At least 12 killed, 50 injured at midnight showing of Batman movie
- Thread starter Dream
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I was flipping through the channels, and man does Nancy Grace need to take chill pills. For one she sounds angry, but SHE DOESN'T NEED TO YELL AS MUCH AS SHE DOES.
That's Nancy Grace for you, though. She reacts much the same way when she gets a parking ticket.
Looks like he didn't leave his studies, he flunked out.
We know he had trouble finding employment and went back to school for that.
Anger might be a motive.
We know he had trouble finding employment and went back to school for that.
Anger might be a motive.
I think pure Fucked-In-the-Headedness was the "motive."
When is it not, Trekker?
Heck, there's iPhone aps to monitor police calls. Or perhaps he'd taped his iPhone to the inside of his apartment door (they are great seismic, vibration, and sound monitors). I have no idea if he had that kind of skill level with computers and electronics, but he was wiring up booby traps, had a masters degree in a technical field and access to the Internet, so it's not out of the range of possibilities.
His Adult Friend Finder profile is linked on up the page.
The booby trapped house has been used in "Speed", with Keanu Reeves, and in "Batman: The Dark Night." If he was off in the Joker's la-la world, it might explain why he would surrender so easily. It would be part of the necessary plot, because only after he gets arrested and questioned can he spout forth about his twisted worldview and explain that he is a force to be reckoned with, that chaos will win, blah blah blah.
Perhaps his response to disaffection and alienation was to seize on the idea that the Joker was right, but from that also picked up the idea that he has to confront the main protagonist (whoever the f*** that is), which is a feeling absent from most beserkers.
His Adult Friend Finder profile is linked on up the page.
The booby trapped house has been used in "Speed", with Keanu Reeves, and in "Batman: The Dark Night." If he was off in the Joker's la-la world, it might explain why he would surrender so easily. It would be part of the necessary plot, because only after he gets arrested and questioned can he spout forth about his twisted worldview and explain that he is a force to be reckoned with, that chaos will win, blah blah blah.
Perhaps his response to disaffection and alienation was to seize on the idea that the Joker was right, but from that also picked up the idea that he has to confront the main protagonist (whoever the f*** that is), which is a feeling absent from most beserkers.
Plenty of times people can have "motive" to kill people. But I doubt this guy flunked out of school and decided to buy himself a bunch of guns and explosives because there was just no point in trying to do anything else now. Granted it's not a great job market but he was a sharp guy with a Masters degree in a good field of study he certainly could have found something to do when he failed out of college to go and kill a dozen people watching a movie.
He's fucked in the head, there was no motive here. People who kill with a "motive" have a political agenda to further, a religious crusade to go on (the abortion doctor murder in Kansas), revenge against a group of people who shunned them or they hated (Columbine.)
People like this guy and Loughner in the Gabby Giffords case were just wackjobs. They had no motive to do this other than something much beyond "wouldn't this be fun?!"
He's fucked in the head, there was no motive here. People who kill with a "motive" have a political agenda to further, a religious crusade to go on (the abortion doctor murder in Kansas), revenge against a group of people who shunned them or they hated (Columbine.)
People like this guy and Loughner in the Gabby Giffords case were just wackjobs. They had no motive to do this other than something much beyond "wouldn't this be fun?!"
He is clearly not like Loughner. This wasn't a spree. He was planning this apparently since May. Look how he wired the apartment. He put a lot planning and attention into this.
He'd already gotten a masters degree, so I doubt he flunked-out flunked-out (as in couldn't do the coursework). Most people don't flunk out of a PhD study, they just keep stretching things out till they give up and go do something else.
So I'll bet he gave up and quit working toward the PhD, and that the decision is closely intertwined with what he ended up doing. Either he got this new plan for infamy in his head first, and realized that working on a PhD he'd never see was a complete waste of time, or he realized the PhD was going nowhere and fell back to plan B - kill everybody.
I'd also bet that the date he quit doing meaningful coursework pretty closely marks the earliest he would've started seriously committing himself to this attack, and it might correspond pretty closely to the date he purchased some of the guns.
Indeed. The apartment is interesting. The news talked about coke bottles filled with unknown liquids. That could be anything from something like gas to a chemical substance meant to kill first responders/onlookers when it was burned/dispersed by the explosion. His explosives could be liquid binaries for all we know and the trip wires rigged to realize the one component into the other making a big boom.
They shut own two labs/classrooms on the college campus, he could easily have gained access to dangerous substances there.
Thjis guy was crazy. He definitely planned it.
On a separate note I saw an interview with the frightened woman who brought her infant to the movie.
I think infants should not be allowed in a movie theater. Even family friendly films have volume levels too loud for their ears. And obviously an infant doesn't comprehend what's happening so the presence of a an infant only detracts for the enjoyment of others.
On a separate note I saw an interview with the frightened woman who brought her infant to the movie.
I think infants should not be allowed in a movie theater. Even family friendly films have volume levels too loud for their ears. And obviously an infant doesn't comprehend what's happening so the presence of a an infant only detracts for the enjoyment of others.
He doesn't have a Masters. He only has a BS in Neuroscience from UC. He got in the PhD program on strength of that. And he failed his prelims at UCo.
Having something planned out doesn't equal having a "motive" much beyond "I want to cause a panic." And that's even assuming he did all of this with a grasp on enough sanity to realize what he was doing was terribly, terribly wrong and what it would result in.
Motive suggests an "end goal." "I'm going to take this action and afterwards "this" is going to happen. Because, dammit, something has to change!" or things like revenge.
"I'm fucked-up in the head" isn't "motive."
Not for me, anyway.
Pretty much it, I doubt he had any motive, agenda or did this as an act of revenge for life's curve balls. He just wanted to introduce a little chaos into the evening of some innocent people.
While that could have been "his plan" the fact that his bio on his AFF page has the line about dating him in prison says a lot as well.
^ If he's really sick, it could be something from his neurobiology studies. In "Batman Begins" the plot centered around some very strange, mind-altering drugs that were set up to wipe out most of the city, turning people into paranoid freaks. He might have cooked up a low-budget version of a bad trip, which could be any of a vast host of things. Perhaps MPTP which causes Parkinson's disease, which was easily (and accidentally) synthesized by a college student trying to make MPPP, a synthetic opiate.
There's no telling what horrors this guy might've cooked up.
There's no telling what horrors this guy might've cooked up.
Could be. It's certainly possible he intended to get out of this alive, I just don't see why he would... Do that to himself? Even if he pleads guilty he had to have known the hell he'd go through with police, prosecutors, the media and possibly even fellow inmates. Not to mention potentially living out his life in prison if not facing the death penalty.
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