It's a vicious circle.Why do people commit mass shootings?

[vici10]

This accident reminded me a story of Dr. Prasher. He also biochemistry guy and interestingly enough he also lives in Huntsville, Alabama.
This guy prepared ground for others to get the Nobel prize. He also was denied tenure and funding.
According to new-york times he "drives a courtesy van for a car dealer in Huntsville, Ala., earning $10 an hour. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/science/16prasher.html
Despite it he did not go shooting people, though I assume he was very upset.

I suppose Dr. Bishop knew about it and becoming a taxi-driver was not attractive enough for her.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This accident reminded me a story of Dr. Prasher. He also biochemistry guy and interestingly enough he also lives in Huntsville, Alabama.
This guy prepared ground for others to get the Nobel prize. He also was denied tenure and funding.
According to new-york times he "drives a courtesy van for a car dealer in Huntsville, Ala., earning $10 an hour. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/science/16prasher.html
Despite it he did not go shooting people, though I assume he was very upset.

I suppose Dr. Bishop knew about it and becoming a taxi-driver was not attractive enough for her.

You misread it a bit. He wasn't turned down for tenure:

By then, however, Dr. Prasher had decided that Woods Hole was not the place for him. Instead of going through the tenure process — he thought he would be turned down, anyway — he looked for a new job.

Likewise, he's not bitter:

Dr. Prasher also said, perhaps with a bit of surprise even to himself, that he would have been uncomfortable if he had been selected as one of the Nobel winners, nudging aside one of the others. (Each Nobel traditionally is shared by no more than three people.) “There are other people who would have deserved it a whole lot more than me,” he said. “They worked their butts off over their entire lives for science, and I haven’t.”

He probably doesn't have to be driving for a living. He stays where there are no job opportunities for family reasons, and he quit his previous job with the USDA because he didn't like the management. Re: the Nobel Prize there was this consolation:

When the Nobel in chemistry was announced two weeks ago, Dr. Prasher received some news media attention, and he said someone in Chicago who had read about him called and offered a check. “That totally freaked me out,” Dr. Prasher said. “We actually had a nice conversation.”

 

[edpell]

Prasher sounds like a fine fellow AND he did not shoot his sibling.

 

[vici10]

It seems that my guess was correct. Just found the recent interview with Dr. Bishop's husband in Chronicle of High Education .
"As for Ms. Bishop's state of mind following her tenure denial last year, her husband said she "didn't want to go the way of" another university scientist who had lost tenure and was now driving a shuttle bus in Huntsville."
This is obviously reference to Dr. Prasher.
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Husband-of-Accused-Huntsville/21254/

 

[Borek]

Obviously driving a bus is not an option for her now.

 

[Proton Soup]

but now we know what "drove" her over the edge

 

[zoobyshoe]

OMFG:

Accused shooter linked to Harvard bomb plot

More details emerge from Alabama professor’s past linking her to cases


The scientist who is accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama had been a key suspect in an attempted bomb plot at Harvard in 1993, police officials told The Boston Globe on Sunday.

Authorities questioned Amy Bishop and her husband, James Anderson, in March 1993 after a bomb-laden package was delivered to a Harvard professor and doctor at Boston's Children's Hospital, the Globe reported.

The plot was the latest revelation linking Bishop to past investigations. Bishop is accused of shooting to death three colleagues during a faculty meeting on the University of Alabama's Hunstville, Ala. campus on Friday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35397792/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

 

[Zantra]

Sounds clear that there was some back room dealings around her brother's shooting. I don't know all the details, but how else do you just walk away from a scenario like that?

Could have stopped her then...

 

[zoobyshoe]

Sounds clear that there was some back room dealings around her brother's shooting. I don't know all the details, but how else do you just walk away from a scenario like that?

Could have stopped her then...

I doubt it was back room dealings. That would take Kennedy type clout.

It could actually have been an accident, but resulting from gross recklessness, like the way William Burroughs shot his wife, or, she is a sociopath who shot him on purpose for the fun of it and, being a sociopath, could lie her way out of it while seeming completely sincere. Or, she has a dissociative disorder and blacks out during rage episodes. After she shot the faculty members she called her husband to come pick her up for coffee, never even hinting that anything unusual had just happened. I think a sociopath would have tried to skip town and evade arrest, shooting people along the way, as needed, a' la Starkweather.

 

[ideasrule]

Sounds clear that there was some back room dealings around her brother's shooting. I don't know all the details, but how else do you just walk away from a scenario like that?

Could have stopped her then...

This is just speculation without evidence. It's easy to say in hindsight that she's been behaving abnormally all along, but that's because in hindsight, you can filter out the one day that she behaved suspiciously and ignore the twenty thousand other days when she behaved like a normal professor. How many people have accidents with guns every day? Do all of them go to jail for murder? Before this shooting, Bishop would have been one of the many people who are idiots around guns. There would have been nothing about her that suggests "mass murderer!"

 

[edpell]

What is the background on the parents of Amy Bishop? How much money do they have? Are they in politics, law, corporate governance? Why no context?

 

[edpell]

does she have any surviving siblings?

 

[zoobyshoe]

This is just speculation without evidence. It's easy to say in hindsight that she's been behaving abnormally all along, but that's because in hindsight, you can filter out the one day that she behaved suspiciously and ignore the twenty thousand other days when she behaved like a normal professor. How many people have accidents with guns every day? Do all of them go to jail for murder? Before this shooting, Bishop would have been one of the many people who are idiots around guns. There would have been nothing about her that suggests "mass murderer!"

The incident where she killed her brother taken WITH the fact she was the key suspect in a pipebomb murder attempt against one of her professors at Harvard (see my post #77, go to the link and read the whole story), would probably have prevented her from getting hired anywhere that knew about both incidents.

 

[zoobyshoe]

What is the background on the parents of Amy Bishop? How much money do they have? Are they in politics, law, corporate governance? Why no context?

Yes, it's pretty sketchy. IIRC one of the police chiefs said her immediate family had all moved from the Braintree area and he didn't know their current whereabouts. The man who was chief at the time of the brother shooting was interviewed, but apparently no one asked what the parents did for a living.

This editorial:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14398567

contains the assertion the mother was there and involved in the brother shooting:

Stranger still, the Boston Globe reported that in 1986, Bishop, at age 19, had shot and killed her 18-year-old brother as her mother showed her how to unload a 12-gauge shotgun at their home in Braintree, Mass. The gun fired three times, but the shooting was ruled an accident.

I haven't seen that in other reports.

 

[MotoH]

3 shots out of a shotgun and ruled an accident? You've got to be kidding me.

You can accidentally fire one shot, but three? I tell you what, i'll get the gallows ready right now.

A flogging following Moses' law in the morning, and a hanging at lunch!

 

[zoobyshoe]

Just found this, the most detailed report of the conflicting stories of the brother's death:

Jim Anderson told The New York Times the December 1986 death of his wife's brother, Seth, was accidental. He declined to comment when CNN asked him about the shooting Monday.

Frazier, however, said Saturday that an official involved in the case and still working for Braintree police told him that the teen had shot her brother during an argument. She fired a shot in her bedroom without hitting anyone, then argued with her brother and shot him, he said.

She fled the home after the shooting and was arrested after pointing a weapon at a vehicle near the house in an unsuccessful attempt to get the driver to stop. During the booking process, then-Chief John Polio called and told the officers to release her, Frazier said. He added her mother was then a member of the Braintree Personnel Board.

Reached by CNN, Polio, now 87 and retired, denied calling in that order, saying detectives told him the shooting appeared accidental and it was determined Anderson should be released to her mother. He said any link between Anderson's release and her mother's position on the board was "laughable."

Anderson's mother, Judith, did not answer her door Monday. Reached by telephone, she told CNN, "We're very distraught," and declined further comment.

A December 8, 1986, article in The Boston Globe said Anderson asked her mother how to unload a round from a 12-gauge shotgun and accidentally shot her brother while she was handling the weapon. The article cited Polio as the source.

The state police report on the incident, released Sunday by the office of Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Massachusetts, is similar to the Globe's account. Delahunt was district attorney at the time; staffers said he was in the Middle East on Sunday and unable to comment on the case.

The 1986 report said Braintree police told state police investigators "indications were that Amy Bishop had been attempting to manipulate the shotgun and had subsequently brought the gun downstairs in an attempt to gain assistance from her mother in disarming the weapon" when it went off, shooting her brother in the chest.

In a December 17, 1986, interview, Anderson told authorities she "thought it would be a good idea if she learned how to load the shotgun in the house," according to the state police report. The young woman told police she was concerned for her own safety after the family home was broken into, although she previously had been afraid of the gun.

She said she got the gun and loaded shells into it, but was unable to get them out. Anderson said that while she was attempting to unload the weapon on her bed, it went off. She then took it downstairs to ask for help in unloading it, where the shooting occurred.

The police report said both Anderson and her mother, identified as J. Bishop, said the shooting was accidental. Her mother told police she did not hear the earlier shot in her daughter's bedroom and "believed the house was relatively well soundproofed and that such a discharge would not necessarily be heard on another floor of the house."

Frazier said police records of the incident are missing. But Polio said, "There was no coverup. Absolutely no coverup and no missing records. The records were all there when I left. Where they went in the last 22 years and two police chiefs subsequent, I don't know."

Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan said Sunday that a review will commence to locate all materials associated with the shooting.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/15/alabama.shooting/?hpt=T1

 

[zoobyshoe]

This report is actually more detailed than the one I just posted, and contains allegations Bishop was released because her mother had worked for the "personnel board" (?):

Earlier this weekend, Braintree police said records from that shooting were missing, and that the department's log indicated the shooting was accidental. However, Police Chief Paul Frazier said he didn't agree with the Globe's account.

The Globe's story stated that Anderson asked her mother how to unload a round from a 12-gauge shotgun and that Anderson -- then known as Amy Bishop -- accidentally shot her brother while she was handling the weapon. The article cited then-Police Chief John Polio as the source.

According to the state police report released Sunday, Braintree police told state police that "indications were that Amy Bishop had been attempting to manipulate the shotgun and had subsequently brought the gun downstairs in an attempt to gain assistance from her mother in disarming the weapon" when it went off, shooting her brother, Seth, in the chest.

But, Frazier said Saturday, "it is a far different story I believe than what was reported back then. I cannot tell you what the thought process was behind our releasing her at the time."

An officer then involved in the case who is still working for the department told him that Anderson shot her brother during an argument, Frazier said.

The officer said Anderson allegedly fired a shot in her bedroom without hitting anyone, argued with her brother, shot him and then fired another round in the home before fleeing, according to Frazier.

Frazier said the teen was arrested after pointing a weapon at a vehicle near the house in an attempt to get the driver to stop, but it drove on. But during the booking process, then-Chief Polio called and told the officers to release her, Frazier said. He said her mother was at the time a member of the Braintree Personnel Board.

In a telephone call with CNN, Polio, now 87 and retired, denied ever calling in the order. He said detectives including lead investigator Capt. Theodore Buker -- who has since died -- had interviewed Anderson and her mother, Judith, who is identified in the state police report as J. Bishop.

Buker told him that the shooting appeared accidental and the two men agreed she should be released to her mother, Polio said. A request was then filed with Delahunt's office to conduct an inquiry, but Delahunt never did so, he said.

The state police report, however, said that Buker met with a state police investigator and determined that "due to the testimony of the members of the Bishop family, and in particular the testimony of J. Bishop, relevant to the facts concerning the death of Seth Bishop that no further investigation ... was warranted," the report concludes. Seth Bishop's death was listed as accidental and the investigation was concluded.

Delahunt spokesman Mark Forest told CNN the state police and medical examiner concluded the death was accidental, and an autopsy was also conducted. "The investigative reports ... did not recommend any further action," he said in an e-mail. Those reports were turned over to state and local authorities, including the district attorney's office, he said.

Anderson's mother witnessed the shooting, the state police report said. Investigators waited 11 days to interview Anderson and her parents because of their "highly emotional state" following the shooting, according to the report.

In the December 17, 1986, interview, Anderson told authorities she "thought it would be a good idea if she learned how to load the shotgun in the house," according to the state police report. The young woman told police she was concerned for her own safety after the family home was broken into, although she previously had been afraid of the gun.

She said she got the gun and loaded shells into it, but was unable to get them out. Anderson said that while she was attempting to unload the weapon on her bed, it went off. She then took it downstairs to ask for help in unloading it. She asked her brother, she said, and he told her to point the gun up instead of carrying it beside her leg. Her brother was walking across the kitchen between her and her mother, she said. She started to raise the gun, and "someone said something to her," she recalled in the report. She turned and the gun went off.

"Amy thought that she had ruined the kitchen but was not aware of the fact that she had struck her brother," the report said. She fled, and told police she thought she had dropped the gun as she ran away. "She cannot recall anything else until she subsequently saw her mother at the police station," the report said. The report does not reference any other shots fired besides the one in Anderson's bedroom and the shot that struck her brother.

Anderson's father was not home at the time. He told police he had had a disagreement with his daughter "about a comment she had made" before he left to go shopping. He told police he had bought the shotgun about a year before the shooting, after the house had been broken into, and that he and his son belonged to a rifle club. Anderson was not trained to use the gun, he said.

Anderson's mother said that when her daughter came downstairs and asked for help in unloading the gun, she told her not to point it at anyone, and that her daughter turned and the gun went off. The woman told police she did not hear the shotgun fire earlier in her daughter's bedroom and "believed the house was relatively well soundproofed and that such a discharge would not necessarily be heard on another floor of the house."

Polio acknowledged that an argument had occurred during the shooting and said that the other shots, including one fired into the ceiling, did not appear aimed at anyone. He also recalled that Anderson had fled the scene. But, he said, he could not remember what he had told the newspaper in reference to the case or why details, including the argument, were not reported.

He said Anderson's mother had worked for the personnel board and at one point was assigned to the police department. But he rejected as "laughable" any suggestions that the suspect's mother might have influenced their handling of the case.

"There was no cover-up," Polio said. "Absolutely no cover-up and no missing records. The records were all there when I left. Where they went in the last 22 years and two police chiefs subsequent, I don't know."

Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan announced Sunday an effort to locate all materials associated with the shooting.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/14/alabama.university.shooting/?hpt=T1

 

[Brian_C]

I think the press coverage of this case has been totally irresponsible. Records are lost all the time, and 19 year old girls will act erratically after accidentally shooting a relative. This stuff might sound suspicious to CSI wannabees, but it's nothing out of the ordinary in the real world of law enforcement.

It's amazing how many people have come out of the woodwork to badmouth this woman. The idea that she was a bad teacher because some nursing student was too lazy to read the textbook is laughable.

 

[edpell]

Does not Massachusetts have any gun laws? It is one of the most uptight places in the world. I would guess several gun laws were broken that day even if it was an accident. Why not enforce the law?

 

[edpell]

How much money does the family have?

 

[drankin]

Does not Massachusetts have any gun laws? It is one of the most uptight places in the world. I would guess several gun laws were broken that day even if it was an accident. Why not enforce the law?

Not likely that this would have prevented the attack.

 

[zoobyshoe]

and 19 year old girls will act erratically after accidentally shooting a relative.

The bizarre implication here is that 19 year old girls accidentally shoot their relatives pretty frequently.

The whole thing preceeding the shooting was pretty erratic. Her father had bought the shotgun a year before in response to a burglary, but she said she was afraid of it. The father and brother knew how to operate it: they were members of a gun club. YET, instead of asking one of them for instruction, she got it out and decided to teach herself how to load it. (It is noted that she had just had some kind of argument with her father. We have to wonder what it was about and if it had any bearing on her deciding to figure out how to load the gun. At any rate, she's suddenly no longer afraid of it, and even willing to figure out how to use it without instruction.) She gets it loaded, then, while trying to unload it, it goes off. Instead of leaving it alone and going to get her brother to sort it out, she carries this loaded, apparently unstable, gun downstairs. All pretty erratic.

This stuff might sound suspicious to CSI wannabees, but it's nothing out of the ordinary in the real world of law enforcement.

You are involved in the real world of law enforcement?

It's amazing how many people have come out of the woodwork to badmouth this woman. The idea that she was a bad teacher because some nursing student was too lazy to read the textbook is laughable.

Cronxeh's link to the "Rate Your Teacher" site demonstrates that a fair quantity of bad reviews of her preceeded the shooting. Despite that, she got good reviews, and was recommended by, the majority of those posting there. The thing to bear in mind is that there was something problematic enough about her that she was denied tenure.

Another thing to bear in mind is that after "accidentally" having shot her brother, she did not swear off guns, but somehow sought and procured an unregistered handgun.

 

[Proton Soup]

working on a "personnel board", i imagine you'd get to know all sorts of things that other people don't want known

 

[Count Iblis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Zinkhan"

 

[Moonbear]

3 shots out of a shotgun and ruled an accident? You've got to be kidding me.

You can accidentally fire one shot, but three? I tell you what, i'll get the gallows ready right now.

A flogging following Moses' law in the morning, and a hanging at lunch!

I hadn't heard it was three, but did hear it was more than once. And just heard about the pip bomb incident too. Something is VERY fishy about this whole situation that neither of those prior incidents landed her in prison before this last shooting.

 

[Brian_C]

The bizarre implication here is that 19 year old girls accidentally shoot their relatives pretty frequently.

A quick google search shows dozens of accidental shootings in just the past month, many of them involving teenagers. It is not unusual at all.

If the shotgun in question was an automatic, it wouldn't be difficult to accidentally fire it multiple times. She could have panicked, assumed she was going to jail, and tried to make a getaway. None of this proves that she intended to shoot her brother.

 

[MotoH]

A quick google search shows dozens of accidental shootings in just the past month, many of them involving teenagers. It is not unusual at all.

If the shotgun in question was an automatic, it wouldn't be difficult to accidentally fire it multiple times. She could have panicked, assumed she was going to jail, and tried to make a getaway. None of this proves that she intended to shoot her brother.

There are no fully automatic shotguns for civilian use. Even a semi automatic it is unfathomable to accidentally shoot three times.

 

[Brian_C]

Why is that unfathomable? It would be very easy to discharge the gun accidentally if it has a light trigger pull. There have been cases of inexperienced shooters injuring themselves because they kept their finger on the trigger while carrying or holstering the gun.

 

[Proton Soup]

A quick google search shows dozens of accidental shootings in just the past month, many of them involving teenagers. It is not unusual at all.

If the shotgun in question was an automatic, it wouldn't be difficult to accidentally fire it multiple times. She could have panicked, assumed she was going to jail, and tried to make a getaway. None of this proves that she intended to shoot her brother.

yeah, accidental shootings are common. how common is going on the run and aiming at other people ? I'm thinking that would be fairly common for non-accidental shootings.

 

[MotoH]

Why is that unfathomable? It would be very easy to discharge the gun accidentally if it has a light trigger pull. There have been cases of inexperienced shooters injuring themselves because they kept their finger on the trigger while carrying or holstering the gun.

I am not sure if you have ever shot a gun before, but if this were an accidental shooting, there would have been only one shot. the recoil would have knocked the gun right out of her hands if she was supposedly learning how to unload the gun.

 

[drankin]

Why is that unfathomable? It would be very easy to discharge the gun accidentally if it has a light trigger pull. There have been cases of inexperienced shooters injuring themselves because they kept their finger on the trigger while carrying or holstering the gun.

She also accidently kept it pointed at her brother. To control a semi-auto shotgun and maintain a target is hard enough.

 

[Dr Transport]

As a graduate of UAH, this is just another incidence of the universities poor judgment in hiring faculty members, not 6 months ago the former Physics department chair was convicted of murdering his wife.

http://blog.al.com/live/2009/10/professor_uah_murder.html

These were the worst, but other poor decisions (my opinion) have been made in other cases regarding tenure etc...

 

[Borek]

I wonder if this particular decision about tenure was right or not. It all depends on the point of view - it was right, you don't want someone like that on campus, it was wrong, you don't want shooting on campus.

 

[elect_eng]

I wonder if this particular decision about tenure was right or not. It all depends on the point of view - it was right, you don't want someone like that on campus, it was wrong, you don't want shooting on campus.

Interesting thought. Let's give all psychopaths tenure postions at Universities. Maybe. ... It's cheaper than jail, and perhaps torturing students is enough of a thrill to keep them from killing people.

Hmmm, I like it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

and 19 year old girls will act erratically after accidentally shooting a relative.

The bizarre implication here is that 19 year old girls accidentally shoot their relatives pretty frequently.

A quick google search shows dozens of accidental shootings in just the past month, many of them involving teenagers. It is not unusual at all.

You specified 19 year old girls. Link me to all the accidental shootings of relatives by 19 year old girls in the United States in the past month. Exclude anything still under investigation.

Do it for the whole past year if you like. Then get me a reliable estimate of how many 19 year old girls there were in the United States at any given time in the last year. The percentage of 19 year old girls who accidentally shot relatives will be so tiny that the statement "It's not at all unusual for a 19 year old girl to accidentally shoot a relative" will be seen to be bogus. You didn't dispute that's what you were implying, so I guess you want to stand by that implication.