Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

My mom uses it when she texts me about anything sad. Yes I've tried to tell her.

not mad at them they have to learn not to get caught

so I know laywers regularly lie, but in this case, aren't their defense lawyers risking anything by how blatantly they are lying about things, insisting still that they weren't on the run and had every intention to turn themselves in when it's very very obvious they were not doing this?

I promise you don’t know where this is going pic.twitter.com/I1XRWIM6Jr

— k🃏 (@skepticalspice) December 4, 2021

As a parent of a teenager, I sympathize parents who don't always know what their kid is up to or thinking. It's immensely difficult to suss out. But in this case, everything seemed to be very apparent. There were clearly multiple warnings. I don't know what led up to them buying him a fucking gun, but there is no situation where that is the responsible reaction.

― akm, Friday, December 3, 2021 2:19 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

idk about posts like these. People immediately put themselves in the place of the parents i.e., "if this was my kid"; but like, I think its achingly obvious that these parents didn't really give a fuck about their kid or anything, and just showing the type of empathy required to ask "what would I do in their shoes" is a good indication that you would never be in their shoes

I keep thinking of the Sandy Hook shooting (which happened a few miles from where I grew up) where the murderer was very obviously a troubled kid and his parents thought it was a great idea to buy him a gun too.

“My kid really seems interested in blood and death and revenge against unnamed enemies he really needs a safe fun hobby like shooting.”

Merry Christmas! 🎄
ps. Santa, please bring ammo. 🎁 pic.twitter.com/NVawULhCNr

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 4, 2021

Jesus fucking Christ

🤮

🤢

Stuff like that will never seem anything less than bizarre and unsettling to me.

Having the most normal one in history

Needs heavily armed grandkids

Dude is probably squealing with glee at all the people calling him a dipshit right now

He did retweet Vic Berger’s photoshop of him pantsless

Elected Congressman Thomas Massie out here making America proud, folks. pic.twitter.com/GIMH8breM8

— Victor Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) December 4, 2021

Maybe not the place for this, but is there some kind of school violence trigger circulating online today?

Feel free to tell me I’m nuts but anecdotally - what I’m seeing online and from friends - a lot seems to be going on today. Schools reporting that they’ve been threatened, etc

we had a threat at our local high school just yesterday, but apparently the school determined it was no big deal

Within three hours:

- a coworker in Ny state said that her daughter’s school was on lockdown due to a “kill list”
- my son’s school texted parents about a vague security threat in Tx
- a high school in Maryland near where a friend lives was investigating another security threat

But maybe this is just contemporary America

13 yr old arrested in the next town over from me for "making terrorist threats" against the middle school

is there some kind of school violence trigger circulating online today?

well the 10-year anniversary of sandy hook is in a couple of days. but also yeah, it's just the good ole u.s. of a.

Sandy Hook was 2012.

you are correct. apologies.

The local junior high today had a student shout at a teacher "I am telling my dad to shoot up this stupid school tomorrow!" which is an interesting outsourcing

in fairness dad needs more advance notice than that

I guess the student is a goth girl who is being bullied (someone threw milk on her)
She told another student not to come to school tomorrow

I think most schools in the Detroit area were closed for copycat threats last week - ours were and we're 70 miles from Oxford.

My girlfriend's 15 year said some of the more trumpy kids at his school (he calls them "Bass Pro hats" lol) were discussing who they'd shoot if they had the chance

Around the Columbine time in like 2000, my friend's little brother, who was being bullied at the time, made some crack like "nothing an AK-47 wouldn't solve" and immediately got expelled from school.

Is that not a thing anymore?

My girlfriend's 15 year said some of the more trumpy kids at his school (he calls them "Bass Pro hats" lol) were discussing who they'd shoot if they had the chance

LOOOOOOOOL right on, Bass Pro hats, I'm stealing that. I went to school with at least a dozen of them and they shot birds and people's cats and bragged about it in between playing sports and sexually harassing/assaulting girls. Weird how they're happy to plan to massacre people when THEY'RE THE BULLIES.

Apparently some kid called in a threat to my old West Michigan school because I saw a facebook post from a local clergy person asking parents to remind their kids that it's a criminal offense, so I'm guessing they missed a day or two of school before tracking down the caller.

a middle school the next down over from here (in orinda, ca) had a student that made a kill list filled with girls, from what I can tell. Only learned about this via nextdoor but parents are apoplectic that the school is not telling them if anything is being done; kid apparently not suspended.

Oxford school district being sued for A HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS by one of the surviving victims.

I'm a public school defender, but I can't help but feel like schools have culpability in cases like this. I like our school district on average (I'm in Berkeley) but they fucking do NOT communicate on safety matters, they do not report things to the police, and they act like the catholic church w/r/t abusers (students and staff). This is all done under the guise of 'equity' but it's maddening.

I'm not sure if we'll ever know how close it came to an active incident, but the local high school just had a lockdown today that resulted in two guns being recovered. So I guess thankful for that outcome as opposed to others, but still.

Just saw that. It sounds like the lockdown was over an (understandable) overabundance of caution.

In 'this shit has been going on forever' news, I just the other day dug up a Facebook thread with people who were in the classroom at the time discussing the shooting at my FL junior high thirty years ago (no one hurt, thankfully, but the kid held his teacher hostage for a while iirc).

Ugh, there have been a number of police incidents at local schools here lately, involving things like recovered knives and trespassing students from other schools.

On Monday, I got called to my daughter's elementary school to meet with the principal. She had slipped a note into a friend's locker with a smiley face that was being stabbed with blood coming out of it, with WE ARE WATCHING YOU on the reverse. The poor kid didn't know who sent it and told the teacher. They quickly figured out it was my kid, thanks to the schools cctv system. Apparently, the kid had been talking about how he was part of the illuminati at recess on Friday and she did it as a joke, you know - to acknowledge his interests. She had no idea of the gravity of her action and by the time I got there she was bawling her eyes out in the office. We talked it out with the principal and fortunately, she didn't receive any punishment. But the knife drawing had such echoes of the shooting in Michigan the other week, both to me and the principal. Like, we were both kinda shook up about it. And then of course Tuesday was the 9th anniversary of Sandy Hook. Thankfully, my kid apologized to her friend about the whole situation on Tuesday morning.

And now, there is apparently some sort of nationwide TikTok threat that there will be violence at schools on Friday. Our school system has sent out multiple texts/emails like "oh, we've consulted with multiple agencies and we don't believe there is any credibility to this threat." But it's not like numerous grownups didn't just drop the ball in an enormously tragic way recently in the Michigan case, so I just can't say I'm 100% confident here.

Just white-knuckling it through life here in Murder World.

Just saw that. It sounds like the lockdown was over an (understandable) overabundance of caution.

Yeah, it sounds that way too. Still, the fact that they did recover two guns at the school indicates it wasn't exactly completely unfounded. Still enough for my heart to jump a little when I got the "soft lockdown" notice about the neighboring elementary schools, but yeah I guess this is just life in America now.

As if there wasn't enough bullshit in the world already, here's a fresh alert from our school:

We are writing to inform you and not alarm you. We have been made aware of a nationwide viral TikTok trend about “school shooting and bomb threats for every school in the USA even elementary” on Friday, December 17. We are in communication with local law enforcement about this issue, and it does not appear to be a credible threat to our school community. Out of an abundance of caution, the police departments will be increasing their presence around the schools in all of our districts tomorrow.

The safety of everyone in our buildings is always our utmost priority. We will continue to monitor social media and investigate safety concerns brought to our attention. If you ever have any safety concerns about school, please report them to a school administrator or police, or text our anonymous tip line.

We want to emphasize the importance and necessity of using social media platforms responsibly. Please talk with your child about the consequences of spreading misinformation and how that negatively affects our school culture and the social/emotional well-being of our students.

Thank you for your cooperation as we work together to maintain a safe and healthy school environment.

jeez the kids are gonna get out for Xmas break pretty soon anyway

That tiktok school vandalism thing did gain some traction, so we'll see what happens here.. it's like a viral Over the Edge

I'm not sure if we'll ever know how close it came to an active incident, but the local high school just had a lockdown today that resulted in two guns being recovered. So I guess thankful for that outcome as opposed to others, but still.

On my first day at this school in the ‘80s, someone was shot across the street just before school let out (they survived; we were told they were “only” grazed). The idea that someone would or could be shot inside the school was utterly unfathomable.

Josh, we just received a very similar email from our school district about fifteen minutes ago. Sigh.

Apparently it went out to *at least* just about every school in Illinois.

can’t even imagine how awful it is for the parents itt (inthiscountry as well), like i start getting tetchy for my own sake when i have to join any moderate concentration of people. daily sending kids out into this psychosis — damn, i’d be digging a bunker.

wonder how much of the political inertia re: school shootings is to deliberately stoke terror in the voting parents and/or further destroy public schools. #justamericathings

So.. this was all a big hoax?

I mean, probably? Someone probably started it a "joke" on TikTok and it took on a life of its own, but it's insane how widespread it is. My 10 year-old last night brought it up before bed last night saying, "my friend said her brother saw on TikTok that there is a challenge for everyone to shoot up their school tomorrow".

That's horrible, just to have to think about that - whether it's bs or not

Yep, pretty much. Not a conversation I was ready to have last night.

fwiw neither of my teens had heard of it.

Hey, Idk if this will make anyone feel better, but those moral panic things that sweep through every few months are rarely based on anything. Just in the few years I worked in a school I think we had to prep 4-5 of them, hold staff meetings, have a "strategy" in case the Blue Whale Challenge turned out to be A Thing (it did not), panic every time a season of 13 Reasons Why came out, etc etc. It was so stupid. But schools have to do it, they have to show they made a game plan and informed people. I blame how much adults are unprepared for kids to grow up with social media; the mass anxieties create these dumb panics.

It doesn't help when school districts and/or police departments take them 100% at face value and encourage the freak out because it suits their desire to look relevant and justify their hyper-militarization.

wonder how much of the political inertia re: school shootings is to deliberately stoke terror in the voting parents and/or further destroy public schools. #justamericathings

― bitter brutal brittle (cat), Friday, December 17, 2021 7:21 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

Also kids sometimes have forbidden "weapons" in school for reasons that having nothing to do with hurting their classmates. Obviously every situation is different but we had kids bring knives because they felt their walk/commute to school wasn't safe, like if they had to cross into a different neighborhood. Then you end up with "student brought a knife to school" headlines but for very different reasons.