Franklin Regional Stabbing (Pittsburgh: area, classroom, soccer)

[EveKendall]

Originally Posted by norcider

No doubt in my mind that bullying will come out as a possible motive for this. Look at the kid, he's 16 but looks 12, he's got acne, it's sad. Too bad somebody couldn't have gotten to him and said, "in 5 years none of these people will matter to you and you will be moving along". I was a small kid all my life and I had to fight a good bit in my childhood and adolescence. It helped me though, because when I changed schools and was the new kid I had presence of mind and knew how to deal with bullies. Now i'm 6'2" and 200lbs and I don't get in any violent confrontations any more, go figure.

I stand by my earlier post that these events are not usually related to bullying. Although bullying is common (everyone on this forum has reported some form, for example), extreme bullying is rare. The most common reason for serious bullying is gender non-conforming, although those kids are much more likely to kill themselves than anyone else.
I think bullying has become a catch-all when adolescents act out.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by jay5835

I wonder what's on his computers, and why no one's talking about it.

I recall reading they found nothing on his computer. I'm not sure how accurate that is. Journalists aren't very accurate shortly after incidents because they're just trying to write anything.

Originally Posted by zip95

I'm not a violent person, but I firmly believe in standing up for ones self.

What's funny about my fight is when we ended up in the principal's office. He told us to write our versions of what happened. I wrote that she called me a skinny little sl*t. I wouldn't have been mad if she called me a skinny little b*tch. I am skinny, and I can be a b*tch sometimes, but I'm not a sl*t.

Originally Posted by zip95

I have been popular my entire life... except for a few months when I first went to a new middle school. Some kid thought it would be funny to incessantly pick pick pick... until the day I smacked the snot out of him in the hallway. It solved the problem instantly and gained me respect with his class mates. Within a few months I was more popular than him.

I never considered myself popular or unpopular, but I realize I was popular because I got along with everyone.

Originally Posted by zip95

I teach my children the same. Tell a teacher three times. If it doesn't stop you walk right up them and punch them in the face as hard as you can. Even if you lose the fight you'll probably stop the teasing. Its a better outcome than what happened in Murrysville.

I taught my kids the same. It took some encouraging too.

Originally Posted by HeavenWood

I don't disagree in principle, but having something like that on your record, especially in high school, can be extremely damaging when going through the college application process.

There's no such thing as a permanent record unless you're going for high security clearances in the military. Even then, they take into consideration if your honest and disclose it ahead of time. The permanent record is propaganda. The most colleges see is the number of suspension days. One 5 day suspension isn't going to raise an eyebrow, especially if it's not in the senior year. Unrelated, financial aid doesn't even do a criminal background check to see if students were truthful about any drug related crimes.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by norcider

Too bad somebody couldn't have gotten to him and said, "in 5 years none of these people will matter to you and you will be moving along".

I always told my kids "in 5 years they'll be flipping hamburgers." Reports say the parents are like Ozzie and Harriet. The perfect family. They claim they had no clue. If that's true, how can they be perfect and their child not feel comfortable telling them about his problems? I'm not trashing the parents. I feel horrible for them. I'm just saying that somehow they didn't know their own child. If it's true they didn't know anything was wrong. Legally I think parents are told to say that so they're not sued. They had to have known something, right? I'm not saying it's their fault. There are many parents struggling with children who have problems. It would just be nice if people could be honest so it's possible to figure out what's happening in American white families that sometimes create mass killers.

[EveKendall]

Unlike many other young men who have committed this type of violence, he did not kill himself. Maybe intense psychological evaluation will help explain his motivations and can be helpful in thinking about future prevention/early intervention efforts.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by zip95

Im sure that in three years when he is sitting solitary its going to sink in that it wasnt as serious as it seemed.

And if he thought Franklin Regional was bad wait till he meets the bullies in the state penn.

Not to be confused with Penn State or UPenn?

Seriously though, that's an insensitive remark to make. Clearly this guy was not in his right mind (regardless of whether he's legally insane).

Originally Posted by Hopes

There's no such thing as a permanent record unless you're going for high security clearances in the military. Even then, they take into consideration if your honest and disclose it ahead of time. The permanent record is propaganda. The most colleges see is the number of suspension days. One 5 day suspension isn't going to raise an eyebrow, especially if it's not in the senior year. Unrelated, financial aid doesn't even do a criminal background check to see if students were truthful about any drug related crimes.

Not true in this day in age. It certainly won't foreclose you from getting into most schools, but you do usually have to attach an addendum explaining the nature of the circumstances. I even had to write a few addendums for my middle school incident. I said nothing about a permanent record either; I was strictly referring to the college application process. College being such a ridiculous crapshoot these days, I could actually see it occasionally coming into play in the "tiebreaker" process.

I actually had to write a brief note in my NJ bar application about my middle school suspension, funnily enough (PA gave no fricks). There was a weirdly worded question (I forget what exactly), and I called the Association to clarify what exactly I had to note. They told me if I felt so inclined, two sentences in the "other" section will suffice. This obviously won't even begin to prevent me from being barred in the Great State of New Jersey. It's just funny that I had to disclose it one last time. 99.9999% no one would have ever found out if I had omitted it, but I'm not one for taking chances when the preventative measure is simple and painless. Same way when a friend of mine asked me for legal advice, I told her I couldn't help her out without an attorney's supervision (unauthorized practice of law, 'n at). Luckily, I was able to get a partner from my summer firm to help out.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by EveKendall

Unlike many other young men who have committed this type of violence, he did not kill himself. Maybe intense psychological evaluation will help explain his motivations and can be helpful in thinking about future prevention/early intervention efforts.

Not being able to kill yourself is the disadvantage of using knives instead of a gun. I would hope at some point he would become a willing participant in the evaluation. He'll have decades so maybe they'll get it someday. They need to keep him on suicide watch for eternity to protect that information from getting lost before they learn it.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by BarqCider

ive been hearing reports the attacker was peed on in the bathroom? i would really hope that isnt true. i would want those kids who did it and those who watched pay the price for such a humiliation they placed upon the kid. set the example PA if this is true.

I saw this last night but didn't have my regular computer available to answer. I am going to answer as I would have last night w/o seeing the post below.

Be careful what you believe. When the Columbine shootings happened, there was so much misinformation going out, even from the news media. For example, the "Trench Coat Mafia" turned out to be rather insignificant. However, there was a rumor up here in Boulder County that there was a branch of the TCM at a high school in Boulder! It took a long time for everything to get sorted out, and I'm sure there's a lot we still don't know. It's like that old game, "Telephone". Things can also get conflated, as below.

Originally Posted by Hopes

It's a totally different incident that happened at an elementary school elsewhere.

Video: Mother says bullies urinated on son at school | Lancaster News - WGAL Home

[EveKendall]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Be careful what you believe. When the Columbine shootings happened, there was so much misinformation going out, even from the news media. For example, the "Trench Coat Mafia" turned out to be rather insignificant. However, there was a rumor up here in Boulder County that there was a branch of the TCM at a high school in Boulder! It took a long time for everything to get sorted out, and I'm sure there's a lot we still don't know. It's like that old game, "Telephone". Things can also get conflated, as below.

Exactly. So much misinformation gets spread in the "24 hour news cycle", and then gets solidified in people's minds as fact. I am sorry to bring it up again, but Columbine is the classic example. If most people were to do in-depth research on what actually happened they would be shocked at how many incorrect beliefs they held about that incident.
Which is partly why this entire thread has now focused on bullying despite any evidence that bullying occurred.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by HeavenWood

Not to be confused with Penn State or UPenn?

My brother went to Penn State. He said they called it "The State Pen(n)".

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by Katiana

My brother went to Penn State. He said they called it "The State Pen(n)".

There's a Lifetime movie that involved a prisoner on the verge of release who had been communicating online with an unsuspecting high school girl! Choice quote:

"She thinks I'm in Penn State, not the state pen!"