For years after the Columbine shooting Americans were led to believe that the kids you had to watch out for were the loners, those who were bullied, and the goth-type kids. As these horrible shootings continue to crop up across the nation, it is becoming more and more apparent that the “prototype” student killer really doesn’t fit the profile that was originally suggested.
According to Huffingtonpost.com:
WASHINGTON — Members of the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state have received threats since one of its members, Jaylen Fryberg, killed two of his classmates at Marysville-Pilchuck High School last week.
Fryberg, 15, was from a prominent Tulalip family. On Friday, he shot five of his classmates in the school cafeteria before taking his own life. Most of the victims were Native American as well; two of them were his cousins, who are still recovering from their wounds.
On Wednesday, the Tulalip Tribes released a statement denouncing the shooting and revealing that some Native children have been threatened since the tragic event.
“Schools in the Marysville School District have received threats,” read the statement. “While some have been directed at Native children, we are concerned for the safety of all of the children. Many of our kids are fearful to return to school, and some parents are reluctant to send them.”
“The Tulalip Tribes denounce the horrific actions of Jaylen Fryberg, who took the lives of two of his classmates and grievously injured three others,” it added. “All of the young people he attacked were his friends, and two were his cousins. Parents and children alike are struggling to understand what caused him to act in such a manner. Even though we may never know why, there can be no justification for taking the lives of others. These were the acts of an individual, not a family, not a tribe.”
When asked for more details about the threats, Tulalip Tribes spokeswoman Francesca Hillery told The Huffington Post, “One of the most concrete things that we were thinking about when we wrote that was the fact that at that time…the high school students here were very worried and scared because there was a threat that was investigated by the Tulalip police. It turned out to be unsubstantiated, thankfully. But even threats that turn out to be unsubstantiated are affecting the children and parents because people are just on edge and worried.”
Aaron Toso, a spokesman for the Marysville School District, told the Los Angeles Times that school officials were aware of some of the threats. “There have been threats made, and any threat is taken seriously and looked into, and we’ve found that there have not been any substantiated threats,” he said.
People, including kids, are sometimes stupid and irrational. How many times has someone’s love life gone bad caused a rampage that results in death and bodily harm? Maybe more times that we think. How many traffic accidents stem from love-rage? How many shootings? How many kids have ended up hurt or dead because somebody done somebody wrong? Probably a lot more than we think.
Love life turning sour also results in suicide. Kids in particularly seem more susceptible to extreme emotions from a shattering loss of someone they think they love. Teenagers are fickle and unpredictable. They break up with much less cause than most adults. They also take the loss harder, it seems. Perhaps we need to keep a closer eye on our kids if their love life goes sour. They are more emotionally vulnerable. It’s probably a good time close family ranks.
Hopefully, no one is making threats to Native children, especially ones in the Marysville School District. There is always a jackass somewhere who has to step over the line. If that is going on, those making threats need to be apprehended and punished, especially if they are students at that high school.
One issue that hasn’t been discussed that I feel is critical. Obviously, Jaylen Fryberg was what most people consider a “good kid.” “Good kids” are usually well-behaved and are often fairly decent students. Being a “good kid” can mask emotional problems. We, as a society, can’t dismiss the notion that “good kids” need our help and can fall through the cracks when red flags are going up. We can’t just say ” Oh, he’ll be fine. He is a good kid.” That just isn’t how it works. Parents, schools, and friends are often all too quick to dismiss warning signs just because someone is a “good kid.”
Jaylen Fryberg wasn’t just a good kid. He was a homecoming prince. He was popular, good-looking and an athlete. He obviously needed help.
Yeah, there were no red flags.
Big world, crazy people in it, bad things do happen.
I take it as a measure of social progress that CNN was deliberately avoiding big pieces on the shooter’s background. The fact that he killed some people with a gun doesn’t really make him remarkable or interesting.
I never watch CNN except on weekends and then it is only with one ear open.
The fact that he was Indian, to me, is immaterial. I expect it has absolutely nothing to do with what he did.
I think the fact that he was a “good kid” probably masked his problems. He was actually diabolical. He invited his victims to lunch. Talk about a Trojan horse.
But since we’re talking about it, I’ll give a few minutes of thought to this horrible kid.
If we were to play a game of looking for root causes, or at least things that helped to make him uninhibited enough to lose control at such a young age, the usual suspects of bullying and violent video games or gun culture don’t come to the fore. Sex and pornography do. The kid was 15 years old and was tweeting mostly sexual stuff. And at least one pretty disturbing picture, that was funny to him. Click at your own peril, his twitter account is at https://twitter.com/frybergj .
Ugh! Yuck. How different is he than most kids. Seriously.
So there you go. Before we can pretend that “banning” violent video games is any valid response to these type of shootings, we should probably find a way to keep 15 year olds from tweeting about sex, or getting hung up on girlfriends.
I do think violent video games are bad for some kids. Operative word–some. Some kids have difficulty turning it off and constant video killing desensitizes. I think the games should be limited for some kids. Who decides? Hopefully the parents. The govt. can regulate ratings but that’s about it.
As for the kids and luv…hell I would like to ban it for all of them. Its a real detractor…
I’m reading that he shot his cousins, because he had a “crush” on one (14 year old) cousin, but she chose a different cousin (who he also shot) over him.
Reading his Twitter account, is seems likely that there was sexual activity going on.
Call this the teenage incest killings.
The root cause of much evil is mental illness. The older I get, the more clearly I see that some people are born f***ed up, and that most of the rest of us sit around wringing our hands trying to figure out “:what went wrong”.
Were his patents mean to him? Was he bullied? Was he unable to handle a broken heart – he was too sensitive and couldn’t cope with the confusing feelings of young love? Did he play too much Grand theft Auto? Was he desensitized by porn? Did he romanticize gun culture? Is racism to blame?
No … he was just a sick f***. Not because of anything that was done to him.
The world makes a lot more sense when you accept that people are born with flaws, to include varying degrees of mental illness, and some (many?) of them are born too messed up to function well.
Rick, I think you are totally right in 90% of the cases. The other 10% are a result of things happening. Thanks for the laugh. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
This wasn’t a school shooting. It was a love triangle murder-suicide that just happened to take place at a school cafeteria.
If it happens in a school its a school shooting.
We will never know OR understand, which is why this is so scary. The other 14 year old girl died. Only one survivor now.
Elena, I disagree. We actually know exactly what happened here. It’s just not being reported on in detail because it’s distasteful.
The kid was in love with his cousin, feelings probably intensified by sexual activity at ages 15 and 14, and when she chose his other cousin over him he decided to shoot them. What mental illness existed in him came to the fore.
We will never know what makes a kid (or adult) go psycho and kill over love. How come some do and some don’t go psycho when ditched? It just happened. when has distasteful ever kept the media from reporting? I agree with Elena. We will never know.
We will never know what mental illnesses he had. How do you retrospectively try to diagnose him? That’s like doing a psych profile on Lee Harvey Oswald.
We might know a, b, c happened, a nice linear time line, but as to the workings or non workings of the mind? How are you going to find all that out?
We know more about putting man on the moon than we do about how the human mind works.
We know as much about him as we do about anyone else. There’s no mystery to this.
Do we know as much about his as we do the Lanzo kid? Not even close. Had he had school problems? home problems? Was there anything unique about him before he went on a rampage?
Does the FBI even have a profile? Were there warning signs that he was f-ed up? All these things can be used in the future to perhaps warn us when the next one decides to break bad.
How many kids were killed in school shootings before Columbine? How many now? Has a signal been sent to kids that this is a way to gain notoriety?
Warning signs? He’s actually warning his cousins on Twitter that “[it}’s going to go down” and that they “won’t like what’s gonna happen next”. What more signs do you want him to display? Warning shots?
Rick, when we speak of people showing warning signs, I mean over a period of time that lead up to the crisis. You know, little hints that might mean things are off base. I don’t think that “It’s going to go down” and they “won’t like what’s gonna happen next” on twitter are particularly dire warnings in teenage-ese. Furthermore, who observed these tendencies?
I meant parents, teachers, neighbors, ministers, friends–didn’t notice subtle changes or anything to cause alarm that I am aware of. Perhaps they did and that information has yet to come out. With most of the school shootings or public rampages (Gabby Giffords, Theater, mall, Sandy hook, Va Tech) the killers all had abnormal signs of behavior.
How do we know when people are going to break bad? Is it all random?
I think you are being far too dismissive of psychological indicators.
What I’m trying to say is, it’s silly to expect discernable “warning signs”.
Nonsense. There were all sorts of warning signs for most of these rampages. Let’s just take Creigh Deeds’ son–that family knew and tried intervention. The system failed them.
Theater rampager–there were all sorts of warnings that he was unstable.
Same with the Sandy Hook killer.
I am going to go out on a limb and say it is probably easier to see indicators in young adults than in teens. Teens are sort of nutty by definition. Twenty something is also often the age of the onset of schizophrenia. No, all schizophrenics aren’t all killers. Some are, some aren’t but its an indicator.