Violent Crime – Not Just A Young Man’s Game Anymore
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I’m in touch with a lot of crime stories – every day – every month – every year.
It has always been that crime is most often perpetrated by men, young men to be specific, ages 15 to 25. But more and more that’s just not the case.
88 year old James von Brunn walked into the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and started shooting. We later learned why. Von Brunn is a self avowed white supremacist who loathed both Jews and Blacks. He might also have been a pedophile as reports have it his home computer was chock-a-block with child porn.
51 year old Scott Roeder, described as a religious zealot, recently shot and killed abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in Witchita. Roeder now tells authorities other men just like him are standing by to perpetrate similar murders to save the lives of the unborn. Nevermind that that convoluted train of thought makes no sense.
Gregory Rodriguez wrote about this disturbing “Angry Old Man” trend in a recent column in the LA Times.
Local newspapers are chock full of stories about old men beating, shooting or attacking someone. In April in Sarasota, Fla., an 86-year-old man was arrested on charges of domestic battery, resisting arrest and battery on an officer. As in that case, violence among senior citizens can be related to mental impairment, which results in either poor impulse control or disorganized thinking.
In fact, the number of elderly being arrested and incarcerated has risen over the last two decades. The profile of an aging violent offender is, in its way, not that different than that of younger populations. Arrests for violent offenses among the elderly have been associated with males, low socioeconomic status, alcohol or drug abuse. via http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez15-2009jun15,0,4802656.column
This is not to say the older generation will surpass the younger in senseless acts of explosive violence. There’s currently another violent trend that’s come to my attention. The sucker-punch has emerged as the latest fad in Texas. In April a young man died after sustaining such a punch, falling to the ground and striking his head. In Dallas a young medical student remains in a medically induced coma after being “punched for fun” as the police put it.
Witnesses say someone walked up to Jeffrey Fleming in a parking lot and hit him in the face. Fleming suffered a severe head injury after he fell to the ground, hitting his head. The 20-year-old UCLA tennis player was waiting for a taxi when he was hit. “All I know is they sucker-punched him and then they all ran,” his father, Steve Fleming, told the Dallas Morning News. “That kind of tells you who you’re dealing with.” Dallas police said Fleming’s attacker hopped into a white, unmarked party bus and may have been riding with at least ten other people. via http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31432436/ns/local_news-dallasfort_worth_tx
There are no simple answers to the questions that roil through my head. But they are questions that should be asked anyway.
No matter what the age of the perp – Where does all the rage come from? Why is there such a lack of respect for human life these days? Why do we treat each other the way we do?
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- Museum shooter’s son wishes dad died (thestar.com)
- Scott Roeder’s Network of Support (dailykos.com)
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Diane,
As one gets older they seem to reach their boiling point. They figure well why worry about tom I will make my point. Like the 2 men in your story .They had reasons they feel make it justified and what at this point do they have to loose.!
Renee
Diane,
It’s odd, the LA Times points out the similarities between the young violent and the old violent “Arrests for violent offenses among the elderly have been associated with males, low socioeconomic status, alcohol or drug abuse.” That makes sense to me if you had to list contributing factors.
Pop-Rocks are a fad; not sucker-punching. But, I don’t live in Texas. What is the point especially if you are in a group? They’re really showing cowardice for an audience. When they get caught, maybe they will see that?
I think when we leave home and we actually start to live our lives at some point our expectations collide with reality. At some time life itself disappoints us. We grow up watching TV and go to movies that aren’t very true to life. If you want to see the original ending of Fatal Attraction, you used to have to get the Director’s cut which wasn’t even available for years. I believe alternative endings and the original are on DVD’s as extras today. They took an extraordinary movie and created a Hollywood ending because of a focus group. That movie was created as a heavy-handed moral lesson fitting the times. Instead, justice prevails and the focus group is happy. The Director, Adrian Lyne, should have fought harder. Glenn Close fought for two weeks and gave up as she was convinced her character would commit suicide, not have her affair’s husband shoot her as some kind of hero. I don’t want to explain why it was important that Glenn’s character think she has committed suicide and framed Michael Douglas for her murder. In the end Anne Archer (The Wife) finds a video tape and saves her husband after the fact.
Anyhow, for me it has been the last couple years that I could see clearly that life was not what I thought it was. It seemed rather depressing and disappointing at first, but it is making me slowly see what life really is. My point is that if the gap is really large when you have that moment, maybe that’s an indicator of how violently you will react? My brush with what life really is has been more emotionally exhausting than anything. I don’t need consoling. I just need for some time to pass and attack what I know life is with gusto. So, I was mistaken? Or, I just don’t like it. It’s like getting what you need and not what you want. That’s my take. I know your last three questions can be summed up by what we’re taught as children…Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s hardly anonymous, but there are so many versions of this, just consider me an idiot for not giving credit. I don’t want to debate the source. Anyhow, children know this, why do adults forget it?
Sandy