TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: School Violence

  • A doctor’s opinion on Asperger’s

    A doctor’s opinion on Asperger’s

    With all the talk about Asperger’s Syndrome on this site lately because of the Lincoln-Sudbury High stabbing, I decided to get a professional opinion. Over the weekend, I e-mailed Dr. Scott from Polite Dissent and asked him his opinion about Asperger’s being used as a murder defense. This was his reply. Nothing has been edited.

    There’s no easy answer. Some people with Asperger’s are all but autistic, others are fully functional, most fall somewhere in between. A person who attends high school, admits to the deed, and apologizes strikes me as someone who is pretty functional, and knows right from wrong.

    That being said, impulse control problems are common in people with Asperger’s. May seem to lack the ‘maybe this isn’t the right thing to do’ switch between anger and action.

    As an aside, whenever I hear that someone has Asperger’s — be they a patient of mine, or someone on the news, I wonder where they received their diagnosis. About half the people seem to be self-diagnosed (or ‘mother diagnosed’) because they think it fits, and it ‘sounds right’ and they now have an excuse for some of their choices (it wasn’t me, it was the Asperger’s). I never trust these diagnoses. Asperger’s is a poorly defined condition that is difficult to diagnose; it takes hours of psychological testing and interviewing for a correct diagnose; it takes a specialist. Without one of those doing the diagnosing, I don’t believe the diagnosis.

    If you have an opinion about this, post it in the comments here. Don’t harass Dr. Scott at his site. He was merely doing me a favor.

  • Gamemakers defend Columbine game

    Gamemakers defend Columbine game

    (Guest post by Alyric)

    This story is a bit unusual in that there is no crime being blamed on video games – rather, the video game is based on a crime.

    For those of you who have been fortunate enough not to hear about it, Super Columbine Massacre RPG is a game created by Danny Ledonne. You will not find a link to it on this site; not now, not ever. Essentially, the game allows you to play as Harris and Klebold in a virtual recreation of the massacre at Columbine High School. Not only that, the content in the game and the author himself glamorize what they did. This was, sadly, hero-worship; a tribute, of sorts. Trench has covered this story previously.

    The game has been around for a while, but just recently it made headlines again. According to Newsweek, a Utah Gamemaker Competition dropped the Columbine game from consideration. In response, six of the fourteen finalists have quit in protest, and seven sent letters requesting the game’s reinstatement.

    To be fair, I suspect that most or all of these finalists are ignorant of the true nature of SCMRPG and many of the remarks made by Danny Ledonne. Still, making such a public demonstration of support for something you aren’t familiar with is dangerous at best.

    Consider a quote from the article by Jonathon Blow, one of the finalists that dropped out after SCMRPG was removed from the competition. “As long as we persist in believing that games are just for kids … we’re not going to get where we need to go.”

    This quote, I can only imagine, broadly assumes that the game has been removed for violent content. Mr. Blow, this has nothing to do with violence, only the standards of public decency, and respect for the families that lost loved ones on that day. The game constantly refers to Harris and Klebold as “brave boys”, and runs a tribute montage to them after their deaths. How could the Slamdance Festival afford to be seen as supporting that?

    If the lack of respect showed by Danny Ledonne towards the families of the people murdered at Columbine wasn’t bad enough, consider his refusal to respect the wishes of the organizers of the event; from the second article – But SCMRPG! creator Danny Ledonne has told other finalists that he plans to go to the festival anyway and distribute copies of his game.

    Kudos to Peter Baxter, president of the event, for not caving into the pressure.

  • Lincoln-Sudbury suspect bragged of knives

    Lincoln-Sudbury suspect bragged of knives

    Accused killer boasted of vast knife collection:

    John Odgren, the suspect in the Lincoln-Sudbury High School stabbing, had previously bragged about his rather extensive knife collection…

    John Odgren is a private kid who spent hours exploring the vast woods around his secluded Princeton home, neighbors said, sometimes carrying a machete.

    One neighbor said the quiet teen appeared menacing as he stalked along the winding country road with a machete in hand whacking at brush. “He just acted odd,” said the neighbor. “He’d sit in the woods all day. He spent all last summer walking in the woods.”

    But another said Odgren seemed like a typical country boy who enjoyed the outdoors: “He didn’t seem like a punk. He didn’t seem like he was too big for his britches. He seemed like a nice kid.”

    A student at Sudbury named Julia, who is making a crime film, said Odgren was fascinated by crime. “He said if we needed any props for the movie he had knives,” she said.

    For the sake of argument, let’s just say that his Asperger’s is what caused him to kill James Alenson. Then if his parents knew he had a predisposition to fly off the handle, why did they allow him to have a knife collection? Why would you let any 16-year-old have a knife collection, including a machete, anyway?

    The article said he was picked on too. I don’t care. I bet James Alenson was picked on too. He was a quiet kid who played the clarinet. You’re going to tell me that no one picked on him?

    There’s only one victim here, and his name is James Alenson.

  • More out of Sudbury

    More out of Sudbury

    Student charged with murder in fatal stabbing at suburban school:

    The name of the suspect of the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School stabbing has been released. He is 16-year-old John Odgren of Princeton, Mass. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges yesterday in court. Which I find kind of strange considering that when police arrived Odgren had blood on his hands, proclaiming to police “I did it. I did it”. Odgren also allegedly said, “Is he OK? I don’t want him to die.” Odgren’s attorney, Jonathan Shapiro, is claiming that Odgren has Asperger’s Syndrome and is obviously going to use that as his defense.

    “The defendant has a history of fairly serious psychological diagnoses and has also suffered from hyperactivity dysfunction for many years,” Shapiro said. “What is clear is John has a serious disability.”

    Asperger’s is not an excuse for murder, and to claim so does a great disservice to people with Asperger’s. If this kind of defense continues, pretty soon people will think that all people with Asperger’s are potential killers. Not only that, but you could also have people who don’t have Asperger’s claiming that they do just so they can use it as a defense.

    In Massachusetts, anyone age 14 or older is automatically tried as an adult. Alenson was stabbed in the heart and the abdomen and had cuts on his neck. This was no accident.

    Students say assailant talked about murder, bombs:

    Classmates of Odgren sure aren’t painting him as some poor misunderstood kid…

    Just hours after a classmate was stabbed to death in a school bathroom, two Lincoln-Sudbury High School juniors yesterday said the student now accused of the killing often wore a trench coat to school and talked about murder, forensics and how he wanted to make a bomb.

    Brianna Hogge, also a junior at L-S, said “Jack” was “always asking how to get away with killing people and talking about how to make acid to make bombs. He was a really creepy kid.”

    Hogge said the student “was always talking about murder, overly interested in forensics and not happy things.”

    She said the young man had, in the past, talked to many students and some teachers about his unusual interests.

    I wouldn’t be surprised that if his claims of Asperger’s and asking if the victim was ok were all part of a plan to try to get away with murder.

    Speaking of the victim…

    Kin: Slain boy was ‘all-around good kid’:

    James Alenson, the studious, sweet-faced freshman brutally stabbed to death yesterday morning at Lincoln-Sudbury High School, was remembered yesterday as an excellent kid and straight-A student who never made trouble with anyone.

    He was just a nice kid. He was just an excellent kid, an all-around good kid, said the murdered boy’s grandfather, James Grotton of New Hampshire.

    Alenson, 15, had just moved with his family to Sudbury in September from Natick, where he completed eighth grade at Wilson Middle School. He has a brother and sister. “He’s a straight-A student,” said Eryn Hearn, 14, a Natick High freshman. “We’re all shocked.”

    His former classmates remembered Alenson as always toting around his clarinet and keeping to himself. A copy of his 2005 middle school year book shows him smiling with social studies teacher Niall Carey for the annual geography bee.

    “You’d see him with (the clarinet) all the time,” said former classmate Anton Wilson, 14, of Natick. “He’s a nice kid who’s quiet.”

    Does that sound like a kid who deserved to be stabbed to death?

  • Gill scouted other schools

    Gill scouted other schools

    Dawson College killer scouted other schools:

    According to Canadian officials, Kimveer Gill scouted other schools before picking Dawson College for his rampage. According to the article, Gill had scouted 3 other schools. Those schools being Universite de Montreal, Vanier College, and a Laval high school. It’s unknown why he settled on Dawson.

    Police recovered a notepad from his car that contained hand-drawn sketches of routes leading to all four schools, Cmdr. Richard Dupuis said.

    On the page with directions to the Universite de Montreal, Mr. Gill had scribbled the words “too big.”

    “There are indications he may have considered other schools,” Cmdr. Dupuis said. “Did he go inside (them)? We don’t know. They were rough plans he had designed, but nothing too detailed. Just what roads to take to get there.”

    It has been known that Gill did enter Dawson College weeks prior to his assault. So it’s a not a stretch that Gill probably did enter the other schools.

  • Sometimes you don’t

    Sometimes you don’t

    Minnesota Supreme Court upholds Rocori shooter’s convictions:

    A few months back, I posted that the attorneys for Rocori High School shooter John Jason McLaughlin were trying to have his conviction overturned.

    The attorney argued that Minnesota’s insanity law, known as the M’Naghten Rule, is outdated and that it doesn’t apply to teens. If you remember, McLaughlin shot and killed Aaron Rollins and Seth Bartell with Seth being the intended target.

    Attorneys for McLaughlin argued that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and only intended to wound Seth Bartell. In my unprofessional opinion, he only suffered from “I’m faking it”-itis.

    Anyway, the Minnesota Supreme Court has refused to rule on the appeal, stating that the defense did not argue this point at trial.

    McLaughlin is serving consecutive life terms in prison.

  • Robin Kittrell sentenced

    Kittrell, 17, sentenced to 10 months detention:

    Robin Kittrell, the 17-year-old who was arrested for bringing guns to school in order to prevent a Columbine, has been sentenced. Kittrell has been sentenced to youth boot camp for 3 to 4 months, then 3 to 6 months in a detention center. Then, when he’s released, he’ll get a year on intensive probation, followed by nine years of regular probation.

    Now, this is an actual example of where a kid needs help and not too much jail time. His intention was not to hurt, but to protect. He just went about it in a misguided way.

    I hope at least that he’s able to get help somewhere.

  • Jonesboro shooter arrested

    Jonesboro shooter arrested

    Jonesboro shooter found with gun, pot, while with crossbow killer:

    Back in August 2005, I posted an entry about one of the Jonesboro shooters, Mitchell Johnson, being released at the age of 21 due to a loophole in Arkansas law that has since been closed. At the time, I wondered how long would it be before he was back in jail. Apparently, that answer is one year and five months.

    Johnson was arrested on New Year’s Day for possession of marijuana and a loaded 9mm handgun. Also arrested with him was Justin Trammell, who killed his father with a crossbow when he was 15.

    Johnson was released on $1,000 bond.

  • Not the first time suspect brought gun to school

    Not the first time suspect brought gun to school

    Shooting suspect allegedly had gun at school before:

    It seems that when Douglas Chanthabouly shot Samnang Kok in the halls of Foss High School, it wasn’t the first time that Chanthabouly had brought a gun to school.

    Police say that Chanthabouly’s brother told them that he had previously seen his brother with other guns at previous times. Chanthabouly’s brother also said that Douglas was not in a gang but liked to hang out with gangs and dressed like them. When police searched Chanthabouly’s home, they found three boxes of ammunition, a black carry case for a pistol with a holster and a .38-caliber revolver, notebooks, letters, and two blue bandannas.

    So he wasn’t a gang member but a gang-wannabe. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that he shot Samnang Kok to try to get some kind of respect from the gang.

  • Lack of respect

    Lack of respect

    Police: lack of respect fueled shooting:

    Tacoma Detectives are now saying that it was a perceived lack of respect that caused Douglas Chanthabouly to shoot and kill Samnang Kok at Foss High School.

    “There was a disagreement over property between the two and some money between the two,” he said. “The suspect felt the victim owed him some money, and by not paying there are some respect issues.”

    I’m curious to find out how much the alleged property or money was worth, to see how much Douglas Chanthabouly thought it was worth throwing two lives away.

    Police also said that another gun and ammunition were found in Chanthabouly’s home.

    Not surprisingly, a mental health “expert” is saying that Chanthabouly has a history of mental illness and may possibly have schizophrenia.

    After his arrest, Chanthabouly was interviewed by Penny Hobson of Pierce County Jail’s mental health staff.

    Hobson’s report filed Thursday in Pierce County Superior Court said that Chanthabouly was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Kirkland two years ago after attempting suicide.

    Chanthabouly was confused at times, somewhat depressed and having hallucinations, Hobson wrote in her evaluation.

    He “appears to have difficulty with concentration” and said he has trouble remembering things since he began suffering psychotic symptoms about two years ago, she wrote.

    Chanthabouly “reports ongoing psychotic symptoms that are reduced but not extinguished with medication,” Hobson said. “Based on his history, there may (be) competency concerns – this would obviously be impacted by his attorney’s ability to communicate with him.”

    Hobson noted that Chanthabouly’s judgment was within normal limits and “currently appears adequate.” He also had a good understanding of his current circumstances and “does not appear to be imminently at risk,” she said.

    There’s your defense.