#Sutherland Springs church shooting

[andelkacroatia]

Today marks the 7th anniversary of the Sutherland Springs church shooting (November 5 2017)

On this day Devin Kelley shot and killed 26 people and wounded 22 others at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas Kelley was shot and wounded by a local resident, then killed himself following a car chase. It is the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history and the deadliest at an American place of worship, surpassing the Charleston church shooting of 2015.

The attack occurred during the church's Sunday service. Twenty-six people were killed and 22 others were injured. The dead comprised ten women, seven men, seven girls, one boy, and an unborn child. Twenty-three died inside the church, two outside, and one in a hospital. The oldest victim was 77 years old. One victim was the 14-year-old daughter of church pastor Frank Pomeroy, who had not been at the church on the day of the attack. Visiting pastor Bryan Holcombe died with eight family members, including an unborn grandchild.

One of the wounded victims, Kris Workman, was shot twice and paralyzed from the waist down.

[follow-up-news]

Crews on Monday tore down a Texas church where a gunman killed more than two dozen worshippers in 2017, using heavy machinery to raze the small building even after some families sought to preserve the scene of the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history. A judge cleared the way last month for the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs to tear down the sanctuary where the attack took place, which until now had been kept as a memorial. Church members voted in 2021 to tear it down, but some families in the community of less than 1,000 people filed a lawsuit hoping for a new vote on the building’s fate. Authorities put the number of dead in the Nov. 5, 2017, shooting at 26 people, including a pregnant woman and her unborn baby. After the shooting, the interior of the sanctuary was painted white and chairs with the names of those who were killed were placed there. A new church was completed for the congregation about a year and a half after the shooting.

[archivaltrigger]

“Because the US government was not acting on mass shootings, we directly attacked a trait Americans are most known for: their pride in their country. Change the Ref created the Shamecards, a postcard collection designed to demand gun law reform from Congress. Subverting the traditional greeting cards that depict each city’s landmarks, ours show what cities are becoming known for.”

shamecards.org

There is 54 cards total representing:

Annapolis — Maryland: Capital Gazette Shooting

Atlanta — Georgia: Day Trading Firm Shootings

Benton — Kentucky: Marshall County High School Shooting

Bethel — Alaska: Regional High School Shooting

Binghamton — New York: Binghamton Shooting

Blacksburg — Virginia: Virginia Tech Massacre

Camden – New Jersey: Walk of Death Massacre

Charleston — South Carolina: Charleston Church Shooting

Charlotte — North Carolina: 2019 University Shooting

Cheyenne — Wyoming: Senior Home Shooting

Chicago — Illinois: Medical Center Shooting

Clovis — New Mexico: Clovis Library Shooting

Columbine — Colorado: Columbine

Dayton — Ohio: Dayton Shooting

Edmond — Oklahoma: Post Office Shooting

El Paso — Texas: El Paso Shooting

Ennis — Montana: Madison County Shooting

Essex Junction — Vermont: Essex Elementary School Shooting

Geneva — Alabama: Geneva County Massacre.

Grand Forks — North Dakota: Grand Forks Shooting

Hesston — Kansas: Hesston Shooting

Honolulu — Hawaii: First Hawaiian Mass Shooting

Huntington — West Virginia: New Year's Eve Shooting

Indianapolis — Indiana: Hamilton Avenue Murders

Iowa City — Iowa: University Shooting

Jonesboro — Arkansas: Middle School Massacre

Kalamazoo — Michigan: Kalamazoo Shooting

Lafayette — Louisana: Lafayette Shooting

Las Vegas — Nevada: Las Vegas Strip Shooting

Madison — Maine: Madison Rampage

Meridian — Mississippi: Meridian Company Shooting

Moscow — Idaho: Moscow Rampage

Nashville — Tennessee: Nashville Waffle House shooting

Newtown — Connecticut: Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

Omaha — Nebraska: Westroads Mall shooting

Orlando — Florida: Pulse Nightclub Shooting

Parkland — Florida: Parkland School Shooting

Pelham — New Hampshire: Wedding Shooting

Pittsburgh — Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting

Prices Corner — Delaware: Delaware Shooting

Red Lake — Minnesota: Indian Reservation Shooting

Roseburg — Oregon: Umpqua Community Collage Shooting

Salt Lake City — Utah: Salt Lake City Mall Shooting

San Diego — California: San Ysidro Massacre

Santa Fe — Texas: Santa Fe School Shooting

Schofield — Wisconsin: Marathon County Shooting

Seattle — Washington: Capitol Hill Massacre

Sisseton — South Dakota: Sisseton Massacre

St. Louis — Missouri: Power Plant Shooting

Sutherland Springs — Texas: Sutherland Springs Church Shooting

Tucson — Arizona: Tocson Shooting

Wakefield — Massachusetts: Tech Company Massacre

Washington — D.C.: Navy Yard Shooting

Westerly — Rhode Island: Assisted-Living Complex Rampage

[siryouarebeingmocked]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/michael-bloombergs-outrageous-response-to-the-texas-church-shooting-is-an-insult-to-hero-jack-wilson

Well, this shooting would have played out much, much worse in that hypothetical scenario. The killer, of course, doesn’t care what law Bloomberg and his pals pass, so he would have stormed in with a gun regardless. But Wilson wouldn’t have been armed. 

Assuming the police are minutes away, and considering that the gunman shot two people in just a few seconds before being taken down, it’s likely that several dozen people would have been shot before police arrived.

This is the outcome Bloomberg basically just said he would prefer. 

And by saying that only police should have guns, Bloomberg is no longer hiding behind calls for so-called universal background checks or assault weapon bans — he’s openly calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. If we needed another reminder why we should never elect this wannabe tyrant as our president, well, he just handed us one.

Reminder that both this shooting and Sutherland Springs were stopped by the proverbial “good guy with a gun”. The Sutherland shooter even owned his gun illegally, because the government screwed up his discharge paperwork.

[haggishlyhagging]

The link in this chapter between misogyny and public acts of slaughter is astonishing. Two of the men, Adam Lanza and Kevin Neal, murdered close female relatives before embarking on massacres. Another, Devin Kelley, was hoping to kill his mother-in-law when he started firing in a church in Texas. Nikolas Cruz subjected his adoptive mother to a decade of abuse and stalked an ex-girlfriend before he is alleged to have carried out a school shooting. Two other stalkers - Jarrod Ramos and Seung-Hui Cho - used modern technology to harass women they knew from school and college. Elliot Rodger, a pathologically insecure and self-obsessed misogynist, has become a hero for some angry young men who don't have instant access to sex whenever they want it.

At least two of the killers in this chapter had sadomasochistic fantasies about women. Stephen Paddock was wealthy enough to pay vulnerable women to allow him to act them out, avoiding unwanted attention from the law. Robert Dear Jnr looked for ‘discreet’ partners - presumably he meant women who wouldn't report him for beating them up - on dating sites and was arrested on suspicion of rape, although the case was dropped. Dear's history is remarkable both for the number of women he abused and as an example of the dire consequences of failing to prosecute men for domestic and sexual violence.

The same failure comes up time and time again, suggesting that police and prosecutors lack the will or the competence to get convictions - and don't understand that violence in the home may be an early warning sign of violent intentions towards strangers. It is bad enough that this happens in countries like the UK where many women feel they can't rely on the police to protect them against angry and unstable family members, let alone sexual predators. But it is nothing short of catastrophic in the US, where convictions for rape and some - though by no means all - forms of domestic violence are among the few obstacles to the easy purchase of semi-automatic weapons. There are significant gaps in the legislation: federal law designed to prevent domestic abusers buying firearms applies only to men who beat up wives or women with whom they have a child. Some of the most common types of abuse - stalking, for example, or violence against a mother - aren't covered by federal law, leaving it to individual states to prevent access to guns by convicted stalkers.

Even when a man has a relevant conviction, the information isn't always recorded or shared in the proper manner, a point demonstrated by the failure of the USAF to inform the federal authorities about Devin Kelley's convictions for brutal assaults on his first wife and stepson. The fact remains that, had Kelley's history been shared with the federal database, he wouldn't have been allowed to purchase the weapons he used in the Sutherland Springs shooting - and twenty-six people, including the fourteen-year-old daughter of the church pastor, might still be alive today. Likewise, had Dear been convicted of rape or beating up his ex-wives, he wouldn't have been able to amass the arsenal of firearms he used in the Colorado Springs attack, potentially saving the lives of the three strangers he murdered.

-Joan Smith, Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 11.5 (after 1940)

1940 – World War II: The British armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay is sunk by the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. 1940 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first and only President of the United States to be elected to a third term. 1943 – World War II: Bombing of the Vatican. 1945 – The three-day anti-Jewish riots in Tripolitania commence. 1950 – Korean War: British and Australian forces from the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade successfully halted the advancing Chinese 117th Division during the Battle of Pakchon. 1955 – After being destroyed in World War II, the rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio. 1956 – Suez Crisis: British and French paratroopers land in Egypt after a week-long bombing campaign. 1968 – Richard Nixon is elected as 37th President of the United States. 1970 – The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years (24). 1983 – The Byford Dolphin diving bell accident kills five and leaves one severely injured. 1986 – USS Rentz, USS Reeves and USS Oldendorf visit Qingdao, China; the first US naval visit to China since 1949. 1990 – Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a New York City hotel. 1991 – Tropical Storm Thelma causes flash floods in the Philippine city of Ormoc, killing more than 4,900 people. 1995 – André Dallaire attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of Canada. He is thwarted when the Prime Minister's wife locks the door. 1996 – Pakistani President Farooq Leghari dismisses the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and dissolves the National Assembly. 1996 – Bill Clinton is reelected President of the United States. 2006 – Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, and his co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, are sentenced to death in the al-Dujail trial for their roles in the 1982 massacre of 148 Shia Muslims. 2007 – China's first lunar satellite, Chang'e 1, goes into orbit around the Moon. 2007 – The Android mobile operating system is unveiled by Google. 2009 – U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan murders 13 and wounds 32 at Fort Hood, Texas in the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. military installation. 2013 – India launches the Mars Orbiter Mission, its first interplanetary probe. 2015 – An iron ore tailings dam bursts in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, flooding a valley, causing mudslides in the nearby village of Bento Rodrigues and causing at least 17 deaths and two missing. 2015 – Rona Ambrose takes over after Stephen Harper as the Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. 2017 – Devin Patrick Kelley kills 26 and injures 22 in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. 2021 – The Astroworld Festival crowd crush results in 10 deaths and 25 people being hospitalized

[matthenslee]

5 Practices to Help Prevent Sex Abuse in Your Church

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard, “But that won’t happen here,” I could’ve retired yesterday. There are times I think we pastors have the not-so-spiritual gift of turning into ostriches when something bad happens in the news.

Church shooting? Not in my town! Treasurer caught stealing? Not here! Youth pastor having sex with a student? That would never happen here!

Since the Columbine massacre in 1999, there’ve been numerous deadly church shootings. Many of us are well aware of the deadliest church shooting since it’s the most recent—the 26 people killed at First Baptist Sutherland Springs in Texas in 2017.

But that won’t happen here.

In my list of friends on Facebook, I know of four pastors whose treasurers were padding their wallets from the church’s bank account. SBC Voices even shared news of a treasurer allegedly embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But that won’t happen here.

However, this post isn’t about church shootings or embezzlement; it’s about sex abuse. It should’ve been on our radar before the Houston Chronicle’s article, “Abuse of Faith,” published, but you know …

That won’t happen here.

Well, it can. This article offers five ways to help your church avoid being added to a growing list of churches that had their heads in the sand, thinking such a thing would never happen to them.

1. Background Checks

Do them. Did you know the Lifeway OneSource program provides discounted prices on background checks for churches and religious organizations looking to protect their ministries?

For as little as $10, you can screen your staff, volunteers, treasurers, teachers, bus drivers, camp counselors, and more.

For me, the non-negotiable here is that every pastor or staff member and every person who’ll have access to babies, children, preteens, and teens must have a background check. But I also encourage you to consider running a background check on anyone who’ll serve as a leader in the church.

2. Due Diligence

Let’s start with staff members. If you’re about to hire your next minister, by all means, check their references. Don’t be fooled by an advanced degree and vast experience. Take the time to walk that experience back.

Contact a potential hire’s previous churches and the schools they graduated from and you’ll learn if their resume is legit. But more importantly, you may save your church from a disaster you could’ve avoided.

3. Never Alone

As a pastor of a normative-sized church, I completely understand how hard it is to get one volunteer for a class, let alone two. However, it’s worth the work.

I don’t counsel alone, nor do I think it’s wise for someone to be left alone with children.

This lessens the chance of something inappropriate happening. It also provides an added set of eyes on active children who require supervision.

4. Six Months

I had a man show up at a previous church. Do you know what his first words were to me? “I’d like to teach the junior high boys.”

Every hair on my body stood at attention.

While I was thrilled to have someone eager to serve, I had enough sense to lead our church to adopt a six-month policy. Before volunteers can serve children and youth at our church, they must first be members of the church and active in worship and Sunday School for at least six months.

This gives you time to get to know the person, allows them time to plug into small groups, and provides you time to build trust and accountability.

5. Ministry Safe

Ministry Safe serves as a great resource for keeping the vulnerable safe in your church. From sexual abuse awareness training to helping you develop the best possible policies and procedures, I highly recommend your church consider Ministry Safe.

We can’t afford to be reactive anymore; we need to be proactive. Ministry Safe offers a wealth of resources to help you and your church keep children safe.

Be On Guard

I don’t want this article to sound like I want you to be suspicious of everyone. That’s certainly not what I’m suggesting. But I do want you to be on guard.

Pastors are shepherds; we’re entrusted by God to protect His sheep. Part of that means getting your head out of the sand if you don’t think something bad can happen at your church.

But it also means leading your church members to get their heads out of the sand, too. Again, the goal isn’t to make your congregation suspicious of everyone; it’s to help them realize the weight of being entrusted with a flock.

Final Thought

One of the things I learned from the Houston Chronicle articles was the imperative need for us to respond the right way. Church leader, if the unthinkable happens in your church, know this:

The reputation of the church is the least of your worries.

Your very first step is to call 911 (or your local jurisdiction’s avenue for reporting). Let the authorities do their job. Then, put on your shepherd hat and begin the process of caring for the abused, enacting church discipline on the abuser, and leading your church through adversity.

[freddiespencerchapman]

Now, drawing on an extensive review of photographs, videos and police investigative files from 11 mass killings between 2012 and 2023, The Washington Post is publishing the most comprehensive account to date of the repeating pattern of destruction wrought by the AR-15 — a weapon that was originally designed for military combat but has in recent years become one of the best-selling firearms on the U.S. market. This piece includes never-before-released pictures taken by law enforcement officials after shootings inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., in 2022, and the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017, that were obtained by The Post. It is also based on Post interviews with survivors and first responders from multiple shootings as well as transcripts of official testimony provided by law enforcement officials who were among the first to witness the carnage. Read a note here from the executive editor about how The Post decided what to publish and why. The review lays bare how the AR-15, a weapon that has soared in popularity over the past two decades as a beloved tool for hunting, target practice and self-defense, has also given assailants the power to instantly turn everyday American gathering places into zones of gruesome violence. This is an oral history told in three parts that follows the chronological order of a typical AR-15 mass shooting. It weaves together pictures, videos and the recollections of people who endured different tragedies but have similar stories to tell.

source

[lizzytee94]

On this day: November 5th

Aaron Carter passed away in his bathtub at the age of 34. This was in 2022

Sutherland Springs church shooting. 26 victims. 2017

Fort Hood shooting in 2009

Suzanne Rae Justis disappeared in 1973. It was assumed that Ted Bundy was responsible for this but it has not been proven.

#crime #events #death #killer

[wikiuntamed]

On this day in Wikipedia: Sunday, 5th November

Welcome, שלום, Bienvenida, Välkommen 🤗 What does @Wikipedia say about 5th November through the years 🏛️📜🗓️?

5th November 2022 🗓️ : Death - Aaron Carter Aaron Carter, American singer-songwriter, rapper, dancer and actor (b. 1987) "Aaron Charles Carter (December 7, 1987 – November 5, 2022) was an American singer and rapper. He came to fame as a teen pop singer in the late 1990s, establishing himself as a star among preteen and teenage audiences during the first years of the 21st century, with his four studio albums. Carter..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0? by Peter Dzubay

5th November 2017 🗓️ : Event - Sutherland Springs church shooting Devin Patrick Kelley kills 26 and injures 22 in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. "On November 5, 2017 at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a local man Devin Kelley shot and killed 26 people and wounded 22 others. Kelley was shot and wounded by another local resident, then killed himself after a car chase. It is the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history and..."

5th November 2013 🗓️ : Event - ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation launched the Mars Orbiter Mission, India's first interplanetary probe. "The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is the national space agency of India. It operates as the primary research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman of ISRO also acts as the executive of DoS...."

Image by Indian Space Research Organisation

5th November 1973 🗓️ : Birth - Johnny Damon Johnny Damon, American baseball player "Johnny David Damon (born November 5, 1973) is an American former professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1995 to 2012. During his MLB career, Damon played for the Kansas City Royals (1995–2000), Oakland Athletics (2001), Boston Red Sox (2002–2005), New York..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0? by Gage Skidmore

5th November 1923 🗓️ : Birth - Rudolf Augstein Rudolf Augstein, German soldier and journalist, co-founder of Der Spiegel (d. 2002) "Rudolf Karl Augstein (5 November 1923 – 7 November 2002) was a German journalist, editor, publicist, and politician. He was one of the most influential German journalists, founder and part-owner of Der Spiegel magazine. As a politician, he was a member of the Bundestag for the Free Democratic Party..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de? by Ulrich Wienke

5th November 1818 🗓️ : Birth - Benjamin Butler Benjamin Butler, American general, lawyer, and politician, 33rd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1893) "Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. Born in New Hampshire and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is best known as a political major general of the Union Army..."

Image by Mathew Benjamin Brady

5th November 🗓️ : Holiday - Bank Transfer Day (United States) "Bank Transfer Day was a consumer activism initiative calling for a voluntary switch from commercial banks to not-for-profit credit unions by November 5, 2011. As of October 15, 2011, a Facebook page devoted to the effort had drawn more than 54,900 "likes". Debit card fees of $5 a month from the Bank..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0? by Fayerman

[feministtraysh]

The man who shot nine people to death last weekend in Dayton, Ohio, seethed at female classmates and threatened them with violence.

The man who massacred 49 people in an Orlando nightclub in 2016 beat his wife while she was pregnant, she told authorities.

The man who killed 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017 had been convicted of domestic violence. His ex-wife said he once told her that he could bury her body where no one would ever find it.

The motivations of men who commit mass shootings are often muddled, complex or unknown. But one common thread that connects many of them — other than access to powerful firearms — is a history of hating women, assaulting wives, girlfriends and female family members, or sharing misogynistic views online, researchers say.

As the nation grapples with last weekend’s mass shootings and debates new red-flag laws and tighter background checks, some gun control advocates say the role of misogyny in these attacks should be considered in efforts to prevent them.

The fact that mass shootings are almost exclusively perpetrated by men is “missing from the national conversation,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Monday. “Why does it have to be, why is it men, dominantly, always?”

While a possible motive for the gunman who killed 22 people in El Paso has emerged — he posted a racist manifesto online saying the attack was in response to a “Hispanic invasion of Texas” — the authorities are still trying to determine what drove Connor Betts, 24, to murder nine people in Dayton, including his own sister.

Investigators are looking closely at his history of antagonism and threats toward women, and whether they may have played a role in the attacks.

Since the killings, people who knew Mr. Betts described a man who was offbeat and awkward; others recalled his dark rages and obsession with guns.

Those rages were frequently directed at female acquaintances. In high school, Mr. Betts made a list threatening violence or sexual violence against its targets, most of whom were girls, classmates have said. His threats were frightening enough that some girls altered their behavior: Try not to attract his attention, but don’t antagonize him, either.

“I remember we were all distant, like maybe we should just shy away from him,” said Shelby Emmert, 24, a former classmate. “My mom wanted me to just not associate. She said to stay away from Connor Betts.”

‘An Important Red Flag’

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, cited a statistic that belies the sense that mass shootings are usually random: In more than half of all mass shootings in the United States from 2009 to 2017, an intimate partner or family member of the perpetrator was among the victims.

(The study, by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, defined mass shootings as those in which four or more people died, not including the gunman.)

“Most mass shootings are rooted in domestic violence,” Ms. Watts said. “Most mass shooters have a history of domestic or family violence in their background. It’s an important red flag.”

Federal law prohibits people convicted of certain domestic violence crimes, and some abusers who are subject to protective orders, from buying or owning guns. But there are many loopholes, and women in relationships who are not married to, do not live with, or have children with their abusers receive no protection. Federal law also does not provide a mechanism for actually removing guns from abusers, and only some states have enacted such procedures.

Judges can consider an individual’s history of domestic abuse, for example, under red-flag laws adopted in at least 17 states. Such laws allow courts to issue a special type of protective order under which the police can take guns, temporarily, from people deemed dangerous.

The National Rifle Association, the nation’s largest gun lobby, has opposed efforts to expand the situations in which individuals accused of abuse can lose the right to own guns, saying that doing so would deny people due process and punish people for behavior that is not violent.

But Allison Anderman, senior counsel at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said measures that facilitate the removal of guns from abusers “are a critical step in saving the lives of abuse survivors.” And given the link between domestic abuse and mass shootings, she said, these laws may also help prevent massacres.

The plagues of domestic violence and mass shootings in the United States are closely intertwined. The University of Texas tower massacre in 1966, generally considered to be the beginning of the era of modern mass shootings in America, began with the gunman killing his mother and wife the night before.

Devin P. Kelley, who opened fire on parishioners at a Sunday service in Sutherland Springs, on Nov. 5, 2017, had been convicted of domestic violence by an Air Force general court-martial, for repeatedly beating his first wife and breaking the skull of his infant stepson. That conviction should have kept him from buying or owning guns, but the Air Force failed to enter the court-martial into a federal database.

In attacking the church, Mr. Kelley appeared to be targeting the family of his second wife.

In a case that highlights the so-called boyfriend loophole, in 2016, a man who had been convicted of stalking a girlfriend and had been arrested on a charge of battery against a household member shot Cheryl Mascareñas, whom he had briefly dated, and her three children, killing the children. Because the man had not been married to or had children with the woman he was convicted of stalking, his conviction did not prevent him from having or purchasing guns.

Inspiration From Incels

A professed hatred of women is frequent among suspects in the long history of mass shootings in America.

There was the massacre in 1991, when a man walked into Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., and fatally shot 22 people in what at the time was the worst mass shooting in modern United States history. The gunman had recently written a letter to his neighbors calling women in the area “vipers,” and eyewitnesses said he had passed over men in the cafeteria to shoot women at point blank range.

“Even some of the incidents that people don’t know about or aren’t really familiar with now or don’t come to mind, there definitely is a thread of this anger, and misogyny,” said James M. Silver, a professor of criminal justice at Worcester State University who has worked with the F.B.I. to study the motivations of mass gunmen.

In recent years, a number of these men have identified as so-called incels, short for involuntary celibates, an online subculture of men who express rage at women for denying them sex, and who frequently fantasize about violence and celebrate mass shooters in their online discussion groups.

Special reverence is reserved on these websites for Elliot O. Rodger, who killed six people in 2014 in Isla Vista, Calif., a day after posting a video titled “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution.” In it, he describes himself as being tortured by sexual deprivation and promises to punish women for rejecting him. Men on these sites often refer to him by his initials and joke about “going ER” — or a murderous rampage against “normies,” or non-incels.

Several mass killers have cited Mr. Rodger as an inspiration.

Alek Minassian, who drove a van onto a sidewalk in Toronto in 2018, killing 10 people, had posted a message on Facebook minutes before the attack praising Mr. Rodger. “The Incel rebellion has already begun!” he wrote. “All hail Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

And Scott P. Beierle, who last year shot two women to death in a yoga studio in Tallahassee, had also expressed sympathy with Mr. Rodger in online videos in which he railed against women and minorities and told stories of romantic rejection. Mr. Beierle had twice been charged with battery after women accused him of groping them.

Federal law enforcement officials said the F.B.I. was looking at whether the gunman in Dayton had connections with incel groups, and considered incels a threat.

Experts say the same patterns that lead to the radicalization of white supremacists and other terrorists can apply to misogynists who turn to mass violence: a lonely, troubled individual who finds a community of like-minded individuals online, and an outlet for their anger.

“They’re angry and they’re suicidal and they’ve had traumatic childhoods and these hard lives, and they get to a point and they find something or someone to blame,” said Jillian Peterson, a psychologist and a founder of the Violence Project, a research organization that studies mass shootings. “For some people, that is women, and we are seeing that kind of take off.”

David Futrelle, a journalist who for years has tracked incel websites and other misogynistic online subcultures on a blog called “We Hunted the Mammoth,” described incel websites as a kind of echo chamber of despair, where anyone who says anything remotely hopeful quickly gets ostracized.

“You get a bunch of these guys who are just very angry and bitter, and feel helpless and in some cases suicidal, and that’s just absolutely a combination that’s going to produce more shooters in the future,” Mr. Futrelle said.

Psychiatrists, however, say that the attention on mental health generated by mass shootings, and the common argument that mental illness is the explanation for these massacres, cannot explain the link between misogyny and mass shootings. Misogyny — or other types of hatred — is not necessarily a diagnosable mental illness.

Instead, said Amy Barnhorst, the vice chair of community psychiatry at the University of California, Davis, who has studied mass shootings, what ties together many of the perpetrators is “this entitlement, this envy of others, this feeling that they deserve something that the world is not giving them. And they are angry at others that they see are getting it.”

© 2023 The New York Times Company

Psychiatrists, however, say that the attention on mental health generated by mass shootings, and the common argument that mental illness is the explanation for these massacres, cannot explain the link between misogyny and mass shootings. Misogyny — or other types of hatred — is not necessarily a diagnosable mental illness. Instead, said Amy Barnhorst, the vice chair of community psychiatry at the University of California, Davis, who has studied mass shootings, what ties together many of the perpetrators is “this entitlement, this envy of others, this feeling that they deserve something that the world is not giving them. And they are angry at others that they see are getting it.”

[pablo-orihuela]

J.498 - Final Reflection

The Truth Behind The T.V. Show “COPS”

In Vox’s 2019 youtube video titled, The Truth Behind The T.V. Show COPS, audiences learn that the longest running primetime T.V. show is COPS. 

It was a show that followed and filmed real life cops while on the job. The idea came from the creator John Langley sharing a video of a drug bust. It also helped that the show came in the wake of a writer’s strike. With no actors or writers needed to create an episode of COPS, it was the perfect program for the then-new FOX network to carry and drive viewership. The show ran for 30 years.

The show began in Broward, Florida, but it would later spread across the country due to the show’s success. It also helped that the show gave positive PR for law enforcement. The video best shows this when COPS appears in Los Angeles after the Rodney King riots. 

But this pattern grew. Salina, California and Omaha, Nebraska had bad moments. They then invited COPS to come and film in their area. 

FOX would eventually cancel the show, but the COPS formula was mimicked through programs like LIVE P.D.

LIVE P.D. was advertised as a way to build trust through audiences by following law enforcement live. Though it presents itself as transparent, the filmed content still needs to be approved by law enforcement before it airs on T.V.

“False Flag” Hoaxers Claim Mass Shootings Are Staged

A 2018 video from Vice follows the rise of False Flag conspiracists who claim mass shootings never happened. 

The video follows conspiracy theorists “Side Thorn” and “Conspiracy Granny,” who claim that the 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas was a “false flag” — a hoax. The shooting was real and claimed the lives of 26 people inside the church, including the 14-year-old daughter of the church pastor Frank Pomeroy. 

“Side Thorn” and “Conspiracy Granny” have spent some time after the shooting confronting the surviving loved ones of the deceased to see if they can gain evidence of their status as a paid government actor. In one portion of the video, a clip from “Side Thorn’s” Youtube video shows him calling a survivor over the phone to tell them that the event was fake. 

“There is no evidence this person existed,” Side Thorn says in reference to the dead family member. 

People like “C.W. Wade” have come forward to debunk these conspiracy theorists. Wade thinks that these people pose a threat to the surviving victims of the dead loved ones, and thinks that it’s only a matter of time before one of the conspiracy theorists commits an act of violence. 

“C.W. Wade” is not the real name of the “False Flag Debunker'' shown in the video. It is an alias they use to protect themselves from the real harm he feels these conspiracy theorists can bring. 

The video ends with the conspiracy theorists confronting pastor Pomeroy. The police eventually arrest the conspiracy theorists, but not before they threaten to continue to harass teh pastor and the remaining surviving victims. 

Reflection

Visual Journalism will be affected by the internet and social media in the sense that it will need to compete for attention and clicks. 

While it’s true that the internet age has made information more easily accessible than ever before, that very real, objective truth is burying in a sea of conspiracy theories and bad reporting. What remains is a very broad field of information for people to sift through in an effort to find the answers we’re looking for. 

Journalism majors like me can easily find what we’re looking for while separating what’s with or without merit. But what about people who aren’t as media literate? These people may wind up consuming information like that of the conspiracy theorists in the Vice video. They’ll consume content like that and take it at face value, causing more conspiracy theorists to appear. 

It does’;t help that many news outlets hide their information behind a paywall. Though I certainly don’t mind paying the subscription price for my favorite news outlets, I also understand that I’m in the minority. Most people will simply look for outlets that don’t have a paywall. Those are not always trustworthy.

Social media was meant to level the playing field by having paid content still be posted on the site. However, filter bubbles can cause people to still be directed to false information, or at least information that only confirms their biases. 

I think as Journalists/Communications majors, we can help the world become more media literate by being more active with our audiences. Though some news may be behind a paywall, we can create threads on platforms like Twitter, so that we can at least report the basics to our audiences. 

To both paid and unpaid subscribers, we can also make a point to interact with them and answer questions they might have. I’ve noticed that many intentionally harmful outlets build a strong relationship with their audiences by constantly interacting with them. While I don't think we should be spending a large amount of our time on social media, I think there is a benefit to answering questions our audiences have by directly interacting with them as opposed to hiding that answer behind a paywall. 

I also think we can also do our part to make sure we call out and debunk misinformation, especially when it’s gaining traction. 

I think many older journalists misinterpret debunking as causing friction or drama, especially on social media, but I think we can educate people without causing strife. 

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Justice Department settles lawsuit over 2017 Texas church shooting for $144M

More than two dozen people were killed in 2017 when Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire during a Sunday Service at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs.

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A tentative settlement has been announced in a lawsuit by the victims of the 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The proposed settlement, of $144.5 million, would come from the federal government and go to the survivors of the attack by Devin Kelley, a...