VT: Hypothesis: More screening / intervention helps wrt violent mental issues?

[OncoCaP]

You would be a good teacher for doing so. Pulling Johnny aside and saying, "is everything okay at home" is just good teaching. Turning him over to the authorities because he likes to write about violence would not be.

Good analogy with the family doctor and bruising. I like that.

The difference here is that we are talking about something that may happen in the future. If Johnny shows up with bruises, something may have happened to him. It's much more difficult to predict whether Johnny will have bruises in the future due to abuse.

Also, keep in mind that the killers death is also tragic, even though it may be perceived as "just" and "deserved." To some extent a solution here would also protect the killer from himself.

I'm still a fan of a risk scale. Once you get stalking complaints, I believe it's appropriate to start a file on someone and start assessing potential risks and making sure that a student is "ok" and if counseling is needed, that there is some kind of follow-up that it is really taking place. Having files on who might be a risk could also help but involves a balance of privacy and safety.

Another solution might be to design schools so that it is more difficult to kill people there once the mass murder is in progress. Maybe the police could activate an strong sprinkler or fog system that would make it hard for the killer to see potential victims. Of course, then the police would need night vision goggles to see the killer, so it could be a problem. Better design of exits could also help I guess (make it impossible to chain the doors shut from the outside). While you might think there is really nothing we can do, I'm not so pessimistic about making improvements. I'm also not sure that students need to wear bullet-proof vests to school. I hope we aren't just waiting around for the next mass-murder at a school

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[OncoCaP]

I had a teacher in high school who reported me to our school psychologist because I had asked for an extension on a paper due to being a bit overloaded. If she had pulled me aside and asked about it, I would have told her it was because I was going out of town for a week and I needed a few extra days. Instead, I had to sit through a humiliating examination where I had to prove that I wasn't crazy. Reporting people just makes them mad. It's one thing if he had made threats, but writing strange things doesn't warrant police intervention.

Although this particular guy was obviously on a different plane than most people. I can only imagine what his reaction was in regards to being turned over to the police.

Yeah, did you stalk anyone? Have your classmates never heard your voice? Are your classmates afraid? All you school essays and columns about killing people senselessly? I don't think so. Somehow you don't seem like a mass-murder threat. There is a huge difference between what Cho was doing and what you describe. It seems like your teacher was just worried about you (probably needlessly so).

Being checked is never fun. Going through an airport metal detector isn't fun. However, the price of not having these kinds of checks is just too high.

 

[notdeadyet]

Once you get stalking complaints, I believe it's appropriate to start a file on someone and start assessing potential risks and making sure that a student is "ok" and if counseling is needed, that there is some kind of follow-up that it is really taking place.

Totally with you on that. I'd be suprised if most colleges aren't doing this already.

Having files on who might be a risk could also help but involves a balance of privacy and safety.

Keeping "files" on students who have not done anything wrong because they might in the future is unconstitutional and totally morally unacceptable.

 

[ssquared]

Yeah, did you stalk anyone? Have your classmates never heard your voice? Are your classmates afraid? All you school essays and columns about killing people senselessly? I don't think so. Somehow you don't seem like a mass-murder threat. There is a huge difference between what Cho was doing and what you describe. It seems like your teacher was just worried about you (probably needlessly so).

Being checked is never fun. Going through an airport metal detector isn't fun. However, the price of not having these kinds of checks is just too high.

You have a valid point about posing a threat (nope, I was too dorky for anybody to ever worry about that). But even stalkers aren't necessarily murderers, and people write stupidly violent crap all the time. What I think is the issue here is that we have very different views on what constitutes a reasonable invasion of people's privacy for the sake of others. I may be wrong in my interpretation, but I get the feeling that you would be fine with a much more stringent control by the government over people and their lives. I would not be ok with that. While I think that schools should keep a lookout for troublesome students, the reality is that with 25,000 students there's no way to track everyone (nor should they track everyone). It's a risk we take in exchange for being able to live our lives the way that we want. I'm not saying that I'm ok with letting killers run around loose, but you can't try to control people for the grand idea of "stopping future killers." It'll never work.

 

[notdeadyet]

Another solution might be to design schools so that it is more difficult to kill people there once the mass murder is in progress. Maybe the police could activate an strong sprinkler or fog system that would make it hard for the killer to see potential victims. Of course, then the police would need night vision goggles to see the killer, so it could be a problem. Better design of exits could also help I guess (make it impossible to chain the doors shut from the outside).

You don't avert a disaster like Katrina by handing out bus tokens; you fix the levvies. You don't avert a disaster like a school massacre by making it easier for people to run; you prevent the massacre in the first place.

While you might think there is really nothing we can do, I'm not so pessimistic about making improvements.

I think there's lots we can do. Stop the kids from getting guns. Prevent violent tendencies. But I think avoiding the problems by things like revamping architecture to accommodate preventable atrocities is not a realistic direction.

 

[OncoCaP]

...Keeping "files" on students who have not done anything wrong because they might in the future is unconstitutional and totally morally unacceptable.

Here is some wiki about this (see below). Maybe we could expand on this to address the issue of people with mental problems and behavior (stalking, threats, etc.) that would suggest a more significant threat in the in the future. Some research would be nice. I didn't study this stuff as an undergrad (and would love to hear from anyone who has).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion
Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard in United States law that a person; has been, is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity based on specific and articulable facts and inferences. It is the basis for an investigatory or Terry stop by the police and requires less evidence than probable cause, the legal requirement for arrests and warrants. Reasonable suspicion is evaluated using the "reasonable person" or "reasonable officer" standard, in which said person in the same circumstances could reasonably believe a person has been, is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity; such suspicion is not a mere hunch. Police may also, based solely on reasonable suspicion of a threat to safety, frisk a suspect for weapons, but not for contraband like drugs. A combination of particular facts, even if individually innocuous, can form the basis of reasonable suspicion.

 

[notdeadyet]

Yeah, did you stalk anyone? Have your classmates never heard your voice? Are your classmates afraid? All you school essays and columns about killing people senselessly? I don't think so.

With the exception of stalking, none of the things you mention are specifically against the law or against school rules. Should we make it a rule you need to speak in class a certain amount? Prohibit offending other students?

And it sounds like Cho was never charged with stalking. If charges were dropped, you can't punish someone. Should we punish the Duke LaCrosse players with the logic, "Hey, charges were dropped, but, you know... where there's smoke there's probably fire..."?

Not picking on you here, OncoCaP, because I respect what you're trying to do. But I don't see the need to toss out so many rights and freedoms because a sicko got a gun and blasted a classroom.

Why is everyone so quick to toss out the first, fourth and fifth amendments but god forbid we touch the second? We can prohibit violent writing, put tracking devices on all new students and keep files on them, but it still wouldn't have prevented VTech as long as kids can buy guns.

 

[OncoCaP]

You have a valid point about posing a threat (nope, I was too dorky for anybody to ever worry about that). But even stalkers aren't necessarily murderers, and people write stupidly violent crap all the time. What I think is the issue here is that we have very different views on what constitutes a reasonable invasion of people's privacy for the sake of others. I may be wrong in my interpretation, but I get the feeling that you would be fine with a much more stringent control by the government over people and their lives. I would not be ok with that. While I think that schools should keep a lookout for troublesome students, the reality is that with 25,000 students there's no way to track everyone (nor should they track everyone). It's a risk we take in exchange for being able to live our lives the way that we want. I'm not saying that I'm ok with letting killers run around loose, but you can't try to control people for the grand idea of "stopping future killers." It'll never work.

So what would be your expectation if a school official was told by a student that "my roommate talks a lot about wanting to kill people"? Would you expect the school official to say ... that's none of your or my business, start minding your own? Is there really that much of a right to privacy?

 

[ssquared]

So what would be your expectation if a school official was told by a student that "my roommate talks a lot about wanting to kill people"? Would you expect the school official to say ... that's none of your or my business, start minding your own? Is there really that much of a right to privacy?

But you're bringing up a new point here. Actually making threats is far different that people thinking that you're mean and writing vague, albeit violent, poems. It's the point that it's ok for a person to say "Gosh I hate President Bush, he should die" but it's not for them to say "Man, I want to kill the President." One is harsh, and one is punishable under law.

 

[OncoCaP]

But you're bringing up a new point here. Actually making threats is far different that people thinking that you're mean and writing vague, albeit violent, poems. It's the point that it's ok for a person to say "Gosh I hate President Bush, he should die" but it's not for them to say "Man, I want to kill the President." One is harsh, and one is punishable under law.

Yes, true. It's more extreme to explicitly voice a threat to kill like that. Even so, in this more extreme case, where, say your roommate talks about personally killing people or drawing pictures, writing poems, etc., s/he has done nothing wrong (especially if they don't make a treat against a particular person, say). If your roommate then snaps and goes on a murderous rampage, you would probably wish that there were ways of dealing with this kind of issue.

 

[OncoCaP]

More info about his mental illness has been released. Based on this new information, I'm more and more convinced that perhaps we need to be more proactive when faced with a case like this.

I'm pretty sure we can raise standards for who gets to be in class / in a dorm and keep people like this out until a legal statement concerning an "imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness" is resolved without being unfair. Granted, there were conflicting statements about this, but obviously those who thought he was a danger to others were right. It's going to be hard to continue to claim that someone didn't drop the ball on this.

Maybe there are people like him that never do anything, but in any case, I don't think that students in this situation can just be given a suggestion for counseling and sent on their merry way. My take is that if the investigation / follow-up on the several incidents related to Mr. Cho had been more aggressive there is a reasonable probability that this could have been avoided. It's not hard to imagine why teachers and students were afraid of this person.

The shooter even says in his final recorded words that all of this could have been prevented (listen to his own words in the video clip that comes up with the link at the bottom of this message). Although my reasoning is I'm sure quite different from his, I agree with him to some extent -- that this incident quite possibly could have been prevented. I'm sure we will learn more about how specifically it might have been prevented (or that it could not have been prevented) in the many coming weeks months and years as this incident is analyzed.

Hopefully we won't just wait around for the next copycat killing before we decide to consider some innovative, aggressive, proactive ways of prevent repeats of this mass murder, even if such potential solutions are difficult to devise, unpleasant to deal with, and require great care to protect the privacy and other rights of the mentally ill.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/18/vtech.shooting/index.html
"CNN also learned Wednesday that in 2005 Cho was declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice, who declared he was "an imminent danger" to himself, a court document states.

"A box indicating that the subject "Presents an imminent danger to others as a result of mental illness" was not checked.

...

"In another part of the form, Cho was described as "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization, and presents an imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness, or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for self, and is incapable of volunteering or unwilling to volunteer for treatment."

"A handwritten section of the form describes Cho. "Affect is flat and mood is depressed," said the order, which was signed December 14 by Special Justice Paul M. Barnett. "He denies suicidal ideation. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder. His insight and judgment are normal."

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/us/2007/04/18/sot.nbc.cho.speaks.nbc
"... you had a 100 billion chances and ways to avoid today ..."

 

[notdeadyet]

Yeah, he's one sick puppy. The latest news isn't really making me think the college is at fault as much as the state. I'm confused why they let him out on the street if he was declared a danger to himself.

But if the state felt he was okay to be out on the street, why would a college over-rule the psychiatrist's decision? And on whose expertise? A dean's?

 

[notdeadyet]

I'm pretty sure we can raise standards for who gets to be in class / in a dorm and keep people like this out until a legal statement concerning an "imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness" is resolved without being unfair.

Absolutely. If this was determined by the courts, he should not be out on the streets. Nor on a college campus.

It's going to be hard to continue to claim that someone didn't drop the ball on this.

Absolutely. If the court told the school he's a danger to himself and others, he should have been locked up. But I don't see it as a college issue.

The only real area the college is exposed ethically and legally is the not shutting down the campus after the first shooting.

 

[notdeadyet]

Hopefully we won't just wait around for the next copycat killing before we decide to consider some innovative, aggressive, proactive ways of prevent repeats of this mass murder, even if such potential solutions are difficult to devise, unpleasant to deal with, and require great care to protect the privacy and other rights of the mentally ill.

Get rid of guns. Anyone? Anyone? No, not going to happen.

If you have any program in mind that offers greater security to people without sacrificing their freedom to speech, privacy, due process, and travel, I'll fully support it. I don't think anyone will fight you on it.

No one will be willing to radically give up rights to placate a few twisted individuals that pick up a gun. It didn't happen after the McDonald's massacre years ago. It didn't happen after Columbine. And it won't after VTech. There will be lots of talk and many lawsuits, but at the end of the day you'll see modest security changes. No one will turn the constitution on its ear because of this.

 

[acrunchyfrog]

I read once that the three most common characteristics of mass murderers were:

* History of abusing animals
* Bedwetting

The number that had one if not two of these were very, very high. But do we pull aside students who have wet their bed?

The problem with prevention of murder based on indicators is that the indicators are usually quite common and almost alwasy benign.

Ask this: how many college mass murders have there been in this country over the past century? A handful at most? Looking for patterns in such a small sample is probably not realistic.

I believe Robert K. Ressler Of the FBI stated that the third behavior in the lethal traid was an abnormal fascination with fire. http://www.robertkressler.com/

Just my $.02

 

[notdeadyet]

I believe Robert K. Ressler Of the FBI stated that the third behavior in the lethal traid was an abnormal fascination with fire. http://www.robertkressler.com/

Nice work (and alias), acrunchyfrog. I was scratching my head over what the third was. That makes sense...

 

[OncoCaP]

Absolutely. If this was determined by the courts, he should not be out on the streets. Nor on a college campus.

Absolutely. If the court told the school he's a danger to himself and others, he should have been locked up. But I don't see it as a college issue.

The only real area the college is exposed ethically and legally is the not shutting down the campus after the first shooting.

A PDF of the documents related to this can be found here:

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/04/18/cho.pdf

It looks like a physician (Raj Crowe? -- illegible) contradicted the imminent danger concerns and determined that Cho is not an imminent danger to himself or to others back in December of 2005 and should have voluntary treatment. My guess is that this medical determination was enough to keep Cho in school.

There is something to be said for the fact that nothing happened for ~1.5 years. However, on the question of treatment (voluntary vs involuntary) I'm interested in learning more about that. My guess is that this physician is going to be in the hot seat and people will be asking questions about the diagnosis and determination of risk/danger. We'll probably learn more about this kind of diagnosis as the media probes this. Maybe there was nothing remarkable about Cho that would lead a physician to conclude this person will be a mass murderer. However, I wonder if the physician had all the information he needed (and was allowed to have) to make the best determination possible. Maybe Cho was on his best behavior during the doctor's appointment / evaluation?

 

[Wanna_B_Scutty]

I thought that this NY Times article on the legal implications of student mental illness was interesting. Thoughts?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19protocol.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

 

[OncoCaP]

I thought that this NY Times article on the legal implications of student mental illness was interesting. Thoughts?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19protocol.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Great article! It's short, but it covers some points that I'm sure we will hear more about in the future. Looks like universities are in a no-win situation on this. If they remove a student who presents a threat, they can get sued. If they don't do anything to a student that represents a possible threat to themselves or others, they can get sued (as I'm quite sure VT will be). Since they'll be sued either way, they might as well do what they think is most fair and beneficial.

Maybe universities could require treatment and further evaluation for students that have a mental illness that suggest that the student may become violent or suicidal as a result of that mental illness. Maybe there is a way of working in the treatment into the student's life that would minimize objections and interfere very little with the normal aspects of the student's life.