Category: School Violence

  • Bosse’s Mutancy Confirmed

    Bosse’s Mutancy Confirmed

    Report: German who attacked ex-school praised Columbine gunman

    Well, I was wrong. Earlier today I said I would be very surprised if the fact that German gunman, Sebastian Bosse, was a Harris and Klebold worshiping mutant would make it to the mainstream press…

    BERLIN: A German teen who stormed his former school with guns and bombs had venerated as “God” one of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine shooting in the U.S, according to excerpts from his diary published Wednesday.

    “It is terrible how similar Eric (Harris) was to me. I am the further development” of Harris, Bosse said. “I have learned from his mistakes, the bombs.”

    On Friday, Bosse had written: “In three days, it will all be over! The people will lie dead on the school yard, the school will burn and my brains will be blown out!”

    On the eve of the attack, he wrote that he was sad that what he was planning would distress his family, complained that he had never had a proper girlfriend — and hoped that other “outsiders” would “be like me: a Goddamn hero.”

    The article also states that the guns were purchased legally. The article also draws the comparisons between the fact that both Bosse and Harris liked to play “violent” video games. I’m not going to make the argument about video games don’t cause people to kill because that’s just common sense.

    However, I will comment on something else that’s pretty much common sense. Bosse considered himself and Eric Harris heroes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just like his so-called hero, Bosse is just another cowardly scumbag who couldn’t face up to his own inadequacies. Luckily, he failed to live up to his hero’s “standards” by not killing anyone. He was a failure in life and a failure in death, just like his heroes.

    The flames of hell burn a little more yellow today with the addition of one more cowardly soul.

  • More on Sebastian Bosse and the Geschwister School Shooting

    More on Sebastian Bosse and the Geschwister School Shooting

    Armed to the Teeth and Crying for Help:

    This is a very comprehensive article from Spiegel Online about Sebastian Bosse and the shooting at Geschwister School in Emsdetten, Germany.

    Again, the similarities between Bosse and Kimveer Gill continue, even though I’m sure the two incidents are mostly unrelated. The article goes into detail about how Bosse was an outcast when he attended Geschwister. He also obsessed with his school years even after he left the school. And also, like Kimveer Gill, Bosse had a fascination with guns and taking pictures of himself posing with guns he owned.

    As a matter of fact, on the day of the shooting, Bosse was due in court on charges of possessing an illegal firearm. Of course, he played so-called violent video games and listened to metal, but I personally think that had nothing to do with his rampage, but I’ll get into that a little bit later. And of course, the German government is having the knee-jerk reaction to ban these so-called violent games.

    And like most of his cowardly predecessors, Sebastian Bosse took the coward’s way out by killing himself rather than facing charges.

    There are two mirrors of his farewell letter which are here and here, but both are in German and are frequently exceeding bandwidth. If they ever come back up I will try to make a copy and post it here.

    Here are some excerpts from his farewell letter…

    ‘This revenge will be carried out so brutally… that the blood will freeze in your veins. I hate these people and their kind. They must all die.’

    Source

    “If you realize you’ll never find happiness in your life and the reasons for this pile up day by day, the only option you have is to disappear from this life,” he wrote in a farewell message he posted on the Internet. “The only thing I learned intensively at school was that I’m a loser,” he wrote.

    Peer pressure seems to have plagued him throughout his adolescence. He said he realized he lived in a “world in which money rules everything, even in school it was only about that. You had to have the latest cell phone, the latest clothes and the right ‘friends.’ If you didn’t, you weren’t worth any attention. I loathe these people, no, I loathe people,” wrote Sebastian. “What’s it all for? Why should I work? To break myself and retire at 65 and kick the bucket five years later?”

    Source

    A reader named Toby sent me Bosse’s LiveJournal. It’s in German and the posts are over a year old. However, I did notice in his profile that he was a member of a known Columbine “fan” community. That’s right, kids, Sebastian Bosse was a mutant.

    In my opinion, that was the real reason behind the shooting. He was nothing more than a Klebold and Harris worshiping copycat scumbag. But I’d be very surprised if that makes it to the mainstream media. They’ll be too concerned with the ridiculous notions that video games and metal music had something to do with this.

  • Wrongful death suit filed against Bartley

    Wrongful death suit filed against Bartley

    Campbell County assistant principal’s widow suing accused teen killer:

    It’s a short article, so I’ll just post it…

    The wife of the assistant principal killed at Campbell County High School is suing his accused teenage killer.

    Jo Bruce filed a wrongful death suit against 15-year-old Kenneth Bartley. Bartley is charged with shooting Ken Bruce to death at the school last November. Bruce is also suing Bartley’s parents, Kenny Bartley and Rita Vannoy. In the suit, she claims they were negligent.

    Jo Bruce is asking a jury to determine the amount of damages.

    If a jury does award Mrs. Bruce anything, it won’t be enough.

  • German gunman identified

    German gunman identified

    “Well Prepared” Gunman Dies After Bloody Rampage In German School:

    The gunman from the Geschwister Scholl in Emsdetten, Germany, has been identified as 18-year-old Sebastian Bosse. As it turns out, the similarities to Kimveer Gill are almost uncanny…

    Police confirm they’ve found a blog that partially explains his actions, although the real motive may have died with the gunman.

    “He seems to have been frustrated by a lack of meaning in his life,” state prosecutor Wolfgang Schweer explains. “It appears that he was a loner who decided on his own to do this.”

    Those who knew the attacker, identified as Sebastian Bosse, claim he fit the typical stereotype of the school assassin we’ve all come to know too often since Columbine.

    He liked violent video games, always dressed in black and didn’t have many friends.

    “He was an absolute loner,” 17-year-old Katja Weber confirms. “Guns were his hobby.”

    This was no random act either, as Bosse had set off smoke bombs so police sharpshooters couldn’t get a bead on him.

    Bosse was found dead lying on the floor in a classroom with pipe bombs, two sawed-off shotguns, and a knife.

    I was unable to find the blog belonging to Bosse. If anyone knows where it is, please let me know.

  • School shooting in Germany

    School shooting in Germany

    Gunman dies after storming school:

    An 18-year-old masked former student of The Geschwister School in Emsdetten, Germany stormed the school, wounding 8. The gunman’s name and cause of death have not been released.

    Explosives were said to have been found on his body.

    More details as they become available.

  • Mother says Joplin, Mo. shooter was bullied

    Mother says Joplin, Mo. shooter was bullied

    Mother says Joplin school shooter was bullied:

    The mother of Thomas White, the Memorial Middle School shooter, is claiming that her son was bullied…

    Norma White said that her son would come home with injuries, crying and begging not to be sent back to the school. The Associated Press is not naming the boy because of his age.

    “He came home once limping; he had been kicked by an older kid in the halls,” she said. “He came home once with a huge welt on his head from someone slamming his locker door on his head when they passed him in the hall. His hand was injured once too.”

    “He did suffer from bullying. He would come home crying, begging us not to send him back to school.”

    While I can definitely empathize, it’s still no reason to bring a MAC-90 to school.

    Mrs. White is placing a lot of the blame on herself…

    Norma White did not directly blame the shooting on the bullying.

    But she said she now wishes she had done more to raise the problem with school officials.

    White spoke to her son’s teachers about the problem only a couple of times – during parent-teacher conferences – but never made a formal complaint to the administration. She said she advised her son to tell his teachers, but he often insisted nothing would be done about it.

    It also didn’t help that White had such easy access to the guns that White’s father wasn’t supposed to have anyway.

  • Playing it big

    Playing it big

    In school killings, journalists have duty to report, must fight danger to sensationalize:

    This is a great article by American University journalism student Max Ringsgwandl. And I’m not just saying that because he interviewed me for the article.

    Max’s article explores the roles and actions of mainstream media when it comes to school shootings. It should be a must-read for all “professional” journalists.

  • Bartley trial may go back to juvenile court

    Bartley trial may go back to juvenile court

    Campbell County High School shooting case goes back to juvenile court:

    The attorney for Kenneth Bartley, the teenage gunman from Campbell County High in Tennessee who killed assistant principal Ken Bruce and wounded principal Gary Seale and assistant principal Jim Pierce, wants to have the trial moved back to juvenile court…

    In March Bartley agreed to be tried in adult court, but now he wants a hearing on the matter. So the case will at least temporarily go back to juvenile court. Thursday the judge set April tenth as a tentative trial date if the case comes back to adult court.

    “If they want to have a hearing in juvenile court, we don’t want to deny them any right, but we’re confident that we’ll have the trial in April here in criminal court,” said District Attorney General Paul Phillips.

    Hopefully, it will stay in adult court where it belongs. Murder is not a juvenile crime.

  • Kittrell pleads guilty

    Student pleads to weapons violations:

    Will wonders never cease? Robin Kittrell, the Georgia teen who brought guns to school allegedly to prevent a Columbine-like attack, has actually pleaded guilty to six counts of possession of a weapon on school property, one count of carrying a concealed weapon and two counts of underage possession of a firearm. Not only that, but no deal was struck along with the plea.

    This is the kind of the kid who deserves help. Not the kid who shoots up his school or kills his family. It’s obvious to me that this kid had good intentions but incredibly bad judgment. It’s not too late for him.

  • Hainstock’s lawyer wants records thrown out

    Hainstock’s lawyer wants records thrown out

    Hainstock’s Lawyer Fights School Records Seizure:

    Eric Hainstock’s attorney, Debra O’Rourke, is trying to get school records subpoenaed by the prosecution excluded. She claims that the records are confidential, and the subpoena does not show how they are relevant to the murder of Weston Schools principal John Klang.

    District Attorney Pat Barrett is arguing that the records are relevant, stating that Hainstock had issues with numerous students over the past three years and that he was going to “see” them the day he killed Klang.

    O’Rourke also said that the school did not fulfill her request for the records, even though she had permission from the family.

    Judge Patrick Taggart will rule on the matter in two weeks.