TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: School Violence

  • Carneal’s request for hearing denied

    Court rejects claims from Paducah school shooter:

    The Kentucky Supreme Court rejected a request from Paducah gunman Michael Carneal to have anew competency hearing. The now 25-year-old Carneal recently claimed, 11 years after the Paducah shootings, that at the time he shot up Heath High School he was mentally ill and that his lawyer was ineffective counsel at the time of his guilty plea

    Carneal argued that he was unable to reveal that he was hearing voices at the time of the shooting and guilty plea because of his mental illness. Justice Bill Cunningham, writing for the court, was unpersuaded, saying the claims rest solely on what Carneal says, not any outside evidence creating “a conceptual ‘Catch-22’.”

    It’s always nice to see that some judges still have common sense. Especially considering that the kids he killed, Nicole Hadley, Jessica James, and Kayce Steger, don’t have the luxury of appealing their death sentence.

    Carneal will be up for parole in 2023.

  • Paducah shooter now claims he heard voices

    Michael Carneal
    Michael Carneal

    High court hears arguments on Carneal’s competency:

    Michael Carneal was the then 15-year-old gunman who killed 3 and wounded 5 at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky in 1997. At his trial, he pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the murder charges and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole in 25 years.

    Of course, he claimed he was bullied but again as most cowards do he shot and killed innocent bystanders, a group of students who were in a prayer circle.

    Now it’s being argued in the Kentucky Supreme Court on whether or not Carneal was too mentally ill to plead guilty. Now, through the wonders of modern junk psychology, Carneal is claiming that at the time of the shooting he was schizophrenic and was hearing voices.

    The Kentucky Supreme court is expected to rule in three to six months.

  • NIU shooter was on Ambien

    NIU shooter was on Ambien

    Girlfriend: Shooter was taking cocktail of 3 drugs:

    Remember when I said that Stephen Kazmierczak meds had nothing to do with the shooting? I stand corrected…sort of.

    It turns out that Kazmierczak was on three drugs, Prozac, Xanax, and Ambien. Prozac is an anti-depressant, which, as I stated before, should have still been in his system at the time that he stopped taking it. Xanax is an anti-anxiety drug, kind of like Valium. I’ve been prescribed Xanax before. After taking one of those, the only thing I wanted to do was sleep, so I don’t think it was the Xanax. Ambien is a drug that is supposed to help you sleep. In a lot of cases, it does the exact opposite at best.

    A few years ago, there was a member of my family who was prescribed Ambien for sleep. Whenever they took an Ambien to try to sleep, they would end up being awake for hours in a stupor-like state. It got to the point where I didn’t want to be around them when they were on Ambien, and I was worried about their own safety. Luckily, when I expressed my concerns, they realized what Ambien was doing to them and stopped taking it. In my personal opinion, I think Ambien is a danger and should be taken off the market.

    There have been instances where people arrested for car accidents have claimed that they were on Ambien and didn’t even remember that they were driving. Can I draw the conclusion that Ambien caused Kazmierczak to on his killing spree? Logically, no. Only by anecdotal evidence would I try to make that conclusion. However, I don’t think it should be ruled out.

  • NIU shooting and the media

    NIU shooting and the media

    Northern Illinois shooting goes unnoticed:

    This is an op-ed piece from the San Jose State student newspaper about how the national media has treated the NIU shooting, and how it’s basically ignored the story since it happened.

    People reacted in horror when Seung-Hui Cho attacked Virginia Tech University last April, and grief gripped the nation for several days. Compare that with Thursday, when people didn’t even bat an eye when Steven Kazmierczak committed a similar crime at Northern Illinois University. It felt like a bad horror movie we had seen before.

    Some took note, a few grieved and a lot just didn’t notice.

    Only five days after the event, the NIU shooting and the issues surrounding it were less significant to CNN than satellites being shot down and Bill Clinton picking on a heckler. By contrast, the shooting at Virginia Tech filled our media’s consciousness for at least a week.

    I hate to say it, but the truth hurts sometimes. Ever since Columbine, it’s been all about body count as far as the media is concerned. At Columbine, 13 were killed. At Virginia Tech, 32 were killed. At NIU, just 5 were killed. I think it also had something to do with the fact that, as far as we know so far, Stephen Kazmierczak wasn’t an attention-seeking douchebag like Cho, Harris, and Klebold. Go down the list of categories on my site and tell me how many of the shootings you’ve heard of.

    This is where I like to think that this is where this site serves its purpose. When one of these incidents unfortunately happens, I post about it from start to finish.

  • NIU gunman covered his tracks

    NIU gunman covered his tracks

    Gunman Hid His Tracks, Officials Say:

    It seems that The Times is on a roll lately.

    Anyway, this is an article about how NIU gunman Stephen Kazmierczak covered his tracks prior to the shooting.

    The hard drive from his computer and the SIM card from his cell phone are both missing. I think this lends credence to my theory about Kazmierczak possibly being a paranoid schizophrenic.

    This wasn’t the typical school shooting either because as of, yet there’s no evidence that Kazmierczak craved any kind of attention like that of Cho Seung-Hui or Kimveer Gill.

    I think this is just a tragic incident of an undiagnosed mental illness.

  • Meds played little to no role in NIU shooting

    Meds played little to no role in NIU shooting

    Reports of Gunman’s Use of Antidepressant Renew Debate Over Side Effects:

    This is a great article from the NY Times (which is rare) about what kind of role antidepressants played in the NIU tragedy.

    In a word, they probably played no role whatsoever.

    Kazmierczak was on Prozac and was off of it for three days prior to the shooting. According to the article, Prozac doesn’t leave your system in that time.

    Now, the anti-depressant Luddites will still use this as an argument because they can’t make up their minds if being on or off antidepressants causes situations like this.

    Most medical professionals quoted in the article say that when patients on antidepressants have violent outbursts like this, it usually indicates another underlying problem.

    And I’m sure they’ll also ignore this quote.

    Dr. Michael Stone, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia, maintains a database of 1,000 violent crimes, including mass murders, going back decades. In many cases the accused had stopped taking drugs for schizophrenia, Dr. Stone said.

    “I only have a handful of cases,” he added, “where the person was on an antidepressant.”

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Kazmierczak had undiagnosed schizophrenia.

    Personally, I couldn’t laud the benefits of antidepressants enough. Being on one has literally saved my life.

  • Nee sentenced to 9 months

    Nee sentenced to 9 months

    Man Gets 9 Months in Mass. School Plot:

    That’s 9 months with three months served.

    I’m surprised, but I’m not. I’m surprised that the judge actually sentenced Joe Nee to jail time, but I’m not surprised that he got less than Tobin Kerns.

    Let’s get some reactions…

    “Obviously, being his parents, we’re heartbroken,” father Thomas Nee said after the sentencing.

    Heartbroken that his position as head of the Boston police union didn’t carry enough clout, maybe. If he was such a caring father, maybe he wouldn’t have thrown his son out of the house when Nee went to live with the Kerns family. Or maybe he wouldn’t let his son wear a t-shirt to the school of the Columbine killers that said ‘Remember the Heroes’.

    Next, we’ll hear from Joe Nee’s attorney, the always humorous Thomas Dreschler…

    Nee’s attorney, Thomas Drechsler, asked Judge Charles Grabau to spare Nee any additional jail time.

    “My client did go to police, and Kerns didn’t. I felt that he should have gotten a more lenient sentence,” Drechsler said. He said he plans to appeal the conviction.

    The only reason Nee went to police was that he was in fear of Tobin Kerns going to the police first. He should have gotten a lot more time than Tobin Kerns. By most accounts, Nee was the ring leader.

    Now let’s hear from Nee’s sister…

    Nee’s family was in tears, hugging outside the courtroom. His sister, Katherine Nee, said the ruling sends a message that people should not go to the police.

    You mean, how like a lot of the kids in Marshfield were afraid to go to the police about a policeman’s son?

    I expect a few things to happen. I expect the sentence to be reduced on appeal. I expect Nee to get special treatment while in jail. I also expect that this won’t be the last time we hear about Joe Nee’s criminal activities. Either that or he’ll become a Boston cop.

  • The One Who Shall Not Be Named sues for NIU shooter’s game history

    The One Who Shall Not Be Named sues for NIU shooter’s game history

    GamePolitics.com » Blog Archive » Jack Thompson, Seeking Killer’s Video Game History, Threatens NIU with Lawsuit:

    Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request production of copies of all documents that reveal Steven Kazmierczak’s play of violent video games, including but not limited to the use of his computer to play Counter-Strike, which he apparently, according to the New York Post, used to rehearse for his Valentine’s Day Massacre at NIU.

    Does it ever stop with him?

  • Kazmierczak’s girlfriend speaks out

    Kazmierczak’s girlfriend speaks out

    NIU shooter’s girlfriend: No sign he was ‘planning something’:

    Jessica Baty was the on again/off again girlfriend of NIU gunman Stephen Kazmierczak. In an interview with CNN, Baty said that Kazmierczak went off his antidepressants because it made him feel like a zombie, but that he wasn’t acting erratically in the weeks leading up to the shooting. If you ask me, feeling like a zombie is preferential to being a dead mass murderer, but I digress.

    Baty also received two packages from Kazmierczak. One had two textbooks, a goodbye note, and a cell phone. The second contained a holster and ammunition.

    If your meds make you feel like a zombie, just don’t go off them. Contact your doctor and tell him/her your concerns about your meds. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the right dosage of the right medication. Trust me, I’ve been there. Once they find the right medication and dosage, it will make your life a whole lot better.

  • NIU gunman had massive ‘Saw’ tattoo

    NIU gunman had massive ‘Saw’ tattoo

    Tattoo artist tells of working with NIU gunman:

    NIU gunman Stephen Kazmierczak had a rather large tattoo on his back in tribute to the horror movie Saw.

    Jason Dunavan says his work included an image of the macabre doll from the horror movie “Saw” riding a tricycle through a pool of blood. There were images of several bleeding cuts in the background of the tattoo.

    This revelation will cause two things to happen. The first is that I’m sure some reactionary group will blame the movie for the tragedy at NIU. I find that laughable, of course, considering many people are huge fans of the Saw series and I would say 99.9% are not criminals.

    However, I think that will begin to change as mutants usually pick up the habits of past school shooters and will begin to adopt this as required movie watching for the mutant set as Natural Born Killers became in the past.