Every parent, whether their kids are in college or not, flinched when they heard of the horrendous crimes at Virginia Tech this week. We have to steel ourselves to look at our off-spring, thinking "What if...?" Which leads to wondering just what a person could do to save themselves when in such a life or death position. What do we teach our children? How can they protect themselves?
It wasn't just students. It was four teachers as well. The girls' God Mother is a Philosophy professor at a Cal State University. I can only imagine what was going through her mind, and her own family's mind as they learned of the tragedy.
I am finding it so hard to articulate my feelings, my anger, my thoughts about this. We have learned that the man responsible had been incarcerated in 2005 for a short time by the courts in a mental hold. We have learned that more than one teacher raised an alarm about him, one female student called the police for his "annoying" behavior.
The "system" has failed this man and now the "system" has failed these 32 people who have died at his hand. This "system" is people and laws, and no one is stepping up now, as no one stepped up then, to take responsibility for giving this killer enough freedom to do what he did.
So many questions to be answered - but will it make a difference? Will another incident occur because our system cannot handle a paranoid, delusional person?
People raised the alarm several times.
What next?
I wish I had some ideas.
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