This article makes me sad. If person or persons who witnessed all of this cruel and anti-social behavior toward another human being would have tried, in some small way, to mitigate these events, perhaps many many lives could have been changed and saved. I'm aware these sentiments apply to all tragedies of this ilk but am specifically speaking to the Moscow murders.
Not sure what you're saying. My students tell me they see this behavior daily. At home. In the neighborhood. At school. Are not willing to do anything formal about it whatsoever, would prefer just to go on with life, as it's not going away. I can't dispute that, because indeed, this behavior is longterm.
And what, exactly is the "small thing" that we can do? I try very hard to make myself available to such students and may contrive a reason to have them come to an office hour, where I am great at befriending them (after warning my admin assist of the situation). On days when the office building is devoid of people, yes, it gets creepy. Perhaps this has been the "small way" that has kept my college completely free of mass murder (a lot of us share this philosophy of teaching). But I think that's probably not the right answer.
I was called into a case involving a very similar perp (I just didn't know that yet). I feel that his supervisors (and myself) did everything possible to signal to him that he needed help/change etc. He was a policeman. Other policemen were afraid of him and that's why I was there (but I didn't know that). I didn't know that he was under surveillance within the building and in its parking lots. He was given a choice to get help and stop doing what he was doing (multiple bad things),
He's now serving a 20 year prison sentence, after being transferred to a job where he had very little contact with people and he was undergoing psychiatric and psychological treatment. He still found a way of continuing - and escalating his crimes.
And let me say that the amount spent on this one individual was rather large. And his bosses were so compassionate and tried to get him help. He was, btw, the identical twin of a felon who is also serving a life sentence - and he proudly told me "Had I not become a policeman, I would have been a criminal."
And I believed him. Allowed him to show me around the station and then walk me to my car.
At just one high school where I've been called in, the number of similar misfits and bullies was quite large and no one knew where to begin (and now, 10 years out, yep, some of those boys are now in jail or prison). They got counseling, etc. Everyone treated them with compassion (perhaps, IMO, too much? Boundaries and limits are the key to stopping this kind of behavior, in my professional opinion and there's research to show that).
One of those boys is in a psychiatric facility where he's kept in check (no longer attacking people) due to consistent and firm boundaries. I won't go into what those are - but I could.
nypost.com
