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

[edpell]

Don't worry...

Your pic is a carnivore with a fully automatic weapon!

 

[zoobyshoe]

Don't worry, I'm not in a tenure-track position, so nobody will deny me tenure, just promotion. Do you think I should include a copy of this news story with my promotion package though? No wonder my department chair never calls any faculty meetings!

I was thinking about that, too: somewhere some other biology professor had there tenure meeting today or will on Mon. Bet everyone was pretty tense.

 

[MotoH]

Your pic is a carnivore with a fully automatic weapon!

No, it is a carnivore with an Accuracy International L96A1/AW. Which is a bolt action sniper rifle used by the British Armed Forces.

 

[Moonbear]

It feeds my suspicion that the "person of interest" is probably a shrink, and she's already got a diagnosis of a major mental illness. Lota bipolar people hold down jobs.

It's entirely possible. The flexible schedules and somewhat casual atmosphere of a university faculty position make it appealing to people who might have difficulty fitting in a more typical corporate type environment, and there's an overall higher tolerance for people's "quirks." What might raise eyebrows about someone's behavior in a corporate environment might just get passed off as just another eccentricity in a university setting.

 

[Moonbear]

I was thinking about that, too: somewhere some other biology professor had there tenure meeting today or will on Mon. Bet everyone was pretty tense.

No kidding! Our promotion and tenure committee is just about to the point of completing their review of those up for tenure this year and writing their recommendations to the department chair. If there's anyone they're on the fence about, I bet their doing some nailbiting right now.

 

[zoobyshoe]

It's entirely possible. The flexible schedules and somewhat casual atmosphere of a university faculty position make it appealing to people who might have difficulty fitting in a more typical corporate type environment, and there's an overall higher tolerance for people's "quirks." What might raise eyebrows about someone's behavior in a corporate environment might just get passed off as just another eccentricity in a university setting.

Yep, several of my professors were eccentric, none were crazy, though. The worst was a heavy drinker. Still, she made it to all her classes.

 

[Evo]

Got link?

It's the link in the OP.

 

[edpell]

No, it is a carnivore with an Accuracy International L96A1/AW. Which is a bolt action sniper rifle used by the British Armed Forces.

Ah bolt action more power longer range. Nice Kitty.

 

[zoobyshoe]

It's the link in the OP.

Huh. The same link now leads to an updated story:

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting was a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, inventor and mother whose life had been marred by a violent episode in her distant past.

More than two decades ago, police said Amy Bishop fatally shot her teenage brother at their Massachusetts home in what officers at the time logged as an accident — though authorities said Saturday that records of the shooting are missing...

...She shot her brother, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, in the chest in 1986, said Paul Frazier, the police chief in Braintree, Mass., where the shooting occurred. Bishop fired at least three shots, hitting her brother once and hitting her bedroom wall before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.

Frazier said the police chief at the time told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked. It was logged as an accident.

But Frazier's account was disputed by former police Chief John Polio, who told The Associated Press he didn't call officers to tell them to release Bishop. "There's no cover-up, no missing records," he said.

Attempts by AP to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. The current police chief said he believed her family had moved away.

The missing records thing is disputed.

 

[Evo]

Huh. The same link now leads to an updated story:



The missing records thing is disputed.

They've changed the article.

 

[edpell]

The current police chief says the former police chief "told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked". The former police chief says he did not say any such thing. If Mommy or Daddy or former police chief have enough pull the current police chief will remember he mis-spoke.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The current police chief says the former police chief "told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked". The former police chief says he did not say any such thing. If Mommy or Daddy or former police chief have enough pull the current police chief will remember he mis-spoke.

You're really into this pulling strings hypothesis.

 

[zoobyshoe]

They've changed the article.

That's what I'm saying. The current article isn't the same as the one I originally linked to.

 

[Pinu7]

Biology professors are all crazy. What else is new?

No, it is a carnivore with an Accuracy International L96A1/AW. Which is a bolt action sniper rifle used by the British Armed Forces.

Nerdiness at its prime.

 

[cronxeh]

Biology professors are all crazy.

That is what makes them so hot

According to http://ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=392617", Amy Bishop "is hot but she tries to hide it", "a socalist but she only talks about it after class", and most agree that she is very helpful. The only negative comments are left by the usual suspects - the lazy, retarded, and those who don't consider learning entire book as logical. The premeds must have loved her.

Holy crap there is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Bishop" already

 

[Pinu7]

This reminds me of a story(which most of you should know).

Michael Spivak was a professor at Brown. He is well known for authoring several LEGENDARY textbooks(his five volumes on differential geometry, Calculus on Manifolds, etc) which has, without a doubt, reshaped mathematics.

Despite his work, he was denied tenure because he "spent all of his time writing math books." After hearing this, he just left the University that day and never returned to academia.

 

[Proton Soup]

That is what makes them so hot

According to http://ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=392617", Amy Bishop "is hot but she tries to hide it", "a socalist but she only talks about it after class", and most agree that she is very helpful. The only negative comments are left by the usual suspects - the lazy, retarded, and those who don't consider learning entire book as logical. The premeds must have loved her.

Holy crap there is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Bishop" already

she hides it well. maybe a little too well. it does make me wonder if we will be hearing a sexual abuse survivor angle from the defense at some point to explain away some of the crazy. yeah, i know it wasn't what triggered this, but i was getting a dissociative vibe from the beginning.

 

[jtbell]

i also didn't see that she was getting fired, just denied tenure.

Being denied tenure is getting fired, in effect. Most US universities and colleges have an "up or out" system. If you don't get tenure by the end of your seventh year in a tenure-track position, you have to leave. People normally apply for tenure during their sixth year. If they don't get it then, they may be able to ask for reconsideration during the seventh year, while (presumably) looking for another job as a backstop measure.

 

[Proton Soup]

oh, now this is rich.

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/uah_professor_in_custody_for_questioning.html

At 4:52 p.m., university officials e-mailed this message to UAH students and employees: "There has been a shooting on campus. The shooter has been apprehended. The campus is closed tonight. Everyone is encouraged to go home. Classes are canceled for tonight. Any additional cancellations or changes will be announced as they become available.

"There is a command center set up at Madison Hall Room 109. Counselors are available in University Center Rooms 125, 126 and 127 for anyone who wishes to speak with a counselor."

UAH spokesman Ray Garner said the university started looking at installing an alert messaging system after a student killed 32 students at Virginia Tech in 2007.

But UAH students did not immediately receive warnings via e-mail or text.

Tony Cannizzo, 19, received a text message about 6:20 p.m., although it arrived with the time marked 5:32 p.m. The message read: "Shelby Center is secure and the suspect is in custody." Cannizzo said he did not receive any other messages before that one.

"UAlert was triggered late because the people who were responsible for activating the system were responding to the incident," said Campus Police Chief Charles Gailes during a press conference.

i'm sorry, but i just don't believe him. it was intentional not to issue an alert until after they had the situation under control. we had similar issues with UAB campus police (actually state police, UAH should be the same) back around 1990 or so. they wouldn't even issue standard police blotter info to Kaleidoscope (the school newspaper).

the real irony is that incidents like this were used to justify paying for the system.

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/local.ssf?/base/news/1224753315117520.xml&coll=1

 

[Borek]

Who knows, though, maybe her denial of tenure originated entirely from personality conflicts...

That was my first idea, with shooting being just a proof that they were right denying the tenure.

 

[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.