It's a vicious circle.Why do people commit mass shootings?

In summary, a biology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville opened fire at a faculty meeting, killing three people and wounding three others. She faces a capital murder charge.
  • #36
MotoH said:
Why should I, or anyone else, have my hard earned money go to pay for rapists, murderers and thieves meals, room, and board?

Because living free on your feet is better than being boxed in and on your knees in jail. We take pity on these people and that is why they get meals, medical coverage, visitation rights, books, TV, and fresh air. When we give them parole we don't give them complete freedom either, they are always harassed and reminded how their freedom is limited.
 
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  • #37
well, she's obviously nuts. whether it's some kind of dissociative identity disorder or just loses all rationality when provoked to anger, i guess it doesn't matter much. it will be interesting to see if she actually gets the death penalty here in Alabama. we're not usually shy about it, but sometimes women get a pass on such things.
 
  • #38
Please stay on topic. Off topic posts will be deleted.
 
  • #39
Maybe she was just pissed after working hard for 36 years she was getting fired as her reward.
 
  • #40
edpell said:
Maybe she was just pissed after working hard for 36 years she was getting fired as her reward.
She's only 42.
 
  • #41
Evo said:
She's only 42.

School in the US starts at age 6. If she was a Harvard trained whatever she probably had to do some level of work at school.

I just got the part about her shotting her brother. There is more to this story.
 
  • #42
i also didn't see that she was getting fired, just denied tenure.

anyone else think she looks a bit like Data's Lul ? maybe there was a cascading failure in the positronic matrix.
 
  • #43
How does tenure work? In general are folks who are denied tenure encouraged to stay on staff?
 
  • #44
As Evo pointed out, the news is now reporting that she has a past history of shooting people. The shooting death of her brother was ruled accidental, according to the news, but it seems in light of the recent incident, the case files have "disappeared" and it is being revisited.

I'm not completely surprised something like this could happen. There are some wacky people that manage to get hired on as faculty (shush all of you!), and the tenure process is very stressful. I HAVE seen people fly off the handle when denied tenure, though not to the point of shooting anyone. The thing is that most places, it is really rare to be denied tenure, so when it happens, it is something often shocking and implies one's work is crap. As for being fired vs being denied tenure, it's often not very different. When someone is denied tenure, they sometimes have the option to continue on a contractual basis for a set number of years to give them time to either reapply for tenure or search for a position elsewhere. But, that's usually a courtesy. They can be told that they will need to leave as soon as their current contract expires.

Most people have the sense to apply for positions at other institutions in the year of their tenure decision so they do have a place to move to if they are denied tenure at their current institution. But, someone REALLY unqualified to get tenure is also going to have a hard time finding another position (i.e., poor publication record, poor funding record).

Who knows, though, maybe her denial of tenure originated entirely from personality conflicts...that can happen. If someone is constantly fighting with others in the department, making it an unpleasant work environment, not pulling their weight, and being a thorn in the side of the department chair, they may not get tenured.

And thanks to all of you who read this story and thought of me! Though, I was going to frame my target and mount it in my office, and now have reconsidered it...I'll wait until I'm coming up for promotion to put it on display. :biggrin:
 
  • #45
Moonbear said:
And thanks to all of you who read this story and thought of me!
I have to say your avatar now has a distinctly creepy cast.
 
  • #46
Evo said:
She fatally shot her brother 20 years ago, but they "lost" the files. She's 42 now, so she would have been 22 at the time.

Got link?
 
  • #47
zoobyshoe said:
Got link?

I haven't seen it in the printed news, but on the TV news, heard exactly the same thing that Evo did, that the files from the original case are "lost." Very suspicious, and I hope there's more follow-up on that.
 
  • #48
Moonbear said:
I haven't seen it in the printed news, but on the TV news, heard exactly the same thing that Evo did, that the files from the original case are "lost." Very suspicious, and I hope there's more follow-up on that.

It feeds my suspicion that the "person of interest" is probably a shrink, and she's already got a diagnosis of a major mental illness. Lota bipolar people hold down jobs.
 
  • #49
zoobyshoe said:
I have to say your avatar now has a distinctly creepy cast.

Don't worry, I'm not in a tenure-track position, so nobody will deny me tenure, just promotion. Do you think I should include a copy of this news story with my promotion package though? :rolleyes: No wonder my department chair never calls any faculty meetings!
 
  • #50
Were (are) mom or dad or Amy rich/well connected? wrt the "lost" files.
 
  • #51
Moonbear said:
Don't worry...

Your pic is a carnivore with a fully automatic weapon!
 
  • #52
Moonbear said:
Don't worry, I'm not in a tenure-track position, so nobody will deny me tenure, just promotion. Do you think I should include a copy of this news story with my promotion package though? :rolleyes: No wonder my department chair never calls any faculty meetings!
I was thinking about that, too: somewhere some other biology professor had there tenure meeting today or will on Mon. Bet everyone was pretty tense.
 
  • #53
edpell said:
Your pic is a carnivore with a fully automatic weapon!

No, it is a carnivore with an Accuracy International L96A1/AW. Which is a bolt action sniper rifle used by the British Armed Forces.:smile:
 
  • #54
zoobyshoe said:
It feeds my suspicion that the "person of interest" is probably a shrink, and she's already got a diagnosis of a major mental illness. Lota bipolar people hold down jobs.

It's entirely possible. The flexible schedules and somewhat casual atmosphere of a university faculty position make it appealing to people who might have difficulty fitting in a more typical corporate type environment, and there's an overall higher tolerance for people's "quirks." What might raise eyebrows about someone's behavior in a corporate environment might just get passed off as just another eccentricity in a university setting.
 
  • #55
zoobyshoe said:
I was thinking about that, too: somewhere some other biology professor had there tenure meeting today or will on Mon. Bet everyone was pretty tense.

No kidding! Our promotion and tenure committee is just about to the point of completing their review of those up for tenure this year and writing their recommendations to the department chair. If there's anyone they're on the fence about, I bet their doing some nailbiting right now.
 
  • #56
Moonbear said:
It's entirely possible. The flexible schedules and somewhat casual atmosphere of a university faculty position make it appealing to people who might have difficulty fitting in a more typical corporate type environment, and there's an overall higher tolerance for people's "quirks." What might raise eyebrows about someone's behavior in a corporate environment might just get passed off as just another eccentricity in a university setting.

Yep, several of my professors were eccentric, none were crazy, though. The worst was a heavy drinker. Still, she made it to all her classes.
 
  • #57
zoobyshoe said:
Got link?
It's the link in the OP.
 
  • #58
MotoH said:
No, it is a carnivore with an Accuracy International L96A1/AW. Which is a bolt action sniper rifle used by the British Armed Forces.:smile:

Ah bolt action more power longer range. Nice Kitty.
 
  • #59
Evo said:
It's the link in the OP.
Huh. The same link now leads to an updated story:

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting was a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, inventor and mother whose life had been marred by a violent episode in her distant past.

More than two decades ago, police said Amy Bishop fatally shot her teenage brother at their Massachusetts home in what officers at the time logged as an accident — though authorities said Saturday that records of the shooting are missing...

...She shot her brother, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, in the chest in 1986, said Paul Frazier, the police chief in Braintree, Mass., where the shooting occurred. Bishop fired at least three shots, hitting her brother once and hitting her bedroom wall before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.

Frazier said the police chief at the time told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked. It was logged as an accident.

But Frazier's account was disputed by former police Chief John Polio, who told The Associated Press he didn't call officers to tell them to release Bishop. "There's no cover-up, no missing records," he said.

Attempts by AP to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. The current police chief said he believed her family had moved away.

The missing records thing is disputed.
 
  • #60
zoobyshoe said:
Huh. The same link now leads to an updated story:



The missing records thing is disputed.
They've changed the article.
 
  • #61
The current police chief says the former police chief "told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked". The former police chief says he did not say any such thing. If Mommy or Daddy or former police chief have enough pull the current police chief will remember he mis-spoke.
 
  • #62
edpell said:
The current police chief says the former police chief "told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked". The former police chief says he did not say any such thing. If Mommy or Daddy or former police chief have enough pull the current police chief will remember he mis-spoke.

You're really into this pulling strings hypothesis.
 
  • #63
Evo said:
They've changed the article.
That's what I'm saying. The current article isn't the same as the one I originally linked to.
 
  • #64
Biology professors are all crazy. What else is new?
MotoH said:
No, it is a carnivore with an Accuracy International L96A1/AW. Which is a bolt action sniper rifle used by the British Armed Forces.:smile:

Nerdiness at its prime.
 
  • #65
Pinu7 said:
Biology professors are all crazy.

That is what makes them so hot :approve:

According to http://ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=392617", Amy Bishop "is hot but she tries to hide it", "a socalist but she only talks about it after class", and most agree that she is very helpful. The only negative comments are left by the usual suspects - the lazy, retarded, and those who don't consider learning entire book as logical. The premeds must have loved her.

Holy crap there is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Bishop" already
 
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  • #66
This reminds me of a story(which most of you should know).

Michael Spivak was a professor at Brown. He is well known for authoring several LEGENDARY textbooks(his five volumes on differential geometry, Calculus on Manifolds, etc) which has, without a doubt, reshaped mathematics.

Despite his work, he was denied tenure because he "spent all of his time writing math books." After hearing this, he just left the University that day and never returned to academia.
 
  • #67
cronxeh said:
That is what makes them so hot :approve:

According to http://ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=392617", Amy Bishop "is hot but she tries to hide it", "a socalist but she only talks about it after class", and most agree that she is very helpful. The only negative comments are left by the usual suspects - the lazy, retarded, and those who don't consider learning entire book as logical. The premeds must have loved her.

Holy crap there is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Bishop" already

she hides it well. maybe a little too well. it does make me wonder if we will be hearing a sexual abuse survivor angle from the defense at some point to explain away some of the crazy. yeah, i know it wasn't what triggered this, but i was getting a dissociative vibe from the beginning.
 
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  • #68
Proton Soup said:
i also didn't see that she was getting fired, just denied tenure.

Being denied tenure is getting fired, in effect. Most US universities and colleges have an "up or out" system. If you don't get tenure by the end of your seventh year in a tenure-track position, you have to leave. People normally apply for tenure during their sixth year. If they don't get it then, they may be able to ask for reconsideration during the seventh year, while (presumably) looking for another job as a backstop measure.
 
  • #69
oh, now this is rich.

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/uah_professor_in_custody_for_questioning.html

At 4:52 p.m., university officials e-mailed this message to UAH students and employees: "There has been a shooting on campus. The shooter has been apprehended. The campus is closed tonight. Everyone is encouraged to go home. Classes are canceled for tonight. Any additional cancellations or changes will be announced as they become available.

"There is a command center set up at Madison Hall Room 109. Counselors are available in University Center Rooms 125, 126 and 127 for anyone who wishes to speak with a counselor."

UAH spokesman Ray Garner said the university started looking at installing an alert messaging system after a student killed 32 students at Virginia Tech in 2007.

But UAH students did not immediately receive warnings via e-mail or text.

Tony Cannizzo, 19, received a text message about 6:20 p.m., although it arrived with the time marked 5:32 p.m. The message read: "Shelby Center is secure and the suspect is in custody." Cannizzo said he did not receive any other messages before that one.

"UAlert was triggered late because the people who were responsible for activating the system were responding to the incident," said Campus Police Chief Charles Gailes during a press conference.

i'm sorry, but i just don't believe him. it was intentional not to issue an alert until after they had the situation under control. we had similar issues with UAB campus police (actually state police, UAH should be the same) back around 1990 or so. they wouldn't even issue standard police blotter info to Kaleidoscope (the school newspaper).

the real irony is that incidents like this were used to justify paying for the system.

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/local.ssf?/base/news/1224753315117520.xml&coll=1
 
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  • #70
Moonbear said:
Who knows, though, maybe her denial of tenure originated entirely from personality conflicts...

That was my first idea, with shooting being just a proof that they were right denying the tenure.
 

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