Blogging the Bookshelf » Crime

Hatred and History – “Disgrace” – J.M. Coetzee

Tim — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:11:05 +0000

Halfway home, Lucy, to his surprise, speaks. ‘It was so personal,’ she says. ‘It was done with such personal hatred. That was what stunned me more than anything. The rest was … expected. But why did they hate me so? I had never set eyes on them.’

He waits for more, but there is no more, for the moment. ‘It was history speaking through them,’ he offers at last. ‘A history of wrong. Think of it that way, if it helps. It may have seemed personal, but it wasn’t. It came down from the ancestors.’

There is no Profile – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:56:05 +0000

A pair of government how-to guides helped. The FBI and the Secret Service each published reports in the first three years, guiding faculty to identify serious threats. The central recommendations contradicted prevailing post-Columbine behavior. They said identifying outcasts as threats is not healthy. It demonizes innocent kids who are already struggling. It is also unproductive. Oddballs are not the problem. They do not fit the profile. There is no profile. All the recent school shooters shared exactly one trait: 100 percent male. (Since the study a few have been female.) Aside from personal experience, no other characteristic hit 50 percent, not even close.

“There is no accurate or useful ‘profile’ of attackers,” the Secret Service said. Attackers came from all ethnic, economic, and social classes. The bulk came from solid two-parent homes. Most had no criminal record or history of violence. The two biggest myths were that shooters were loners and that they “snapped.” A staggering 93 percent planned their attack in advance. “The path toward violence is an evolutionary one, with signposts along the way,” the FBI report said.

Cultural influences also appeared weak. Only a quarter were interested in violent movies, half that number in video games—probably below average for teen boys. Most perps shared a crucial experience: 98 percent had suffered a loss or failure they perceived as serious—anything from getting fired to blowing a test or getting dumped. Of course, everyone suffers loss and failure, but for these kids, the trauma seemed to set anger in motion. This was certainly true in Columbine: Dylan viewed his entire life as failure, and Eric’s arrest accelerated his anger.

The Human Chain – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 02:51:05 +0000

“What’s the human chain for?” a reporter asked. “To shield the students from you folk,” district spokesman Rick Kaufman said. Most media would be excluded. A small pool would be escorted in. Reporters were incredulous. One print reporter? The White House didn’t limit its pool that tightly. Reporters for the big national papers huddled in the back of the room, discussing options to “lawyer up.” The district wouldn’t back down, Kaufman said. In fact, the pool would come only with major concessions: no helicopters, no rooftop photographers, and no breach of school grounds. “If we can’t get agreement, then there’s no pool,” he said. Try it, reporters threatened; it will backfire. “As long as parents understand that by saying no to everything, again it’s going to be a situation where we’re coming out of rocks and stuff in order to get sound and pictures,” a TV executive said. “And I wonder if the parents really understand, if they think they control us by just saying no, they’re really not; they’re forcing us to go in other directions.”

Hearsay Accounts – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:26:05 +0000

Initially, most witnesses refuted the emerging consensus. Nearly all described the killing as random. All the papers and the wire services produced a total of just four witnesses advancing the target theory Wednesday morning—each one contradicting his or her own description. Most of the papers advanced the theory with just one student who had actually seen it—some had zero. Reuters attributed the theory to “many witnesses” and USA Today to “students.” “Student” equaled “witness.” Witness to everything that happened that day, and anything about the killers. It was a curious leap. Reporters would not make that mistake at a car wreck. Did you see it? If not, they move on.

A Vicious Cycle – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:55:05 +0000

Repetition was the problem. Only a handful of students mentioned the Trench Coat Mafia during the first five hours of CNN coverage—virtually all fed from local news stations. But reporters homed in on the idea. They were responsible about how they addressed the rumors, but blind to the impact of how often. Kids “knew” the TCM was involved because witnesses and news anchors had said so on TV. They confirmed it with friends watching similar reports. Word spread fast—conversation was the only teen activity in south Jeffco Tuesday afternoon. Pretty soon, most of the students had multiple independent confirmations. They believed they knew the TCM was behind the attack as a fact. From 1:00 to 8:00 P.M., the number of students in Clement Park citing the group went from almost none to nearly all. They weren’t making it up, they were repeating it back. The second problem was a failure to question. In those first five hours, not a single person on the CNN feeds asked a student how they knew the killers were part of the Trench Coat Mafia. Print reporters, talk show hosts, and the rest of the media chain repeated those mistakes. “All over town, the ominous new phrase ‘Trench Coat Mafia’ was on everyone’s lips,” USA Today reported Wednesday morning. That was a fact. But who was telling whom? The writers assumed kids were informing the media. It was the other way around.

Myths – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:00:05 +0000

We remember Columbine as a pair of outcast Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and tearing through their high school hunting down jocks to settle a long-running feud. Almost none of that happened. No Goths, no outcasts, nobody snapping. No targets, no feud, and no Trench Coat Mafia. Most of those elements existed at Columbine—which is what gave them such currency. They just had nothing to do with the murders. The lesser myths are equally unsupported: no connection to Marilyn Manson, Hitler’s birthday, minorities, or Christians.

A Failed Bombing – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:20:05 +0000

For investigators, the big bombs changed everything: the scale, the method, and the motive of the attack. Above all, it had been indiscriminate. Everyone was supposed to die. Columbine was fundamentally different from the other school shootings. It had not really been intended as a shooting at all. Primarily, it had been a bombing that failed.
…

That same day, officials announced the discovery of the big bombs, and their destructive power. It instigated a new media shock wave. But, curiously, journalists failed to grasp the implications. Detectives let go of the targeting theory immediately. It had been sketchy to begin with, and now it was completely disproved. The media never shook it off. They saw what happened at Columbine as a shooting and the killers as outcasts targeting jocks. They filtered every new development through that lens.

Obviously, and thankfully, the large bombs that the instigators had set failed on the day.I was really surprised to read that Columbine was intended primarily as a bombing inspired by Timothy McViegh, not as a school shooting motivated by the bullying, revenge etc as assumed by nearly everyone.

Better Get a Lawyer – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 04:43:05 +0000

The Harrises and Klebolds both hired attorneys. They had good reason: the presumption of guilt quickly landed on their shoulders. Investigators didn’t expect to charge them, but the public did. National polls taken shortly after the attack would identify all sorts of culprits contributing to the tragedy: violent movies, video games, Goth culture, lax gun laws, bullies, and Satan. Eric did not make the list. Dylan didn’t either. They were just kids. Something or someone must have led them astray. Wayne and Kathy and Tom and Sue were the chief suspects. They dwarfed all other causes, blamed by 85 percent of the population in a Gallup poll. They had the additional advantage of being alive, to be pursued.

Myth Making – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:38:05 +0000

The narrative unfolding on television looked nothing like the killers’ plan. It looked only moderately like what was actually occurring. It would take months for investigators to piece together what had gone on inside. Motive would take longer to unravel. It would be years before the detective team would explain why. The public couldn’t wait that long. The media was not about to. They speculated.

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Reporters quickly keyed on the darker force behind the attack: this spooky Trench Coat Mafia. It grew more bizarre by the minute. In the first two hours, witnesses on CNN described the TCM as Goths, gays, outcasts, and a street gang. “A lot of the time they’ll, like, wear makeup and paint their nails and stuff,” a Columbine senior said. “They’re kind of—I don’t know, like Goth, sort of, like, and they’re, like, associated with death and violence a lot.” None of that would prove to be true. That student did not, in fact, know the people he was describing. But the story grew.

Live Reporting – “Columbine” – Dave Cullen

Tim — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:08:05 +0000

The boy described more commotion. “There’s a little bunch of people crying outside. I can hear them downstairs.” Something crashed. “Whoa!” The anchor gasped. “What was that?!” “I don’t know.” The anchors had enough. Her partner told him to hang up, keep quiet, and try to reach 911. “Keep trying to call them, OK?”

The cops pleaded with the TV stations to stop. Please ask the hostages to quit calling the media, they said. Tell them to turn off the televisions. The stations aired the requests and continued broadcasting the calls. “If you’re watching, kids, turn the TV off,” one anchor implored. “Or down, at least.”