Everyone is asking, "WHY?"
Family members, neighbors, school officials and law enforcement personnel all want to know why this young man, Jeff Weise, who should have been dating girls and playing ball, instead became a lonely brooder who suffered from severe depression, made attempts at suicide, talked and wrote a lot about Hitler and death, and then shot to death nine people and also turned the gun on himself.
Each person who knew Jeff has his or her own theory. These theories range from his taking Prozac to having experienced crushing blows like the suicide of his father and the crippling accident which left his mother confined to a nursing home. My question, however, is "Could this tragedy have been prevented?" We'll never know with a certainty. But this troubled young man had been crying out for help for a long time.
According to an article from the New York Times dated Saturday, March 26, 2005 (page A-7), "Family Wonders if Prozac Prompted School Shootings," by Monica Davey and Gardiner Harris, Jeff Weise had been taking medication because of his depression. He had also attempted suicide once by cutting his wrist.
The Times' story said that Jeff had been receiving mental health counseling, and that he had been hospitalized for at least 72 hours following the attempt at taking his life. Clearly, he made attempts to reach out and communicate his pain because Jeff had a website in which he posted his suicidal thoughts and feelings.
Also, according to the New York Times' article, Jeff Weise had an Internet posting which read:
"I had went through a lot of things in my life
that had driven me to a darker path than most choose to take...
I split the flesh of my wrist with a box opener,
painting the floor of my bedroom with blood I shouldn't have spilt...
After sitting there for what seemed like hours...
I had a revelation that this was not the path."
Jeff Weise
I have since read several more articles from various periodicals, and they're all basically the same. Other than reporting on the victims and the impact of this tragedy on the local community, there were no answers.
Some of the news stories reported that Jeff Weise would often wear dark clothing and that he was "obsessed with death." No kidding! Living on a Native American reservation with its poverty, and it's higher than the national average rates of addictions to drugs and alcohol, its youth suicides and the high rate of "accidental" for Native Americans under the age of 20, for Jeff Weise death was a close presence.
In such a world as his where Jeff's dad took his own life leaving his son with the guilt, and having to fend for himself and live among in-laws, how could such a young man live the American dream of hope for a good future? "Hope" was not in Jeff Weise's vocabulary. There was nothing in his life to give the word hope any meaning.
Furthermore, I do not believe that Jeff Weise could see past his own little world of despair and disappointment. And I would not be surprised to learn that he had a lot of anger towards God.
The kids who insensitively tormented and bullied Jeff, a boy who was already suffering from an overload of emotional pain, were only throwing dry logs on a long smoldering fire. They were no doubt ignorant of Jeff's growing anger at life's seeming unfairness. And they were, in a sense, helping to make a human bomb that would one day explode in a burst of violence.
But until this day came, it appears that Jeff stayed on the faceless Internet posting his self-absorbed messages, while pleading for someone to take notice of him and show concern.
I read some of his postings which were published in various newspapers. Interestingly, I never saw any of the responses he received, if he got any.
For a while, however, he managed to unleash some of his anger by writing his praises for Hitler on a pro-Nazi website. I think that the Fuhrer's idea, about a "Final Solution" to get rid of the unwanted must-have, touched a common thread in Jeff's mind. There were a bunch of local teenagers whom he thought needed to be taught a lesson and eliminated. His tormentors, he apparently convinced himself, had to go. He would get a gun. He would let loose with his own version of the Final Solution.
Jeff Weise snapped. He knew where his grandfather, a "longtime Officer with the Red Lake Police Department," kept his guns and ammunition. A tragedy was about to unfold.
D.B.
Each person who knew Jeff has his or her own theory. These theories range from his taking Prozac to having experienced crushing blows like the suicide of his father and the crippling accident which left his mother confined to a nursing home. My question, however, is "Could this tragedy have been prevented?" We'll never know with a certainty. But this troubled young man had been crying out for help for a long time.
According to an article from the New York Times dated Saturday, March 26, 2005 (page A-7), "Family Wonders if Prozac Prompted School Shootings," by Monica Davey and Gardiner Harris, Jeff Weise had been taking medication because of his depression. He had also attempted suicide once by cutting his wrist.
The Times' story said that Jeff had been receiving mental health counseling, and that he had been hospitalized for at least 72 hours following the attempt at taking his life. Clearly, he made attempts to reach out and communicate his pain because Jeff had a website in which he posted his suicidal thoughts and feelings.
Also, according to the New York Times' article, Jeff Weise had an Internet posting which read:
"I had went through a lot of things in my life
that had driven me to a darker path than most choose to take...
I split the flesh of my wrist with a box opener,
painting the floor of my bedroom with blood I shouldn't have spilt...
After sitting there for what seemed like hours...
I had a revelation that this was not the path."
Jeff Weise
I have since read several more articles from various periodicals, and they're all basically the same. Other than reporting on the victims and the impact of this tragedy on the local community, there were no answers.
Some of the news stories reported that Jeff Weise would often wear dark clothing and that he was "obsessed with death." No kidding! Living on a Native American reservation with its poverty, and it's higher than the national average rates of addictions to drugs and alcohol, its youth suicides and the high rate of "accidental" for Native Americans under the age of 20, for Jeff Weise death was a close presence.
In such a world as his where Jeff's dad took his own life leaving his son with the guilt, and having to fend for himself and live among in-laws, how could such a young man live the American dream of hope for a good future? "Hope" was not in Jeff Weise's vocabulary. There was nothing in his life to give the word hope any meaning.
Furthermore, I do not believe that Jeff Weise could see past his own little world of despair and disappointment. And I would not be surprised to learn that he had a lot of anger towards God.
The kids who insensitively tormented and bullied Jeff, a boy who was already suffering from an overload of emotional pain, were only throwing dry logs on a long smoldering fire. They were no doubt ignorant of Jeff's growing anger at life's seeming unfairness. And they were, in a sense, helping to make a human bomb that would one day explode in a burst of violence.
But until this day came, it appears that Jeff stayed on the faceless Internet posting his self-absorbed messages, while pleading for someone to take notice of him and show concern.
I read some of his postings which were published in various newspapers. Interestingly, I never saw any of the responses he received, if he got any.
For a while, however, he managed to unleash some of his anger by writing his praises for Hitler on a pro-Nazi website. I think that the Fuhrer's idea, about a "Final Solution" to get rid of the unwanted must-have, touched a common thread in Jeff's mind. There were a bunch of local teenagers whom he thought needed to be taught a lesson and eliminated. His tormentors, he apparently convinced himself, had to go. He would get a gun. He would let loose with his own version of the Final Solution.
Jeff Weise snapped. He knew where his grandfather, a "longtime Officer with the Red Lake Police Department," kept his guns and ammunition. A tragedy was about to unfold.
D.B.
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