Marshfield teen found guilty of helping to plan Columbine-style attack:
Today, Tobin Kerns was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and threatening to use deadly weapons. After the verdict, Tobin was remanded to a juvenile facility. His sentencing is scheduled for November 5th.
A personal note to Judge Louis Coffin. You have made a tragic mistake and imprisoned an innocent kid.
Tobin, I’m sorry.
Kerns hearing set for Thursday:
Could there finally be a resolution to the case of Tobin Kerns? Could his long nightmare finally be over, or has it just begun?
For those of you new to the party, Tobin Kerns was arrested back in 2004 for allegedly plotting against his high school, Marshfield High in Massachusetts. At the time of his arrest, I thought he was just another mutant. However, after receiving comments and e-mails from his family and friends and doing a little research on my own, I am convinced that Tobin is innocent.
There have been many delays in reaching a resolution for this case. We just may find out tomorrow what Tobin’s fate is.
Plymouth Juvenile Court Judge Louis Coffin has scheduled a hearing for Thursday, Sept. 27, at 2 p.m. in the case of former Marshfield High School student Toby Kerns, accused of plotting a Columbine-style attack at the school.
Kerns, 19, was tried as a youthful offender in juvenile court last October, but Coffin did not issue a verdict while waiting for a ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court on the validity of one of the charges against him.
The SJC ruled Aug. 9 that Kerns should be charged on the basis of a state law passed in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, after Coffin had indicated he might apply a different statute.
Kerns was indicted in 2004 on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, promotion of anarchy and the threatened use of deadly weapons at a school, which was the disputed charge. Coffin dismissed the anarchy charge during the trial.
While this is all going on, the man who I believe to be the true culprit, Joe Nee, son of the head of the Boston Police union, has barely even sniffed a courtroom…
Alleged co-conspirator Joseph Nee, 21, was indicted on the same charges, but his case has not yet gone to trial. He will be tried as an adult.
No word on when Nee’s court date is yet.
I encourage you to read the archives about this case.
Good luck Tobin.
Lawyers take school shooting case to Mo. Supreme Court:
The lawyers for Thomas White are appealing to the Missouri Supreme Court to have White tried as a juvenile.
Public defenders said Monday they have appealed to reverse a lower court’s July decision that Thomas White, 14, should be tried as an adult. He faces four felony counts related to the school shooting last October and a charge of attempted escape from juvenile custody.
White was 13 at the time of the shooting at Memorial Middle School.
Nobody was injured when White allegedly fired a single shot into the ceiling. Prosecutors allege that White repeatedly tried to shoot the school’s principal but that the gun jammed.
The public defenders are just delaying the inevitable. Now, all court proceedings will be postponed until the state supreme court issues a decision or reverts the case back to a lower court. My prediction is that the Missouri Supreme Court will more than likely refuse to hear the case.
If they do hear the case, I’m sure they’ll get a bunch of tear-stained letters from suburban housewives who think no teen is capable of murder. Just on that possibility alone, I wouldn’t hear the case if I was a Justice.
Killer’s Parents Describe Attempts Over the Years to Help Isolated Son:
I feel bad for the parents of Cho Seung-Hui. According to the article, it seems that they did everything they possibly could for their son. But that’s not what I’m here to discuss.
The part of the article I want to discuss is what his sister thinks may have been his motive…
Although the panel said neither it nor the police had uncovered a motive for Cho’s rampage, his sister provided a key piece of the puzzle. Cho began his college career as a business information technology major but, by the time he was a sophomore, decided to switch to English, which was one of his weakest subjects. Nevertheless, he was convinced that he could be a great writer. He had written a novel, which he described to teachers as “sort of like Tom Sawyer except that it’s really silly and pathetic,” the report said.
Later that year, after his sister found a rejection letter from a New York publishing house, she noticed that he became increasingly depressed and detached. His English grades ranged from B’s to D’s, and his rage grew as he felt no one understood him or his talent.
If you’ve been following this like I have, you’ve read Cho’s writings. I wouldn’t exactly call what he had “talent”. It just comes down to more selfishness and arrogance from a deranged lunatic. Over 30 people dead because this assclown couldn’t form a coherent sentence If you spotted him the noun and the verb.
If you’re one of those types that think the world doesn’t recognize your “talent”, try a new craft because it’s obvious that you suck.
Report: Virginia Tech could have saved lives:
So the long-awaited report from Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine’s eight-member panel about the Virginia Tech massacre was finally delivered from on high. What does it tell us? A bunch of nothing that we didn’t already know.
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Tech failed to properly care for a mentally troubled student gunman and waited too long to warn faculty and students after he killed his first two victims in a shooting spree that eventually claimed 31 more lives, including his own, a panel’s report concluded.
Let me interrupt just for a second? Why was it VT’s responsibility to “properly care” for Cho? As far as I can recall, VT did all they could to help him. It was up to Cho to help himself, but he obviously didn’t do that.
Had university officials not waited more than two hours to tell the campus about the initial shootings, lives could have been saved when Seung-Hui Cho later began his massacre inside a classroom building, according to the report, released Wednesday night.
I can’t argue with that, but I said that when it first happened.
“Warning the students, faculty and staff might have made a difference,” the panel wrote. “So the earlier and clearer the warning, the more chance an individual had of surviving.”
But the report concluded that while swifter warnings might have helped students and faculty, a lockdown of the 131 buildings on campus would not have been feasible.
And while the first message sent by the university could have gone out at least an hour earlier and been more specific, Cho likely still would have found more people to kill, the report found.
“There does not seem to be a plausible scenario of a university response to the double homicide that could have prevented the tragedy of considerable magnitude on April 16,” the report said. “Cho had started on a mission of fulfilling a fantasy of revenge.”
So, basically, what they’re saying is even if the campus was notified of the original murders, Cho would have still killed a lot of people, just maybe some different people. And it took them 4 months to come to this conclusion? I’m glad I’m not a Virginia taxpayer.
The whole boring report can be found here.
Cho Advised Not to Attend Big School:
In a conference call to wounded victims and their families of the Virginia Tech massacre, the panel investigating the attack said that Cho Seung Hui was advised not to go to a large school like Virginia Tech.
That was a key revelation in a private teleconference to brief injured students and their families on a report by a panel investigating the attacks, said Derek O’Dell, who was of the 23 injured in the April 16 attack that left 33 dead, including Cho.
A separate call was held later with families of the deceased, hours before the public release of the report Thursday.
“It was recommended that he not apply to school as big as Virginia Tech because he had selective mutism and also ongoing psychiatric needs that a big university probably wouldn’t address as well,” O’Dell said.
What I’d like to know is how did this barely functioning troglodyte (Cho) even get into Virginia Tech? After reading his “plays” and hearing about all his alleged mental difficulties, it makes one wonder how he wasn’t a complete drooling idiot.
Paper by Cho Exhibits Disturbing Parallels to Shootings, Sources Say:
Details are being released that Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui had written a creative writing class paper that portrayed a student plotting a school shooting. However, in Cho’s paper, the gunman does not go through with his massacre.
Cho wrote the paper for the “Intro to Short Fiction” class that he took in spring 2006, taught by Bob Hicok, an associate professor of English. The gunman described in Cho’s paper was in a high school. Cho, according to acquaintances and law enforcement sources, had expressed a fascination with the Columbine High School shootings while he was in middle school.
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be mutants.
This paper, while not made public, is probably just as disjointed and as difficult to read as Cho’s “plays”.
The reason this is making the news rounds now is that not all law enforcement agencies investigating the massacre had this paper in their possession.
Several of the agencies probing the shootings had not been made aware of the paper’s existence, and the investigative panel appointed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine did not receive a copy until recently. The university was supposed to turn over all of Cho’s writings to the panel, but this paper was left out.
Additionally, Virginia State Police officials, who also have a copy of the paper, said they could not give it to the panel under state law because it is part of the investigative file. Among the panel’s areas of inquiry is the sharing of information among state agencies.
So, basically, what we have here is a failure to communicate. A law enforcement protocol did not allow the paper to be given to other law enforcement agencies and the investigative panel. The paper itself is probably just more of the nonsensical ramblings of a bitter, selfish, and cowardly loser who couldn’t handle the deal that life gave him.
Virginia Tech probe finds no fault in massacre response:
An internal review by the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, otherwise known as Virginia Tech, has assigned no blame to anyone for the school’s response on the day of the massacre.
“We at Virginia Tech have been forever changed by the crimes of this severely disturbed young man,” Steger said during a news conference Wednesday. VideoWatch Steger announce the results »
“He was determined to commit murder, planned the crime meticulously and managed to conceal his homicidal urges from all of law enforcement authorities, and the mental health experts who tried to help him and presumably from his own family,” Steger said.
The report released Wednesday says there was good cooperation and sound agreements between Virginia Tech and local police. It also says that the campus communications system was “dramatically stressed,” but performed adequately during the crisis. The review recommends replacing the entire system.
The report also goes on to state that the school needs to be more active in identifying “at risk” students like Cho. The thing is you’re never going to be able to find these students 100% of the time. Not only that, but I think these kinds of recommendations sound great after a tragedy like this happens, but in reality it’s just closing the barn door after the horses have gotten out.
I’ve already mentioned that I think the idea is profit through fearmongering, but am I the only one who thinks this video is distasteful?
Your thoughts?
Latest news: Rocori settles shooting lawsuit:
The Rocori school district in Minnesota and the parents of Rocori gunman John Jason McLaughlin have settled the lawsuit against them filed by the parents of McLaughlin’s victims, Aaron Rollins and Seth Bartell.
The settlements, approved Monday night by the school board, call for the district’s insurance and the insurance of McLaughlin’s parents to pay $200,000 to the families of Aaron Rollins and Seth Bartell. The district, which is self-insured, will pay $133,333 of that amount, said Shamus O’Meara, the attorney representing the school district. None of the district’s portion of the settlement will come from district general funds, he said.
The rest of the money will be paid by the McLaughlin’s insurer, O’Meara said.
The civil lawsuits had been dismissed by a judge earlier this year, and the case had been appealed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. The continuing expense of ongoing litigation led to the decision to settle with the families, O’Meara said.
I doubt the Rollinses and the Bartells will find solace in the settlement.