PA school stabbings

[82_28]

Several students were stabbed at a Pennsylvania high school early Wednesday, authorities said.

As many as 10 students have possibly been injured, CBS Pittsburgh reported. At least five to six of those were stabbed. The suspect, who has not been identified yet, is in custody.

Police and paramedics are currently on the scene in Murrysville, which is about 18 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Mothers and fathers were seen rushing to the high school. Some were directed to the town’s middle school to be reunited with their children from the high school, according to WTAE-TV.

Others were told that their children were taken to the hospital. At least one victim was airlifted to a nearby hospital.

The scene is reportedly secure and currently on lockdown.

The school district posted the following statement on its website:

"A critical incident has occurred at the high school. All elementary schools are cancelled, the middle school and high school students are secure. Additional information will be released as soon as possible. Please keep our campus clear of traffic."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/s ... -1.1750425

So, I must "bank it" once again. I had the TV on so I saw when it broke. The fact that it happened during a fire DRILL -- typically totally random -- is problematic. Bank the fact that it was reported during the news that the school was having a fire drill. This item of interest appears to have been scrubbed.

Ah, now they are revising. Someone pulled the fire-alarm. I could be whistling in the graveyard, as they say. And probably am.

Just there you have it. More deadly violence in yet another familiar setting.

[seemslikeadream]

Robert Jay Lifton rightly calls a "death-saturated age," in which matters of violence, survival and trauma now infuse everyday life.

Young people are not seen as troubled but viewed as a source of trouble; rather than viewed as being "at risk," they are the risk and subject to a range of punitive policies.

As a mode of public pedagogy, a state of permanent war needs willing subjects to abide by its values, ideology and narratives of fear and violence.

EVERYWHERE IS WAR

CHILD ABUSE I SAY YEAH

[elfismiles]

Robert Jay Lifton rightly calls a "death-saturated age," in which matters of violence, survival and trauma now infuse everyday life.

Well, let's not forget John Judge's perspective on RJ Lifton:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Robert+Jay+Lifton+"john+judge"

This is what Robert Jay Lifton and others have been working on for
decades, methods and drugs to reduce war stress so troops can keep
fighting. The current psychiatric intervention teams are not doing very
well. They want to keep people on the battlefield, because the only cure
for combat fatigue is more combat. And because they need the numbers. At
the recent VFP conference I said that conscientious objectors in the
military should tell the psychologist or psychiatrist at their required
interview that they have "Pre-TSD". Their new term is "Post-Traumatic
Growth", i.e. war is good for you. Note the methods were tested in
middle schools to see if they could teach "mental toughness" to
students. I recommend a book called The War on Nerves if you haven't
read anything about all this. It opens with a scene from the trenches in
WWII when a British soldier reports to the front lines for duty and
tells the officer he is a "neurologist". He has to explain that is a
science of the human nervous system. The officer sticks his head out of
the tent and yells "Boys, they've sent someone out here to help you with
your nerves". I could almost hear the response that should have come
back - "Sir, can he stop the shelling for a few days?" JJ

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/healt ... nted=print

EDIT: Thanks for the Lifton quote SLAD and thanks for the heads-up on this event 82_28 - I've been wondering when knife attacks might "jump the pond" and become more commonplace here in the states.

[seemslikeadream]

Drones raise new questions about the collusion of professionals in killing. In my work on Nazi doctors I spoke of the combination of professional killers and killing professionals. The latter can consist of lawyers, psychiatrists and psychologists and physicians in general, economists and corporate leaders, to which we must now add various kinds of computer specialists. With drones there is a diminishing distinction between professional killers and killing professionals. Those who operate robotic devices thousands of miles from the killing would seem to fall into both categories. They are in fact a new breed of educated and technologically trained professional killers.

- Robert Jay Lifton

[82_28]

They've gone from fire-drill, fire alarm set off before class was in session to it happening during first period while the kids had just arrived to their classes. I understand that the situation is fluid and was filled with hearsay. Just keep your eye on how the story morphs. Since I have the TV on I am watching them correct themselves over and over. I guess I am going with some kid slashing away with a knife and someone else pulled the fire alarm in order to evacuate the school.

It happens. It is very easy to evacuate a school. I did it many moons ago myself. I got flunked and expelled. 82_28 did the 8th grade twice. I didn't know I was doing it though. They were just levers and detectors. I didn't pull it though, I shot trumpet valve oil into a detector because I was bored after being kicked out of class and I was just seeing if I could aim at it while I sat there against the wall. Wound up going off and I admitted to it. It is certainly something, a big thing to suddenly make a couple thousand people all do something at once, such as all going outside at once and you were to blame. I felt awful as I didn't mean to do it.

And SLAD, that was a great essay.

[elfismiles]

Not sure if we want a Mass Stabbings Master Thread but ... there was another multiple stabbing yesterday morning in North America...

Separate Mass Stabbing Incidents Hit Two Superlative Sites
...

Toronto, Ontario

Just after 9:30 am ET also on Wednesday, April 9, 2014, Toronto police responded to multiple 911 calls from an office building on Yonge Street near York Mills Ave.

One man, apparently Asian, (shown here) was placed in custody after Toronto police say at least four people were stabbed (by scissors) at the building in the northern part of the city.

Police say the attack happened on the fifth floor of an office complex at 4110 Yonge St., near York Mills Avenue.

CBC News has confirmed that four people were taken to hospital with stab wounds.

A man and a woman in their 30s are among the people who were stabbed. The two suffered multiple, serious stab wounds, according to police, and are in critical condition in hospital. Two other males whose ages are not known were transported with serious wounds to a trauma centre.

Yonge Street (pronounced "young street") is a major arterial route connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes. It was formerly listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest street in the world at 1,896 km (1,178 mi). The construction of Yonge Street is designated an Event of National Historic Significance in Canada. Yonge Street was fundamental in the original planning and settlement of western Upper Canada in the 1790s, informing the basis of the concession roads in Ontario today. Long the southernmost leg of Highway 11, linking the capital with northern Ontario, Yonge Street has been referred to as "Main Street Ontario". A large part of the route follows an ancient well-established Aboriginal trail that linked the Lake Ontario waterfront to northern parts of the region. It was also the site of Canada's first subway line. Source.

http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2014/ ... bings.html

[elfismiles]

These were the previous incidents I was remembering...

High School Slasher Chased Students Down Hall with Kitchen Knives
by Breitbart News 10 Apr 2014, 7:55 AM PDT
...
Nevertheless, there have been at least two major stabbing attacks at U.S. schools over the past year, the first at a community college in Texas last April that wounded at least 14 people, and another, also in Texas, that killed a 17-year-old student and injured three others at a high school last September.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... igh-school

[sfnate]

A couple of things...

First, with so much of the commentary stressing that Hribal appeared to be a "normal" kid who wasn't bullied, it would seem that his motive cannot be linked to revenge for past abuses. Of course, there are less obvious types of bullying or abuse, and perhaps a different narrative will emerge once the news sites have investigated every aspect of his life. Interestingly, in a couple of reports they state that Hribal came from an "Ozzie and Harriet"-type family, which immediately makes me wonder a little about the cultural anachronism this suggests, and the psychological dynamic of a family that rigidly preserves and displays the values of an era that was sexually repressed and politically very conservative. But perhaps this is just a convenient and lazy way for reporters to stress and over-emphasize the "normality" of Hribal's family life.

Second, and connected to the observations of the witnesses that Hribal appeared "dazed" and "blank", is it too early to begin speculating whether Hribal was taking medication for ADHD or depression?

[sfnate]

Just a clarification on a comment I made in my earlier post--the "Ozzie and Harriet" remark is attributed to Hribal's lawyer, who uses the comparison to defend the family's normal-ness, and (I assume) to help create an impression that whatever caused the psychotic outburst, it had nothing to do with the situation at home. Which actually undermines Hribal's defense, because it moves forward the narrative that Hribal's act was completely random, linked neither to bullying nor a dysfunctional family. With the mental health or insanity defense currently out of favor with the American public and its judicial overseers, Hribal will most likely face a form of punitive retribution that mostly resembles a human sacrifice to the harshest elements of our Judeo-Christian legal system.

[sfnate]

Hribal's lawyer is setting his client up for maximum culpability:

"At this point, he's confused, scared and depressed. Over the next few days we'll try to figure out what the heck happened here," Thomassey told ABC. "I think he understands what he did. ... I don't think he realizes how severely injured some of these people are.

"Confused", "scared", "depressed"--has Hribal emerged from some kind of dissociative fugue state, the experience only partially assimilated via feelings of remorse and regret, but otherwise as much of a mystery to the perpetrator as it is to the victims and other observers?

[justdrew]

well, accidentally triggered might be a possibility.

[dbcooper41]

seems to be the week for stabbers. this is making the rounds of facebook and the msm.
this guy was killed by the cops "accidently".
apparently they meant to kill somone else, a "stabbing suspect".
http://crimefeed.com/2014/04/tosh-o-production-assistant-john-winkler-mistakenly-shot-death-los-angeles-sheriffs-department/

[elfismiles]

Sad ...

Connecticut high school student killed in attack at school
Washington Post - ‎9 minutes ago‎
Police guard an entrance to Jonathan Law High School in Milford, Conn., on Friday. (Michelle McLoughlin /Reuters). A high school student in Connecticut was killed Friday morning after an attack by another student that led to a lockdown, an evacuation and ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post ... at-school/

Jonathan Law High School is located about half an hour south of Newtown, Conn., the site of a grisly mass shooting in 2012.

previously ...

Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Canadian Stabbing Spree Leaves Five Dead
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2014/04/de-Grood.html

...

https://www.youtube.com/results?q=spring%20ISD%20stabbing

<snip>

Fatality in Multiple Stabbings at School
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2013/09/SpringHS.html

One dead in Spring HS stabbing, three others injured; Threat over
ABC30.com-1 hour ago
All victims and persons of interest were students at Spring ISD. ... One victim, stabbed in the abdomen, was in critical condition at Memorial ...

HCSO: 1 killed, 3 injured in fight at Spring HS; 3 in custody
KHOU-1 hour ago
1 dead, 3 injured in stabbing at Spring High School
Houston Chronicle-1 hour ago
1 Killed, 3 Injured in Stabbing at Houston-Area High School

Published on Sep 4, 2013

A 17-year-old student was stabbed to death and three others were injured in a possible gang-related confrontation Wednesday at Spring High School in the Houston suburb of Spring, Texas, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said.

Three "persons of interest" have been taken into custody after the fight in the school cafeteria, he said. At least two were taken away in handcuffs, KTRK-TV reports.

Spring High School, which serves 3,000 students, was locked down.

Garcia said the incident occurred around 7:10 a.m. at Spring High School and "may have been gang-related." He said the incident started with a physical confrontation involving a "cutting instrument."

KPRC-TV spoke with a man who said he was the father of the 16-year-old sophomore who was killed. "He was just trying to come to school today," he said of his son.

The victim's aunt, who identified herself as Alisa Brousard, said the killing "was random."

The sheriff said two students were taken to the hospital with minor injuries and the third was undergoing surgery.

KTRK-TV said one of the injured teens was stabbed in the abdomen and was in critical condition at Memorial Hermann Hospital. The TV station quoted a family member as saying the boy was fighting for his life.

At midmorning, the school sent out an e-mail and recorded message to parents: "This is an important message from Spring High School. Based on a preliminary report, a fight occurred this morning in the cafeteria. There has been one fatality and three students have been transported to hospitals with injuries. All other students are safe in their classrooms and will remain there while the investigation continues. Students will be released as soon as we have been given permission from the investigating authorities. We will call you again as soon as we have more details."

"When street violence pours into the schools, it compromises the well-being of all our students," said Ralph Draper, Spring ISD superintendent, at a news conference outside the school.

"It is our aim to re-establish a safe and secure place" for students on campus. He said police arrived on campus within 60 seconds of being summoned.