BREAKING: Shooting at Conn. Elementary School

[SIXFOOTERsez]

He was a ticking time bomb. Providing him with guns was a tragedy waiting to happen. However, from what I've heard, she had no support group to help her manage him.

I don't think thats true at all.There are 100's of organizations out there to help with kids with Asbergers and the like. I have friends here that have kids so afflicted and I asked them what they do, there is help out there.
They were also not without resources, they had money.
She chose to just let him do his own thing and run the house.

[Midwest Spy]

^^ I understand there are support groups Six.

I'm talking about family in this situation. Or friends. Sisters, brothers, etc. sounded like she was alone and was coping the best she knew how.

I read that she had befriended a local bartender and would visit him late at night. Sounded like he knew a little bit about what she was going through, but clearly not all of it.

She obviously helped create the monster and then didn't know how to get rid of it.

[HairOfTheDog]

The question now is, how does the next parent in this situation take the appropriate actions to ensure their timebomb doesn't go off?

Assuming she was still in touch with reality herself, Mrs. Lanza should have had her son involuntarily committed, IMO.

Even if she couldn't imagine he'd kill anyone, much less a bunch of little kids and teachers, the dangers he potentially presented to himself and herself should have been enough for a mentally sound and responsible parent to take action.

The dad or the brother could have asked for welfare checks or pushed for investigation by LE or CPS as well.

It was not a secret that this kid was troubled, nor was it unknown that mom had a bunch of guns. Just one look around Adam Lanza's room would have demonstrated that he posed a threat to society and warranted psych institutionalization and eval.

I wonder if Adam Lanza had been a threat to his mother for years and years and she just kinda adjusted to it as her normal and became off in the head herself. It happens with couples sometimes when one is mentally ill.

Or, maybe as a member of an upscale New England community, she was more concerned about how it would have reflected upon her image to have a son committed.

Or, as crash opined, maybe she was just that blinded by love that she kept hoping he'd get better or that she could contain him by herself.

There's tons of support out there and there were options available to Mrs. Lanza to address the dangers her son presented.

Mrs. Lanza can't tell us why she instead chose to let a disturbed teen buy weapons and be in charge. Maybe the fact that she can't tell us will inspire a parent in the same situation to make a call for help, before it's too late?

[Cynical Ninja]

If your son is disturbed and has aspergers don't let him have direct access to a small arsenal.

[HairOfTheDog]

If your son is disturbed and has aspergers don't let him have direct access to a small arsenal.

Yeah, that's about the size of it.

And that arsenal should be inclusive of guns, knives, chemicals...

I think getting him professional help is also a matter of common sense.

[Midwest Spy]

Just found this article from last March.

Pretty interesting read.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national...-1.1291408

Just for the record, the thought of what happened in that school on December 14^th still hurts my heart tremendously.

I think of those brave teachers/administrators and brave little children staring down the face of evil and wish to God there was some way it could all be erased.

I hope out of this horrific act that there are parents/guardians who have taken appropriate steps to ensure the public's safety if they have someone like Lanza living with them.

[Duchess]

Just in the past few weeks there is at least one instance where a family tried to get help for their highly disturbed son but there was no space available for him, he returned home only to attempt to murder his father the following day, he then went on to be successful with his own suicide attempt. I now believe that getting help for your fucked up loved one is not as easy as people think it is.

[SIXFOOTERsez]

Yes I read that story. There is a big difference though between "Not being able to find help" and outright enabling someone you Know to be disturbed to cause harm and doing nothing.

[Duchess]

There is a big difference though between "Not being able to find help" and outright enabling someone you Know to be disturbed to cause harm and doing nothing.

I agree. I wasn't trying to justify anything. It was just a general comment in regards to getting help for someone.

[Duchess]

Adam's bedroom -

[Cynical Ninja]

Adam's bedroom -

Jesus!

Oh yeah that's looks perfectly normal to me! He may as well have “I am going on a killing spree” tattooed on his forehead.

It also looks a bit like FUs last wet dream.

[HairOfTheDog]

The 911 Calls Have Been Released



Just from reading the news stories, sounds like dispatchers and police officers handled the barrage of calls and the tenuous situation at the school swiftly and prudently.

Still hard to see the children crying as they're led out of the building, knowing that 20 of their little classmates and several of their teachers were dead inside.


Snip:
The calls were posted on the town's website under a court order after a lengthy effort by The Associated Press to have them released for review.

An unidentified teacher called from a classroom to the left of the front entrance to report what sounded like gunshots in the hall. She said she was in the room with all her students and hadn't yet locked the door.

"Keep everybody calm, keep everybody down, get everybody away from windows, OK," the dispatcher said.

Another woman, who was shot in the foot, reported that she was in a classroom with children and two other adults, but that there was no way to safely lock the door. The dispatcher told her to apply pressure to the wound.

One of the first calls came from a custodian, Rick Thorne, who said that a window at the front of the school was shattered and that he kept hearing shooting. While on the line with Thorne, the dispatcher told somebody off the call: "Get everyone you can going down there."

Thorne remained on the phone for several minutes.

"There's still shooting going on, please!" the custodian pleaded to a Newtown 911 dispatcher as six or seven shots could be heard in the background. "Still, it's still going on!"

The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot his way into the school the morning of Dec. 14 and killed 20 children and six educators with a semi-automatic rifle. He also killed his mother in their Newtown home before driving to the school.

Newtown police officers arrived at the school within four minutes of the first 911 call, but nearly six minutes passed before they entered the building as they sorted out concerns over a possible second shooter, according to a prosecutor's report issued last week.

It's not clear whether the delay made a difference because Lanza killed himself one minute after the first officer arrived on the scene, according to the report.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/04/new...-shooting/

[JsMom]

I'm disturbed that they released this information. Those poor families. Just terrible.

[HairOfTheDog]

I think it's good that the details were released to the public; helps heighten awareness of what to look for and why it's important to take action before someone like Adam Lanza has a chance to take his rage out on innocent victims.

There aren't enough free beds to assist those with mental illness and sometimes people get turned away, especially in rural areas. It's a serious problem and the results are sometimes tragic and fatal.

I don't think that was Mrs. Lanza's problem though.

If she had been monitoring her mentally ill son and filed a petition for him to be committed (or even called the cops and gone from there), all of those bright red flags in his bedroom would likely have classified him as a danger to society and a priority admittance. She also had money and could have sought private institutionalization. (Hell, if she'd simply gotten rid of all "her" guns in order to protect her mentally ill son from himself and others, 26 people might well still be alive.)

She instead chose to give him more guns, buy guns for him and illegally claim that they were for herself alone, and allow him total solitude in the home - communicating with him only by email for the three months prior to his killing spree. Those are the claims of a journalist whose book will be released on Monday. I believe at least some of them are true - they jibe with the details within the investigative report that was released to the public last week. Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...veals.html

Mr. Lanza also knew that his son was mentally ill and how his ex-wife was "handling" the situation. He bears some responsibility too for not staying engaged or intervening. Two years without communicating with his son; that doesn't excuse him - it makes him a contributing factor, IMO.

Anyway, it's hard to believe that it will be a year next week.

RIP to those who lost their lives...



Note: Mrs. Lanza is bottom right corner - I view her more as an accomplice than a victim, but this was the collage released to the media.

[Duchess]

I'm glad the tapes were released. I want everyone to hear the gunshots. I want everyone to hear the horror & panic in the voices of those that called 911. I want other parents of fucked up kids to hear all of this.

I don't give a rip how badly Adam's father feels. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what the parents of the dead kids feel. I have no feelings of sympathy towards him. Both of Adam's parents bear responsibility for what their kid did.

This won't be the last terrible story that makes the news. It will happen again and again we'll read that the parent of the shooter had no idea what was going on with their kid.

[Cheyne]

To answer your question, HotD, raising kids is different now than when my parents were raising me decades ago. Parents try to be friends or buddies with their kids. Not applying discipline when needed, not checking out their kids friends, computers and social media. It's all about giving them "self esteem" (which one has to earn for oneself) and "space" and "privacy".

Kids have so little responsibility now. Many middle class (and lower class) families don't have chores for their kids. Mom and Dad run around doing all the house/yard work while Junior and Jane play video games and on the computer. Kids are given everything their hearts desire within their parents budget without having to work for it. Give anyone nothing to do but please themselves and I guarantee that they will get in some kind of trouble.

Of course I am not addressing severe mental illness like Adam's. His mother and father bear a huge responsibility for this massacre. Mom paid for it with her life, Dad will continue to pay for the rest of his.

[Duchess]

Kids are given everything their hearts desire within their parents budget without having to work for it.

Maggot has an excellent stance on this. It's something to the effect of not wanting to burden his children. His kids will grow up to be productive individuals who know the value of a dollar.

That comment made me think of Maggot and how he's raising his kids. Carry on...

[Duchess]

Peter Lanza, Adam's father has given an in-depth interview to Andrew Solomon of The New Yorker. It's an interesting read, bottom line, he wishes his son had never been born.

Story

[ramseycat]

I can't even imagine how he lives with this.

[Duchess]

It's been exceedingly difficult. He's heard from people around the world offering their support and he's kept every single thing that has been sent to him, everything from candy & cards to teddy bears.