Violence in the chem lab this week

[Math Is Hard]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gbl9HOrXrN5zLTpmFDu7ZnL88vTgD9B80NL80

The 20-year-old woman was taken across the hall after being slashed in the neck by a classmate, and two staff members quickly applied pressure and put gauze on the wound. Stunned students watched in horror.

"Her eyes rolled back in her head, I called out her name and told her to stay with me. She wasn't really responding. I think she could hear me," said chemistry lecturer Stacie Nakamoto, whose lab the victim was brought into.

The victim, who Nakamoto and police would not identify, went to the hospital in critical condition. On Friday, her family released a statement saying she was showing signs of improvement and was expected to recover.

And it seems nobody has a clue about the motive.

 

[Pythagorean]

And it seems nobody has a clue about the motive.

man, haven't you ever had lab partners that you just wanted to...

oh, nevermind...

 

[Moonbear]

I think you just sometimes get unstable students admitted to universities, and some of the pressures of their first year just lead to them snapping.

Now I'm considering myself lucky that I was only stuck with a pyromaniac at the bench next to me in chem lab!

I'm glad to hear the victim is recovering.

 

[Proton Soup]

wow, young asian women are really getting the short end of the stick lately. weird.

 

[Astronuc]

And it seems nobody has a clue about the motive.

It seems that the perpetrator snapped.

"He was very calm and said he had stabbed someone," said Carol Verduzco, an administrative assistant who works in the office.
. . . .
Thompson's relatives said he is an only child who left his mother's home in Belize two years ago to attend UCLA. His second cousin, 17-year-old Akilah Williams, said she was skeptical that Thompson was capable of the attack.

"He cares about what people think about him too much," Williams told the Los Angeles Times. "He gets stressed out but that doesn't mean he'd do something crazy."

LAPD Detective Alan Behnke said Thompson did not have any previous criminal history and had cooperated with authorities.

Cyril Baida, a teaching assistant who was working in a lab across the hall, said he did not know the victim or the suspect but was told that they were lab partners or had worked together in a small group on projects in their lab section.
. . . .
"Every week you have to go to lab and finish it," he said. "You're always on a time constraint. You're always on edge."

The session was part of an organic chemistry class led by lecturer Alfred D. Bacher, who said Friday that the class can be demanding but doubted the stress was responsible for the attack.
. . . .

I've heard of similar incidents in the past. It's pretty random. Some individuals just snap - like the tech assistant at Yale who murdered the grad student.

 

[drizzle]

oh boy, looks like I’m in a big trouble! I just had my first physics lab, and it was good. but if things going to turn out that way…man
did someone mention murder

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

There was also a UCI grad student who shot and killed his ex-wife just recently. Seems a lot of intelligent people are taken to violence lately.

 

[Pythagorean]

[...]Seems a lot of intelligent people are taken to violence lately.

citations please

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

citations please

DAMN YOU AND YOUR CITATIONS! http://www.smileyhut.com/weapons/2guns.gif

 

[Pythagorean]

SAY HELLO... TO MY LITTLE CITATION! http://www.smileyhut.com/weapons/2guns.gif

 

[Sorry!]

hahahahah @ quote edit.

Thats crazy though at least she is expected to make a full recovery. Makes you wonder bout that person you got partnered up with though.

 

[rootX]

Its not only the students who snap under pressure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzBy6agXKoA

 

[Pengwuino]

Its not only the students who snap under pressure

What was that one with the guy in the elevator? Was that a police officer and did he go for his gun or was it just a security guard and he went for pepper spray or something? that was sweeeeeet

 

[Sorry!]

Its not only the students who snap under pressure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzBy6agXKoA

LMAFO ROOT WOW that was probably some of the funniest things I've ever seen like at 4 minutes hahaha wow. Great find man.

 

[Moonbear]

There was also a UCI grad student who shot and killed his ex-wife just recently. Seems a lot of intelligent people are taken to violence lately.

citations please

Actually, while I think Pythagorean's comment may have been made in jest, perhaps it's not far from the truth. We don't know very much about the perpetrator, other than his family seemed to think he got easily stressed. Maybe it IS because he's not the brightest student and was struggling too much with his classes that he was feeling more stress than usual. Nonetheless, I think there still needs to be an underlying mental illness. Sometimes it's the stress of classes that triggers an illness to become much more apparent. Usually the underlying illnesses aren't this severe, but from time to time, it happens.

I sometimes wonder if part of the apparent increase in such incidents is related to the increasing pressure for "everyone" to attend college, even when they may not be very strong students. The more people you push into situations that induce high levels of stress, the more likely it is that you'll find the ones that snap under that pressure. In the past, kids like that wouldn't have gotten into college; they'd have just taken their civil service exam and gone to work for the post office.

 

[Galteeth]

Actually, while I think Pythagorean's comment may have been made in jest, perhaps it's not far from the truth. We don't know very much about the perpetrator, other than his family seemed to think he got easily stressed. Maybe it IS because he's not the brightest student and was struggling too much with his classes that he was feeling more stress than usual. Nonetheless, I think there still needs to be an underlying mental illness. Sometimes it's the stress of classes that triggers an illness to become much more apparent. Usually the underlying illnesses aren't this severe, but from time to time, it happens.

I sometimes wonder if part of the apparent increase in such incidents is related to the increasing pressure for "everyone" to attend college, even when they may not be very strong students. The more people you push into situations that induce high levels of stress, the more likely it is that you'll find the ones that snap under that pressure. In the past, kids like that wouldn't have gotten into college; they'd have just taken their civil service exam and gone to work for the post office.

"Nonetheless, I think there still needs to be an underlying mental illness."

Does the use of violence imply mental illness? If so, how does one define mental illness?

 

[Pythagorean]

"Nonetheless, I think there still needs to be an underlying mental illness."

Does the use of violence imply mental illness? If so, how does one define mental illness?

Not violence itself. It's more about what triggers the violence and how easily its triggered.

Officially:

There are currently two widely established systems that classify mental disorders - Chapter V of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), produced by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) produced by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Both list categories of disorder and provide standardized criteria for diagnosis. They have deliberately converged their codes in recent revisions so that the manuals are often broadly comparable, although significant differences remain. Other classification schemes are used in non-western cultures (see, for example, the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders). Other manuals may be used by those of alternative theoretical persuasions, for example the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual.

I think the underlying theme is that they there is abnormal development involved. Here's an interesting talk that talks about the correlation of brain damage with serial killers:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jim_fallon_exploring_the_mind_of_a_killer.html

So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a "broken brain" often associated with mental disorders, whether it's problems with the way hormones are being delivered or actual physical damage itself.

But I also wouldn't be surprised if there's classifications of mental disorder that don't have a particular physical symptom associated with it.

I think inevitably, the most important thing is that your behavior isn't disrupting the safety and well-being of yourself and others. There's likely people with mental disorders that will never see a doctor or know they have a disorder because they've somehow found a way to cope with (or make use of) their abnormalities.