Moody Monday: mass murders in USA

[mellowtigger]

I said before everything that needed to be said.  Yet here we are again. There are so many mass shootings that we hardly need special attention for them anymore, lest we risk becoming The Onion reprinting the same article over and over again.

I've mentioned stochastic terrorism before. Keith Olbermann, of course, is using the same language for this event, because it's clear that Republicans in Colorado were speaking for years to encourage exactly this outcome. How many times have you heard about "grooming" from politicians during the last year? It's been popular in Florida for decades, the same place where somebody thinks they could challenge Trump for the presidency. There are no "sides" to an argument when one person thinks that other people just fundamentally should not exist at all. Somebody is grooming people, yes, but for violence. That's stochastic terrorism in a nutshell. AOC, my progressive hero and hopefully the next president, tells people to "connect the dots".

At its core, stochastic terrorism exploits one of our strongest and most complicated emotions: disgust.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-stochastic-terrorism-uses-disgust-to-incite-violence/ (free archive)

And this white-skinned terrorist previously was in custody for felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping for a bomb threat, but the District Attorney declined to prosecute then the court records were sealed. What now? Who was this District Attorney, a "bleeding heart liberal being soft on crime"? No, wait, it was a Republican who provided these answers during their recent campaign.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?
As your next District Attorney, I promise to tackle the issues that pose a threat to our children, our laws, and our community.

Not knowing anything else about the bomb threat (because the records were sealed), I have to assume the Family Guy racism color chart is at play in this release. We learned nothing from Kyle Rittenhouse, it seems. This emboldened young white guy went on to demand in August that a newspaper remove its article about his arrest since no charges were filed. It's still online because, of course, the threat actually happened.  And he went on to mass murder.

Comments

[mtbc]

Elected officials and others have much clear culpability for many stochastic deaths, ranging from stoking fear and hatred, to obstructing affordable healthcare on the basis of lies. The justice system comes nowhere near being able to punish such moral outrages.

[mellowtigger]

Now we know that the mass shooter was the grandson of a MAGA, insurrection-supporting Republican.
https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2022/11/20/reports-colorado-mass-shooting-suspect-is-grandson-of-assemblys-randy-voepel/
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2022-11-20/accused-colorado-nightclub-gunman-grandson-of-longtime-east-county-politician

The story for the police gets worse. (Of course it does.) One of the heroes who tackled the gunman was then detained by police and locked in a squad car for an hour, while he yelled to be let go so he could check on his family who were inside the club.

Mr. Fierro said he was covered in blood when the police arrived, and officers tackled him and put him in handcuffs. He said he was held in a police car for more than an hour, and screamed and pleaded to be let go so that he could see what had happened to his family.
- New York Times article (free archive copy)

I used to be slightly bothered by the #ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) hashtag, but it's just difficult to disbelieve it any more.

[mtbc]

Absolutely. I want to think well of the police and they keep making it ever more difficult to not suspect something deeply, systematically broken.