I vividly remember the Columbine High School shootings, which left fifteen people dead...
...most of them students, including the two young gunmen and a heroic teacher. It was a brutal killing spree of pent-up anger and a desire for revenge over real or imagined hurts. It was unnecessary, and it made no sense. Columbine left our nation stunned and devastated, and asking lots of questions.
Now it has happened again. History seems to have repeated itself, this time in the little town of Red Lake, Minnesota.
On Monday, March 21, on an Indian reservation in a remote area of the United States, sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise brought a gun and ammunition to his school. He then began to shoot his fellow students. In the aftermath, five students, a teacher and a security guard were slain.
Later, it was learned that this young man also killed his grandfather (whom he was living with) and his grandfather's live-in girlfriend. Jeff Weise also killed himself. A total of ten people died.
According to an article in the New York Times for Tuesday, March 22, 2005 (pages A-1, A-16) Jeff Weise walked through the corridors of the 300-student Red Lake High School at about 3 p.m. firing off rounds from a handgun. I would assume his rampage was over in less than ten minutes.
Some of the ensuing reports I hear over the radio said that, like the two Columbine gunmen, who were also teenagers, Jeff Weise was fascinated with Nazism and Adolf Hitler.
Several who knew him said that Jeff Weise seemed to be an angry and aloof kid who was into the dark Gothic scene. That he experienced several sad and traumatic events in his youth, to include the suicide of his father, and his mother's ending up in a nursing home after a serious auto accident.
Additional reports said he dressed and acted differently than his peers. That he was sometimes teased by the other kids. Also, that he had been the victim of bullying at school.
All told, it was a bad mix. A string of grievous personal tragedies and having to live with his grandfather and his companion, Jeff was clearly a troubled man with probably no one to pour out his heart to, and perhaps no close friends.
And according to additional news reports, Jeff Weise made frequent visits to a pro-Hitler chatroom on the Internet, where he frequently left postings of adoration for Adolf Hitler.
An article in the New York Daily News for Friday, March 25, 2005 (page 24) said that Jeff was on the controversial anti-depressant drug Prozac. Also, that additional evidence had been uncovered by investigators that he had been planning the attack.
The Daily News article went on to say that Weise had apparently posted on his own website a 30-second animation titled "Target Practice" in which a person with an automatic rifle shoots several people and does some other acts of violence before putting the barrel of the gun in his mouth and killing himself.
I could see that Jeff Weise was ripe for the demons of hate, anger, and revenge to do their dirty work on his mind.
D.B.
Now it has happened again. History seems to have repeated itself, this time in the little town of Red Lake, Minnesota.
On Monday, March 21, on an Indian reservation in a remote area of the United States, sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise brought a gun and ammunition to his school. He then began to shoot his fellow students. In the aftermath, five students, a teacher and a security guard were slain.
Later, it was learned that this young man also killed his grandfather (whom he was living with) and his grandfather's live-in girlfriend. Jeff Weise also killed himself. A total of ten people died.
According to an article in the New York Times for Tuesday, March 22, 2005 (pages A-1, A-16) Jeff Weise walked through the corridors of the 300-student Red Lake High School at about 3 p.m. firing off rounds from a handgun. I would assume his rampage was over in less than ten minutes.
Some of the ensuing reports I hear over the radio said that, like the two Columbine gunmen, who were also teenagers, Jeff Weise was fascinated with Nazism and Adolf Hitler.
Several who knew him said that Jeff Weise seemed to be an angry and aloof kid who was into the dark Gothic scene. That he experienced several sad and traumatic events in his youth, to include the suicide of his father, and his mother's ending up in a nursing home after a serious auto accident.
Additional reports said he dressed and acted differently than his peers. That he was sometimes teased by the other kids. Also, that he had been the victim of bullying at school.
All told, it was a bad mix. A string of grievous personal tragedies and having to live with his grandfather and his companion, Jeff was clearly a troubled man with probably no one to pour out his heart to, and perhaps no close friends.
And according to additional news reports, Jeff Weise made frequent visits to a pro-Hitler chatroom on the Internet, where he frequently left postings of adoration for Adolf Hitler.
An article in the New York Daily News for Friday, March 25, 2005 (page 24) said that Jeff was on the controversial anti-depressant drug Prozac. Also, that additional evidence had been uncovered by investigators that he had been planning the attack.
The Daily News article went on to say that Weise had apparently posted on his own website a 30-second animation titled "Target Practice" in which a person with an automatic rifle shoots several people and does some other acts of violence before putting the barrel of the gun in his mouth and killing himself.
I could see that Jeff Weise was ripe for the demons of hate, anger, and revenge to do their dirty work on his mind.
D.B.
