Reporter and Cameraman gunned down live on TV

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**cincydooley**

timetowaste85 wrote:
Know how I posted that comment in the "gay weddings yay or nay" thread about how Christians are supposed to love and/or honor everyone? Yeah, the guy who wrote that comment is sitting this one out. .

You okay dude? See PM.

**DarkTraveler777**

Mental health issues are still stigmatized in the US and that surely has an impact on how many people seek treatment in the first place. In that sense our mental health system has failed. Going to see a psychologist or psychiatrist shouldn't be viewed any differently than going to your general practitioner doctor to get a check up, or going to see a specialist.

**Ouze**

NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.

No it isn't, and what's more, you know it isn't.

Here's the 4473 which I'm quite certain you are familiar. Here are the reasons for a denial.

It looks like you're making an argument that public urination should be grounds to block a gun sale and/or be picked up for a mental evaluation. I can only shrug at this.

**NuggzTheNinja**

Breotan wrote:
NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Breotan wrote:
NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Breotan wrote:
NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Really sad...our defective mental health system wins again (citing the 27 page rant he apparently sent to ABC).

How has our mental health system failed? In the USA we have this thing called Civil Rights and that means you can't be forced into treatment without being brought before a judge and adjudicated as a threat to yourself or others. Usually that doesn't happen until the insane person commits a crime. Since that didn't happen until the shooting, I think it's grossly unfair to blame "the system" for something it had nothing to do with.

Now, if he had been in and out of treatment for several years that would be a different story.

A guy who writes a 27 page psychorant clearly needs treatment. There's one thing that all of these shooters have in common: mental health problems. Treat these mentally ill people, and you can reduce the shootings.

Okay. Given he didn't distribute this 27 page manifesto until he went to kill the reporter and cameraman, how was anyone supposed to know? Specifically, how was anyone that's part of "the system" supposed to know? How were "we" supposed to get this guy into treatment if he hadn't violated any law before today?

As a society with a Constitution and a priority on enforcing Civil Liberties, we can't just snatch people off the streets and institutionalize them because we think they're mentally ill. With no prior crime, there is no lawful measure by which society can intervene. Period.

He was fired from multiple jobs for anger issues.

Not a crime.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.

Public urination is a crime in most jurisdictions and yes, being convicted of that can screw up your NICS check, at least until you clear it up. Being an angry black man is not a crime (even if it is a stereotype) and wouldn't have thrown any flags for the NICS unless he had previously acted out, been charged with a crime, and been brought before a judge - none of which happened.

Again, you're arguing against a strawman. I never said that he committed a crime. I said he needed help, which the current system was obviously inadequate to provide.

**timetowaste85**

cincydooley wrote:
timetowaste85 wrote:
Know how I posted that comment in the "gay weddings yay or nay" thread about how Christians are supposed to love and/or honor everyone? Yeah, the guy who wrote that comment is sitting this one out. .

You okay dude? See PM.

Just as a public response: I'm totally fine. I just can't voice the "they know not what they do" when people like this guy engage in pre-meditated murder.

Never claimed I was a perfect Christian. Just that I know what is supposed to be part of the faith.

**NuggzTheNinja**

Ouze wrote:
NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.

No it isn't, and what's more, you know it isn't.

Here's the 4473 which I'm quite certain you are familiar.

It looks like you're making an argument that public urination should be grounds to block a gun sale and/or be picked up for a mental evaluation. I can only shrug at this.

Actually...

Section 12c asks if you have ever committed a felony, or a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty greater than one year. Ohio allows misdemeanors to extend to two years. This would disqualify you. In addition, some people have ended up on the sex offender registry as a result of urinating in public because they were charged with a different, but related, crime like indecent exposure or even sexual battery.

Again, you're wrong. I'll wait for my apology.

**Breotan**

NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Again, you're arguing against a strawman. I never said that he committed a crime. I said he needed help, which the current system was obviously inadequate to provide.

No strawman argument on my end. I never denied he needed help. I simply stated (repeatedly) that a person who needs help cannot have that help forced upon him/her unless/until a crime is committed. As for "the system" I'd argue that it does provide adequate treatment in most cases. We have great mental health treatment available in this country for almost every possible diagnosis of mental illness. Unfortunately, it requires someone to come in and ask for treatment or for them to be forced into it as a result of court proceedings.

You keep stating that this guy needed help. Okay, that's a given but what (be specific) was "the system" supposed to do in this specific case? We've already covered that nobody knew about his manifesto until it was already way too late and anger management issues aren't always a sign of mental illness. In fact, sadly, anger is a stereotype of the African-American culture. So in what specific way did "the system" fail in this case?

Let's take a hypothetical situation based on this guy's previously being fired.

Boss: I've noticed you seem to have some anger management issues. I'd like you to talk to a councilor.
Worker: No.
Boss: Unless you resolve your anger issues, we're going to have to let you go.
Worker: I'm fine with how I am.
Boss: The company is not. In fact, your behavior is not acceptable here. Since you don't wish to do anything about it, you're fired.
Worker flips out and has to be escorted from the building by security. No laws are broken.

Question - What is "the system" supposed to do? What does law enforcement do here? What does the local psychiatric hospital do here? What does NICS do here (assume he doesn't already own a gun at this point)? What should the employer have done differently here?

**Manchu**

It is a shame the murderer successfully committed suicide. The expense of his trial, imprisonment, and likely execution would have been high but these costs are justified. Suicide and execution are not equivalent outcomes.

**djones520**

Manchu wrote:
It is a shame the murderer successfully committed suicide. The expense of his trial, imprisonment, and likely execution would have been high but these costs are justified. Suicide and execution are not equivalent outcomes.

I'm perfectly fine with it.

The man already destroyed a ton of lives with his actions. At least in the end he was thoughtful enough to save our tax dollars.

**Breotan**

I disagree, Manchu. I'm glad he took the coward's way out. I just wish that freak from Colorado had the decency to do the same. Maybe prison will provide a solution like it did for Dahmer - hopefully sometime early on in his Life + 3,318 years.

**Manchu**

If we are not willing to spend money meting out punishment through our courts of law then we ought to just give up on civilization ... or rather, one is tantamount to the other. It would not have been a waste to put this man back together, make him face his crimes, and then impose the consequences.

**djones520**

Manchu wrote:
If we are not willing to spend money meting out punishment through our courts of law then we ought to just give up on civilization ... or rather, one is tantamount to the other. It would not have been a waste to put this man back together, make him face his crimes, and then impose the consequences.

It's perfectly willing to give a man his day in court. To let the system prove his guilt.

With this though we saw on live television that the man was guilty. I'm all about the presumption of innocence... but at some point you've got to say ok, it is impossible to presume. There was no question of this mans innocence. There was no "moral" need for a trial for this man. So there is no need to complain that he won't have his day in court now.

**Manchu**

The legal concept of presuming the innocence of the accused is not the moral basis for any legal system. Nor is the point to find out what happened, as if we're talking about a murder mystery novel. Laws and courts exist so that civilized societies can exercise their sovereignty. This murderer cheated our civilization out of its inherent right to judge and punish him.

**Breotan**

Manchu wrote:
If we are not willing to spend money meting out punishment through our courts of law then...

Whoa! Slow down there, Slim. Nobody said anything about denying due process for these two. I simply stated my gratitude that one chose not to avail himself of it and lamented that the other did not make the same choice.

Manchu wrote:
This murderer cheated our civilization out of its inherent right to judge and punish him.

That bastard!

**Manchu**

Breotan wrote:
That bastard!

It's no kidding matter for the friends and family of the people he murdered; or our society generally, in all fairness. I think you guys are assuming suicide is equivalent to a punishment because, just like if he was executed, he ended up dead. But there is a chasm between taking your own life and having your life taken by the state because society has formally declared you do not deserve to live.

**CptJake**

I suspect if our 'civilization' saw a need to exercise its 'right' to judge and to punish there would be an easy way to try a dead guy like this and once found guilty met out some nominal punishment, maybe deny him a burial and instead put his corpse in a cage on display hanging from the city walls.

Instead, our courts are actually set up to protect individual rights (not the rights of 'civilization'). I'm pretty happy about that personally. As I'm happy this feth stick offed himself and spared us the cost of long term incarceration and multiple appeals.

**Manchu**

CptJake wrote:
Instead, our courts are actually set up to protect individual rights (not the rights of 'civilization').

100% incorrect. Every criminal case is titled "people versus" for a reason. You are thinking of civil law (which even so also implicates the sovereignty of the state).

**Experiment 626**

In regards to if this piece of fecal matter was mentally ill or not... I'm sorry but, being an angry a**hole and blaming everyone else for your own failings at life in general is not a mental illness. This guy was just a PoS who simply refused to take any kind of responsibility for his own actions.

If simply being an angry, aggressive bully was a real mental illness, then at some point almost every individual on the whole damn planet would likely be institutionalised at some point!

**CptJake**

Manchu wrote:
CptJake wrote:
Instead, our courts are actually set up to protect individual rights (not the rights of 'civilization').
100% incorrect. Every criminal case is titled "people versus" for a reason. You are thinking of civil law (which even so also implicates the sovereignty of the state).

Bull gak. Which why we have constitutional protections for every person, and why each individual is given due process and the State must ensure the individual's rights are protected and not violated especially in criminal cases and more so in capital punishment eligible cases. The whole appeals process and other special aspects of these cases are not set up to protect the State or some 'People', they are set up to ensure the accused (and the convicted if it comes to that) maintains his/her rights. The People's/Government's rights sure as heck are not enumerated in the Bill of Rights, and that is for a reason.

**Dreadclaw69**

It seems that he left quite an extensive manifesto with ABC News; http://abcnews.go.com/US/shooting-alleged-gunman-details-grievances-suicide-notes/story?id=33336339

“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…”

Sources say Flanagan's firearm was legally purchased from a Virginia gun store.

“What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them."

It is unclear whose initials he is referring to. He continues, “As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!” He said Jehovah spoke to him, telling him to act.

Later in the manifesto, the writer quotes the Virginia Tech mass killer, Seung Hui Cho, calls him “his boy,” and expresses admiration for the Columbine High School killers. “Also, I was influenced by Seung–Hui Cho. That’s my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got…just sayin.'"

Sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News that in his attack, Flanagan used a Glock 19 -- a firearm similar to one that Cho used in his mass attack.

In Flanagan's often rambling letter to authorities, family and friends, he writes of a long list of grievances. In one part of the document, Flanagan calls it a “Suicide Note for Friends and Family."

He says he has been attacked by black men and white females
He talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black man
He says has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work
A source with direct knowledge of his complaints against the station said a pair of tweets sent today and attributed to him accurately reflect previous complaints he lodged against the two people he killed today. These are the two Tweets: “Alison made racist comments,” and, “Adam went to hr on me after working with me one time!!!”
Nowhere in the document does he make specific threats against anyone from WDBJ.

In his manifesto, he says he encountered "nasty racist things" while working at WDBJ-7 in Roanoke, and that drove him to sue the station. "I marched down to the courthouse and sued WDBJ7 by myself and they settled! HA!"

He continues: "I can remember one day in particular... leaving the courthouse... feeling overwhelmed... confused... even some fear. But by golly I knew I HAD to fight. ... They truly f----d with my life and caused an awful chain of events." He says he even killed his cats in a forest "because of them."

Flanagan says that, "Hell yeah, I made mistakes," noting that he "should not have been so curt" with photographers in Roanoke. "[B]ut you know why I was? The damn news director was a micromanaging tyrant!!"

And, he writes, "the photogs were out to get me at WDBJ7... one went to HR after only working with me one time... the chief photog told his troops to [record video of] me if they saw be doing something wrong."

Flanagan then suggests that, after leaving WDBJ-7, he was offered a job at a station in Pennsylvania, but WDBJ-7 persuaded the Pennsylvania station to rescind the offer.

"I got to the point, this time around, where I wasn't even looking for a job. I don't need to deal with workplace bullies anymore. THAT is what lawmakers need to focus on," he adds.

“Yes, it will sound like I am angry," he writes in his manifesto. "I am. And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace....”

“The church shooting was the tipping point…but my anger has been building steadily...I’ve been a human powder keg for a while…just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”

He chronicles the "tough times" he's faced, including some "financial crashes." He says he used to work as a male escort but, "I am proud of it" because he "made thousands."

"[I] tried to pull myself up by the bootstraps," but, "The damage was already done and when someone gets to this point, there is nothing that can be said or done to change their sadness to happiness. It does not work that way. Meds? Nah. It's too much."

"And then, after the unthinkable happened in Charleston, THAT WAS IT!!!"

"Yeah I'm all f----- up in the head," he concedes.

**Howard A Treesong**

I've seen some reports describing people using this shooting to urge again for gun control. Which makes me wonder how long it'll take for others to call this a conspiracy - there's a lot of paranoid stuff written about Sandy Hook being an Obama gun-control sponsored conspiracy. That seems to be how these tragedies are responded to now.

**Relapse**

Very sad event all around.

**Manchu**

CptJake wrote:
Bull gak.

Not even close. Protecting the rights of the accused is only one piece of the criminal justice system. The reason the criminal justice system exists, by contrast, is to vindicate the rights of the state. Again, note that criminal cases are captioned "people versus" and not "[name of victim] versus." Criminal cases do not vindicate the rights of the victims (although there is a developing theory that victim's rights should play some role); the victim is traditionally just a piece of evidence, as it were, in the state's case against the accused.

**Dreadclaw69**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
I've seen some reports describing people using this shooting to urge again for gun control. Which makes me wonder how long it'll take for others to call this a conspiracy - there's a lot of paranoid stuff written about Sandy Hook being an Obama gun-control sponsored conspiracy. That seems to be how these tragedies are responded to now.

I don't think that any serious source will describe this as a conspiracy. What happened with Sandy Hook was that initially the FBI recorded to gun deaths in Sandy Hook at that time, but recorded the deaths elsewhere. This lead to the tinfoil hat brigade out in force.

**djones520**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
I've seen some reports describing people using this shooting to urge again for gun control. Which makes me wonder how long it'll take for others to call this a conspiracy - there's a lot of paranoid stuff written about Sandy Hook being an Obama gun-control sponsored conspiracy. That seems to be how these tragedies are responded to now.

Yeah, the bodies weren't even cold yet before I started seeing more calls for gun control. Can't let a good tragedy go to waste.

**cincydooley**

Old lady Clinton certainly took advantage of it.

**Dreadclaw69**

Here's a question; had the media not focused on Dillon Roof, and his racism, would this killer have been inspired to act?

**djones520**

cincydooley wrote:
Old lady Clinton certainly took advantage of it.

Well she's a blood sucking vampire, so is anyone really surprised?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Here's a question; had the media not focused on Dillon Roof, and his racism, would this killer have been inspired to act?

Probably? He would have just found another focus for his sickness to latch onto. That reporter had nothing to do with Dillon Roof, or race wars. He targetted her (and the camera man) specifically. Something else would have made him do this.

**Manchu**

It seems like the real question people want to ask ITT is, was this a hate crime?

**djones520**

Manchu wrote:
It seems like the real question people want to ask ITT is, was this a hate crime?

I'm of the school that it shouldn't matter. Murder is murder. A white man shooting a black man shouldn't be punished harder then if he shot a white man.