Va Tech Shooter sends "images, letter" to NBC

Personal technology has advanced since Columbine. This is a bad precedent.

 

It just seems they are being disingenuous with their readers by using the word "immediately." Take it out of the sentence and you're fine. It just seems like they're patting themselves on the back by using the word, especially when it doesn't fit.

The network turned the materials over to FBI agents in New York.

Fine like that. Not so fine the other way, in my opinion.

 

Williams was interviewed on MSNBC a couple of minutes ago and he said he was conflicted about airing the information. He said as a journalist, he knew that he had to do it but as a person, he had problems with it. He also hinted that the really sick stuff didn't air.

 

I thought that the killers shot some kind of footage leading up to it that hasn't been released. Maybe I am mistaken.

 

"Killers"? Typo, right?

I don't see the contradiction in our statements.

 

I meant the Columbine killers.

 

<ColinCowherd> Tonight, NBC News is just more <i> interesting</i>. Sorry ABC, Fox, CBS, PBS, CNN...you're just not one of those teams. </ColinCowherd>

 

Good lord, after looking at that kid, did anyone else think of Private Pyle in his final scene in Full Metal Jacket? He defines a Section 8.

 

Got it, OK. My point: it's much easier now to almost instantly provide images and sound of horriffic deeds, and by providing them to media prior to self-destruction (the pattern in mass murders), get further publicity for the act(s). Which seems to be a motivator in the twisted minds of these people. Therefore, a bad precedent because the current and coming technology is an impetus, if the results are allowed to be shown indiscriminantly.

I will now turn this thread back over to the professional psychologists.

 

I'm with 21. The shot of him pointing the gun directly at the camera, steely-eyed gaze and all, sent me reeling.

 

I'm sorry, but the whole thing is ridiculous. I mean, we can fetishize the guy all he wants us to - and he clearly does - or we can deem the guy a fool who wrote a play called "McBeef" and smack ourselves for letting the son of a bitch kill 32 people with store-bought guns. All of the news organizations are playing right into the Fox News "sick, sick, evil, sick, sick, evil, bad, bad bad man" playbook.

What the hell is NBC thinking showing this nonsense? It's utterly meaningless. He's dead, they're dead, it's all senseless. Now let's go after the delivery system. It's all we can control, and it's all that really matters.

 

The last shot of him holding the gun to his head was the one that caught my eye. All the other photos showed him with a petulant-to-angry look (occasionally drunk, like with the hammer). But the last shot, he looked more desperate than anything else, like in his eyes there was a "holy shit, I need help" look. Not defending the fucker, but that was my gut impression. And if you know me, that's saying something.