What a day in Knoxville (Memphis, Oak Ridge: crime, middle school, living in) - Tennessee (TN) - City-Data Forum

JMT · 10-08-2008, 05:18 PM

Holy cow, I went to knoxnews.com to catch up on news of the day and geez louise I can't believe everything that's happened in our fair city today:

1. The shooting at Knoxville Center Mall
2. A U.T. student (son of a Democrat legislator from Memphis) is indicted in federal court for hacking Republican Sarah Palin's email account
3. A Farragut Middle School student died after a zip line accident
4. Oak Ridge High School's head football coach pulled a knife on six of his players
5. Knox County Schools have settled with the mother of a Karns HS senior who died while helping move furniture at school. They're paying her $300,000, the teacher involved is retiring and the administrator has been reassigned.

And then there's the ongoing saga of that nutcase Erin McLean.

I feel like Rumpelstilskin. I've been in bed most of the day with a sinus infection. I wake up tonight to catch up on the news, and it looks like our city is going to heck.

Beretta · 10-08-2008, 05:24 PM

Hope you get feeling better JMT.

itsjustme64 · 10-08-2008, 05:42 PM

We moved here about three weeks ago. I am really surprised at the level of crime in this short span of time.

Since we've been here, there has been a shooting of a woman in a car (an alleged affair between parties), the gruesome murder of the woman at the Days Inn, and now the fatal mall shooting today.

In addition to the recent spate of violence, while on our second scouting trip before we moved here, that was the day was a shooting death of a student at a local high school.

I'm hoping this is not the normal level of crime. Any thoughts?

hiknapster · 10-08-2008, 05:54 PM

I'm hoping this is not the normal level of crime. Any thoughts?

It's not. Please don't judge our city by the recent events.

I've been here three years.

When I lived in Florida, some of this stuff wouldn't even get reported, there was so much crime.

That's the reason why it is such a big deal. It's not normal for this area.

What I am worried about is if this city has this sort of problems, what the heck else is happening in the rest of the country?

And I hope you feel better, JMT.

knoxgarden · 10-08-2008, 06:15 PM

Crime is on the increase everywhere. We're heading into tough economic times and people are stressed out which keeps them closer to the boiling point.
I feel safe in Knoxville and these events haven't changed that feeling.
With a few exceptions, these are not random acts of violence where someone just went and shot people because he was mad at the world. The church shooting is the exception to that.
The school shooting followed a fight and so did the mall shooting, apparently. Maybe living in Washington, D.C. for much of my life has made me less sensitive to violence of this nature. There, killings only made headlines when they were random acts and unusually gruesome. I remember the day I left, they had just captured a young boy who shot a woman who was simply driving in the car next to him on a Sunday afternoon. When asked why he shot here, he replied that he was in the mood to kill someone and she was there.
You don't see that kind of thing in Knoxville, where you have to worry about strangers with guns coming up and shooting you just for the heck of it.

JMT · 10-08-2008, 07:36 PM

You guys (and gals) are awesome! You have a way of keeping me grounded. Knoxgarden and hiknapster are right, I guess the reason these things are such a big deal is because it's just so rare around here. I've lived here nearly 6 years, and I swear we've had more bad news in the last couple of months than we had in the previous 6 years. And I think the outrage that people around here are expressing just shows how unusual this rash of crimes really is.

I try to be an eternal optimist and prefer to believe that people are basically good, and that good will triumph over evil in the end. Maybe it was the Nyquil talking, but I apologize if I sounded a little pessimistic in my earlier post. I still think that Knoxville is a wonderful place to live, and I'm grateful that there are people in this forum who agree. Now I'm off to take another swig of Nyquil and call it a night.

Beretta · 10-08-2008, 07:51 PM

We're here for ya man. Sleep well.

Gretzky_99 · 10-09-2008, 10:47 AM

I will be moving here in a few months, my g/f in a few weeks. I am not detered at all. Tampa has crime reported all the time. I wish the news would report when someone helps push a disabled car off the road, or when a scout troop cleans up a vacant lot, or one of the other half a million good things that happen go un-reported. Only the bad things get reported, because they get more attention.

Btw, I'll be looking for a scout troop to volunteer in. I am an assistant scout master in the same troop i earned Eagle Scout in, i have been in the troop for 22 years total. I am gonna be at a loss when i don't have a meeting to attend one night a week! Or requirements to sign off, or campouts to help plan...

maddie0929 · 10-09-2008, 05:17 PM

I have lived here all my life, almost 36 years, and it has never been like this...I also think it's stress due to everything going on in our country, no excuse though. I still feel completly safe here.. anywhere. I do pray all the time for our city and country and believe everything will get better

LauraC · 10-09-2008, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMT

Holy cow, I went to knoxnews.com to catch up on news of the day and geez louise I can't believe everything that's happened in our fair city today:

1. The shooting at Knoxville Center Mall
2. A U.T. student (son of a Democrat legislator from Memphis) is indicted in federal court for hacking Republican Sarah Palin's email account
3. A Farragut Middle School student died after a zip line accident
4. Oak Ridge High School's head football coach pulled a knife on six of his players
5. Knox County Schools have settled with the mother of a Karns HS senior who died while helping move furniture at school. They're paying her $300,000, the teacher involved is retiring and the administrator has been reassigned.

And then there's the ongoing saga of that nutcase Erin McLean.

I feel like Rumpelstilskin. I've been in bed most of the day with a sinus infection. I wake up tonight to catch up on the news, and it looks like our city is going to heck.

The mall and hacking thing made 7PM cable news but they didn't say, "TWO STORIES FROM KNOXVILLE!" like I thought they would.