Shooting on campus

[randy_byers]

There was a shooting on campus earlier this morning. Looks like a guy was stalking his ex-girlfriend who had gone through a number of maneuvers, both logistical and legal, to keep him away from her. She was, rightly, afraid for her life. He killed her and then killed himself. Why don't these asshole losers just kill themselves? It makes me sick to my stomach.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I was not trying to rebut anything I thought you said; I was just making that observation, another facet of the despair at our inability to prevent things like this.

No, at least without perfect hindsight I wouldn't have advised her to leave her job. You can't contort your life in fear.

The real solution would have been not to have gotten involved with a guy like that in the first place, but as it was already too late for her to do anything about that, the only value of such an observation would be to consider warning signs that might help future women.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I've known two women who were involved with "guys like that." One escaped only by going through a women's shelter and then hooking up with a guy who essentially knocked down the abuser/stalker once when he still came after her and said if he ever saw him again he'd do worse. Both of these women had been sexually abused as kids and became substance-abusers as teenagers. It does seem that there's got to be a way that we can help women who get into these situations better than we are currently doing, but I'm not sure what it is, short of hiring armed bodyguards for them.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

One could always teach them to shoot, and generally validate their perception of danger and their right to protect themselves. In the particular case, possibly also encourage them to go ahead and press charges when ex-boyfriend makes a threat. That's something the victim refused to do.

The problem is, people who have been in abusive relationships before are likely to have hardwired 'survival' strategies that involve placating and being nice, and which need to be overcome when dealing with someone who would actually kill them.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

According to yesterday's newspaper stories, the claim that she refused to press charges (made by a UW official) was false. She was willing to press charges, and there was some kind of fuck up/miscommunication within the UW Police. From the headlines, it appears there's more about this in the Seattle Times today.

None of which necessarily contradicts your general points.