When to step in…or not
The shootings have prompted outrage that no one fingered the shooter beforehand as someone likely to commit a crime. In retrospect, the signs were all there. Unfortunately, pointing fingers is harder than most people think.
Ten years ago, I worked with someone I was sure had all the makings of a serial killer — a smart, pathological liar who collected Nazi memorabilia, kept a stash of violent snuff-type pornography in his desk, was “engaged” to a prostitute, and bragged about having a killed stray cat by burying it up to its neck and running a lawnmower over its head. We all knew this guy was a nut case. And yet no one could do anything about it. What could we say? That we laid odds on his ending up on the cover of the tabloid? That he’d once killed a cat somewhere, but we had no physical evidence? Where would that get us with law enforcement?
Besides, we were all afraid to cross him. It was an office joke: “Careful, or you’ll end up buried in his basement too.” I was hugely relieved when the guy quit to go to graduate school, and once, when he came back to visit, I locked myself in the bathroom until he left. I knew something was wrong with him, and yet…
Ten years later, he still hasn’t ended up on the cover of the tabloids. So would it have been wrong to alert authorities to how weird the guy was? Was he a nut, but a harmless one? Or does he secretly have women locked up in a crawl space under his house right this minute? It’s hard to know, and in a free society, even harder to point fingers.
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Sometimes those people who we feel the most repelled by, those who display the most bizarre or repugnant characteristics are the hardest for us to connect to or feel sympathy for. Many of these people indulge in this behaviour just to get some attention- albeit negative, it is still attention.
It may sound too simplistic or naive but sometimes a smile or kind word is all it takes to make a difference in someone’s life.
I’m not saying that such actions could have prevented this incident (or others) but if someone would have reached out to this disturbed young man, he would have had some sort of connection to someone real. All he had to connect to was music, the internet, videogames and violent movies.
Schools have to get more active in helping to socialize ‘the rejects’… I know- I was one…
Parents need to wake up and see when their kids are displaying actions or attitudes that are obviously harmful. Neighbors, rather then cast judgement on the weird kid with the trench coat and mohawk, need to realize that ‘it takes a village’ and spark a conversation with the kid or their parents- rather than judge someone from the outside.
I guess it’s for me to say all of this in retrospect, but we all need to become positive role models for our youth.
Whew- I caught myself in a rant there!