Today on April 2, 2012, a gunman opened fire at Oikos University, a small Christian school in Oakland, California. The mayhem began midmorning when the suspect walked into one of the school buildings where he first shot a woman at the front desk, and then preceded down hallways trying to get into rooms. The man then entered one of the classrooms, and ordered everyone to line up against the wall. He then began shooting point blank at the victims. After this horrific tragedy ended seven people lay dead with an additional three wounded. The suspect was not caught at the school, but instead was found at a shopping center about three miles away from the school. Apparently, the suspect was approached by a security guard at the store where he told the guard that he had to talk to police immediately because he had shot people. It is said that the suspect was a nursing student who had been absent for months before returning today. I am sure there will be more concrete information on this incident in the next couple days, but I felt like writing about it right now.
The reason I choose this article is because these sort of incidents make me extremely angry. Ever since the Columbine shooting I have been asking myself why would anyone want to do that to so many innocent people. Right when it seems like we have not heard of anything like this happening for awhile it then suddenly happens. Everyone wants to immediately point fingers at someone, but in reality these type of scenarios are just unpredictable. To relate this to some of our classroom material, some may say it was a breakdown within an organization's structure. The question is did the university fail to prevent this, or is this just a horrible tragedy that no one could prevent? I believe there is no correct way something like this can be prevented. There should be no reason a finger be pointed at anyone. If there should be someone to blame it should be the offender, or anyone else that had known about this before hand. By using the organism metaphor we can hope that this university and others can be able to adapt/make changes to how they react to these certain type of situations. For example, as a school/university you can implement some sort of evacuation plan or protocol to follow. On the other hand I am pretty sure that most police agencies if not all have a certain protocol that they follow when given this certain scenario. In the end this whole incident is just a horrible tragedy. It is truly unfair for innocent people to be killed from some psychotic person taking out their anger in such a horrific way.
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/cops-7-dead-3-hurt-christian-school-shooting-214742437.html
These types of stories are really terrible. I feel so horrible for everyone who lost their lives and for their family and friends. Whenever I hear about these kinds of stories I always think how scary it would be if anything like this ever happened at ISU, or in a school building I was in. There’s just no reason to kill innocent people for no reason at all. I think you can’t really blame the organism (school) for letting this happen. The only one to blame in the offender who took people lives so terribly. This person had to have some serious mental disturbances to commit an act like this. In the future, hopefully instances like this is will be decreased.
ReplyDeleteThese kinds of things also make me extremely angry and when another one happens it is almost a reminder that it could literally happen anywhere. It is such a sad thing when someone is brought to the point where they want to kill innocent people and being in that situation would be absolutely terrifying. I have also had an interest in school shootings after Columbine and really would like to know what could be done to prevent this from happening. The more I think about it the more I believe that there really isn't much for the organization to to because if someone wants to bring a gun into a school and shoot people they're going to do it. It's a sad reality that school shootings will most likely to continue to happen.
ReplyDeleteI hate hearing about things like this. There really is no one to blame but the offender and if anyone else knew about this before it happened. He could have picked any school any classroom and any other 7 people to kill. It is a terrible thing when innocent people have to die but I dont understand why he would do this in the first place and then report himself to a store security guard. If you are going to turn yourself in then why dont you turn yourself in for the thoughts of killing innocent people rather than actually killing them and then turning yourself in. I just dont understand why people are so crazy. There is no way to stop things like this because they are so random and just happen when no ones looking. Thats horrible to say but it is very true. No one deserves to die for nothing except for the people who are going around killing.
ReplyDeleteIt always hurts me when I read stories such as the one that you have choose to post on. I never understand how people, such as the gunman you spoke of, could be to the point in their life where they feel that they should unjustifiably kill another human being/s. The part that I found to be the most tragic was how the gunman lined the students up against the wall and then began to shoot at them. In addition, I cannot fathom how he could do such a heinous act and then simply go to the mall after he was done. In addition, I liked how you related your article to the material that we have been going over in class. I feel sad for the victims and their families and I hope that one day tragedies like these simple do not occur even though that does not seem likely
ReplyDeleteThe violence in this country is out of control. Since Columbine there has been 108 school shootings. This is horrying. This article especially hits home to me to because my freshman year of college 07-08 i went to NIU. On Feb 14 2008 a gunman entered Cole Hall in the very lecture hall i was in only an HOUR before. Not only did i miss it by an hour, i knew people in there and one person Dan Parmenter was in a rival fraternity and we played them in sports. Dan died and so did 5 others including the shooter. This is a very serious and scary issue our society faces these days.
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