, he got it.
What is making people on here think he did it just to get attention? He may very well have been serious...deluded yes but serious. With all of the speculating going on now with the little information given, I can just imagine how bad the speculations would be if he had carried out the action without a warning and then been shot dead by police. for example:
"Where were the parents"
"Why didn't someone call the police"
"That's how they are"
" It's how the youth of today solve their problems"
"What took the police so long to respond"
And so on....
What is wrong with young people's mind nowdays? Instead of making a better future for themselves, they throw themselves into violence or threating to. They have the chance to go into a good school and decide to just blow it away, quite sad.
Because parents now a days cuddle their youngs way too much, over protective and locked them in the house with video games and internet. I don't see kids over 10 in the play ground or parks much any more like when I was that age. It seems every parent is content on keeping their kids locked up inside with modern warfare, or some social website. You can see the difference between kids who actually goes out and get bumps and bruises from kids who are glued to the tv or pc.
What is wrong? Look around dear...this country has gone to hell, no jobs, homes being lost, kids graduating from college with no jobs to be had, other kids not able to go to college becuz goverment is bankrupt and stealing from thier own. Everyday you hear of soldiers being killed still, gas prices rising, cost of living is rediculous...there is nothing to look forward to but, stress, anxiety and doom.
Just doesnt seem so unusual anymore that this type of thing happens. Kids are watching thier country and families lose everything and seeing no future... hopeless desperation.
I am glad they caught this guy before YET another tradgedy occured.
thepunisher-2054749:
And also children and young adults for the most part have no fear of punishment anymore for doing wrong. The laws that are in place are needed to protect children from abuse, however those same laws hamper a parents ability to administer virtually all types of discipline, leaving SOME children to grow up believing that anything goes because they were coddled.
Yes, wanted attention, and the best way these days is too post like he did. That was a cry for help, if he need that much attention.
Hopefully they won't just do a slop evaluation and let him go. He should be watched and monitored for at least 6 months to get a good picture of why he went to such extreme to get attention.
Yes, but it shouldn't have made national news. They played right into his hands. Now watch the copycats follow suit. Even the killers shouldn't be splashed across the headlines for day after day after day. It's like encouraging people to seek notoriety through death and destruction. It's a hungry demon that local law enforcement needs to stop feeding. If this person IS let go and follows through on his threat, then the lawsuits would be astronomical. I would love to know what the statistics are on mental illness in this country now? I do know that we medicate people at an all time high. Were there this many mentally ill young people 30 years ago? Too many chemicals in food, water supply, ground contamination, prescriptions, and products that we use. This is just my opinion. It is not a coincidence that autism is at an all time high also. What is up with that??
We have to get to the root cause of these things and then stop encouraging people to act out by rewarding them with fame when they do.
While I agree with you Valerie, EVERYTHING becomes national news these days. Years ago, if something was going on in your life you told your two or three best friends. Today your "Friends" number in the hundreds with Facebook and Twitter and all the rest.
That is good in a way. Since Columbine we've learned to take postings from people like this student more seriously. They are just not rantings. That they may be serious.
I hope he gets the help he seriously needs and not just be "evaluated" and released with his promise of seeking further assistance.
Like some others I agree that before long he will be out to do what he wants. Then after the attack when they catch him it will be society's fault at a tax-payer trial.
I do believe the Police needed to contact the individual and I do believe he might need some mental help but at the same time I am worried about the loss of the Freedom of Speech and the right to express yourself and maybe the fact that the Police or most likely the Federal Goverment was monitioring the Web most likely without a search warrant. Granted there is so little information in the Story to make any of those accusations but you have to wonder and worry about our Rights being violated...
I mean look at all the people who are angry across the nation right now who have lost their jobs do to the Banking Industry going under which I believe all stems back to President Clinton allegedly twisting the arms of Freddie Mae and Mac leaders to lower the standards on bank loans to thousands of unqualified borrowers who then sold off those bad loans to the unknowing Banking Industry which caused the collapse when those unqualified borrows when bankrupt. Those same Leaders now work for Obama as Presidential financial advisers which is scary in itself.
People are angry and are making threats all over the Country. And then we have a President who is purposely in my opinion trying to cause Racial hate and discontent and discontent between the Non-producers, the unemployed and the people who made a lot of money turning many people against each other to further his Poltical ambitions...
So how many of those people are going to be arrested in the near future for speaking out?
Then add to it the Department of Homeland Security classifying thousands of Military Veterans as Potential Terrorists, and when are those people going to be arrested for being potential terrorists loosely translated meaning anyone who is against Obama..And the recent language in the latest National Defense Authorization Bill allowing for the Detaining of "possible Terrorists" without the right to Habeus Corpus with no time limits to those Detentions? !!
And your telling me your not scared?
The government wasn't monitoring the internet, at least, not in this case. And the right to freedom of speech does not mean you are also free of consequences when exercising that right to make threats against other people. Of course, if nothing was done about it and the student really did go on a shooting spree, you'd be on here wanting to know why nothing was done to prevent it, wouldn't you?
There's scared, and then there's paranoid delusional. It's the paranoid delusionals who scare me.
Eddie, freedom of speech does not allow you to threaten others in a public forum. It's like shouting FIRE in a movie theatre.
While I agree with you about the divide between the Producers and Non-producers that is being fueled by the media and the government, that doesn't give the Producers the right to threaten with bodily harm the non-producers, or vice versa.
Freedoms are NOT Free. They carry a certain amount of responsiblity.
This young man was free to rant and rave about what he didn't like about the government. His school. His fellow students. But he crossed the line when he specifically threatened them.
flbikerchick:
I like how you think, and I agree with you 100%. I wonder where eddie s-802886 got the idea that this incident has anything to do the rant he posted. This article is about a young man who posted threats on two social sites and was reported for it. Threats are not protected by the Bill of Rights or the other 17 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
This guy obviously has psychological issues. The problem now becomes that he has been charged with a misdemeanor so he long can he be held? Certainly he is a potential danger to public safety and must be held to protect others. The question is how long will he be kept in custody?
I'm thinking it will depend on the results of his psychiatric evaluation.
flbikerchick...I am thinking with all the media fuss he is getting, the evaluation will be pretty negative (so that the psychologists can cover their butts). Anyway, if they say something negative it will be something like "schizophrenic" and/or some form of "depression." There is little mystery or creativity to their typical findings and little reason for them to play with him for a month-long evaluation...he should just be sent to jail.
Advanced delusionary schizophrenia with involuntary narcissistic rage? No, wait,,,,that was Charlie from the Rhode Island State Police!
Oh, he should be sent to jail, definitely. But if he really does have some mental illness, what happens when he gets out? Mental illness is not an excuse, but if we don't try to identify and treat it, we're just letting human time bombs walk around. If a mentally ill person injured or killed one of my family members, I'd want him to do time (at the very least), but I'd also want to know why he was left to roam around undiagnosed and untreated, up until the point where he committed a crime.
Glock..is that from "Me, Myself, and Irene?" lol...been meaning to see that movie. Flbikerchick, I just don't put much value on the Mental Health Industry...a lot of it is poppycock that actually helps criminals escape real punishment. If they "treat him", he will get out much sooner than if they said he was just a dangerous criminal (look at John Henckley?). If they "treat him" when he is little...I guess every unpopular kid will have that used against them (part of American competition).
We don't know much about Song yet but, if his motivation for this was bullying, someone should have tried to treat those abusing him. You will find that most of these horrible actions are the result of years and decades of social harassment, not from "mental illness." They will label this guy "schizophrenic", which is essentially saying that he just imagined others harassing him and that society should just ignore his complaints. They will label him as "depressed" because he is unhappy and has a negative outlook about his future...because he was continuously harassed. With the mental health industry, you get into a lot of hypocritical type things.
It is for this reason, I think we should just stick to criminal classifications. Anyway, "treated" people still go on rampages and have issues....treatment isn't a cure all.
If he had led a campus discussion on the growing frustration that leads to terrorism, no one would attend for fear of being arrested.
Does his message announce terrorism? If so, would warning of terrorism, spread terrorism or would it make the public complacent. Would a complacent public be more or less able to react to warnings of terrorism? Or would a complacent pubic just add more complacent reaction to everything the public ignores like growing frustration?
For terrorists to remain omnipotent, they would be more successful if they didn’t announce it ahead of time?
Does that last statement, give new advice to terrorist, showing them how to operate?
An academic setting might discuss the causes of frustration, and examine how terrorist attempt to use fear to achieve some goal, or with some advancement in thought discuss how to counteract the fear, and how to address frustration?
However across campus, in the political science club, they would be studying fear, and how to use it to gain control of the politician system by leveraging on frustration to use fear more effectively once they become entrenched in office.
As we can see, from the pervasive internet response, it would unwise to discuss anything like terrorism, fear tactics during the era of the permanent political campaign, since knowledge itself is dangerous to the irrational?
Frustrated? Ignore it and it will go away. Fearful? Be fearful oppression is good. Terrorism? The real bad guys?
Well, he made national news.
I'm wondering if this is an "experiment" gone awry? Post something like this to gauge the response and reaction.
19? When I saw the picture I thought he was 12. I wonder if he has any idea what prison would be like?
Besides pretty much anything will make it to National News - Headline:
Bus driver, student killed in Indiana school bus crash
An awful thing but hardly worthy of NATIONAL news.
he looks mental and sounds like it too......................
JOregon, A bus driver killing a student in his care is a heckuva lot more of a national story than a student posting a threat and doing nothing but WANTING national coverage. MSNBC gave him exactly what he wanted. In Indiana, a child died and a bus driver did too. Nine others were injured. One was stuck under a wheel for hours. That is indeed news. Horrifying news. Just because it didn't happen in your back yard doesn't mean it isn't worthy of a nation headline.
Daisy
I picked that headline just because it was directly above this one a the time.
Could have easily used:
'Lesbians are cool' T-shirt puts school in national spotlight
Which at this moment is directly above the school bus one.
The fact is none of this is NATIONAL news.
School bus accidents happen all the time. It is fortunate few result in serious injury. The school bus accident was an important Local story, and maybe even a Statewide story. For the rest of us it is a curiosity. It won't affect my life, it won't effect school bus drivers where I live and it won't change laws in Oregon.
That doesn't mean it isn't important for some people in some places.
All it does to me is make me sad a child died.
Why do we need to fill our lives with stories that make us sad, when such stories are irrelevant to our lives?
Typical of too many "gen Y" kids - grew up on video games and child psychiatrist babble, never been told that there are things you are not permitted to do, always have to be the number one player, so when they get out in the world and are told "no", they have no frame of reference, no way of judging appropriate responses. So, from Columbine to VA Tech, you get this - people told me my mother dressed me funny, so kill them all! Believe it or not, a firm NO or spanking at the age of two or three can prevent a lot of tragedies ten or twenty years later.
Well, I think the problem is America's arcane social theory....the primitive Social Darwinism that holds that bullying and social harassment is natural and acceptable. And that being ultra-aggressive and overly competitive in all things is "normal." If this kid was bullied, the authorities need to find out who did it, get them a pych eval, and punish them. Trying to troubleshoot a bunch of angry, deranged kids after years of harassment that the system chose to ignore...will be impossible. If you teach all the kids about "appropriate behavior", meaning that you should teach them to pursue their own interests and leave others alone, you will prevent most of the problems from the start. There is no rational reason why we should allow social harassment....it doesn't better or improve society.
This is an example of the early warning system working. We never hear about the people they catch pre psychotic rampage, only the post.
Good job.
you are an angry bird. go hatch your chickens
Does that make them angry chicks or just once a month?
My question is, how did this guy who does research about science get caught. Surely he was not stupid enough to go online in his own apartment and post these things. Assuming he was smart enought to drive accross town and use an open wifi at a coffee house from his car or something, how did he get caught?
Regi...ever notice how extremely intelligent people are a little off? Super smart technically, braniacs at most things scholastically. They are usually lacking in social skills and everyday life we call "Normal" I always refer to this as "Engineer Brain". Hell of smart, but cant get out of thier own way.
Its also said there is a fine line between genius and Insanity...
Would have this been a misdemeanor if he threatened to kill the president instead of JUST our kids that are on campus?
@ Lori714- Well who knows, on another news story people are calling a soldier who killed 16 people in their beds, a HERO. Here, the kid makes threats and people are calling for his head. Peoples perspective seems to be off either way so don't be surprised if he isn't punished as much as he would be if he'd threatened the president.