Shooting at nurse's college in Tuscon, AZ??

LasVegasRN · Nov 1, 2002

OBNURSEHEATHER · Nov 1, 2002

Originally posted by nightngale1998
I, for one, will not hide behind rheotrical statements....

LMAO! You said you would, I said you can't. I don't see how that is hiding behind a rhetorical statement? Perhaps when you're done embracing those more intelligent than myself (talk about rhetoric!), you'd take the time to explain it to me?

Heather

OBNURSEHEATHER · Nov 1, 2002

Originally posted by nightngale1998
I, for one, will not hide behind rheotrical statements....

LMAO! You said you would, I said you can't. I don't see how that is hiding behind a rhetorical statement? Perhaps when you're done embracing those more intelligent than myself (talk about rhetoric!), you'd take the time to explain it to me?

Heather

OBNURSEHEATHER · Nov 1, 2002

Originally posted by JMP
I for one DO NOT feel responsible one bit for what the killer did.

This guy??????? I agree with Suzy he took the COWARD'S WAY OUT and I hope he is burning in hell right now for what he did. Cold hearted? Not in my books, the three dead nursing instructors where not perfect, but no one I REPEAT NO ONE deserves to DIE because someone is else having a shitty life. This KILLER did not learn from his mistakes, he just kept on making them.

Well said JMP!

Nobody was perfect in this case, but there were better, more appropriate, and less fatal ways to institute change.

Heather

OBNURSEHEATHER · Nov 1, 2002

Originally posted by JMP
I for one DO NOT feel responsible one bit for what the killer did.

This guy??????? I agree with Suzy he took the COWARD'S WAY OUT and I hope he is burning in hell right now for what he did. Cold hearted? Not in my books, the three dead nursing instructors where not perfect, but no one I REPEAT NO ONE deserves to DIE because someone is else having a shitty life. This KILLER did not learn from his mistakes, he just kept on making them.

Well said JMP!

Nobody was perfect in this case, but there were better, more appropriate, and less fatal ways to institute change.

Heather

nightingale, RN · Nov 1, 2002

Originally posted by LasVegasRN

Well Vegas my dear.. one picture is worth a thousand words.. it bears repeating.. please allow me the indulgence....

nightingale, RN · Nov 1, 2002

Originally posted by LasVegasRN

Well Vegas my dear.. one picture is worth a thousand words.. it bears repeating.. please allow me the indulgence....

Q. · Nov 1, 2002

Why is it that because the killer had a crappy time at life, it is suddenly MY problem? Was the killer around for me when I failed Chem 101? What about when I failed boards and had to go tell my manager who just hired me as GN for my dream job in L&D?

Let's keep in mind, the killer has a version of the story that you are all suddenly taking as gospel. So much so that you are honoring his request at calling him Bob, not matter how much that tramples on the graves of the dead. Tell me, without looking, what were the first names of the victims? Do you even remember? What were their speciality areas? What courses did they teach? Were they married? You don't even know, do you? How utterly pitiful.

Yanno, what about the possibility that the killer's version is nothing but a twisted, sick LIE? Ever think of that?

I fear the day as an educator I am attacked for failing a student. I fear the day I come here to post that event and instead get blamed for it, as Mark L&D was by a poster here.

Q. · Nov 1, 2002

Why is it that because the killer had a crappy time at life, it is suddenly MY problem? Was the killer around for me when I failed Chem 101? What about when I failed boards and had to go tell my manager who just hired me as GN for my dream job in L&D?

Let's keep in mind, the killer has a version of the story that you are all suddenly taking as gospel. So much so that you are honoring his request at calling him Bob, not matter how much that tramples on the graves of the dead. Tell me, without looking, what were the first names of the victims? Do you even remember? What were their speciality areas? What courses did they teach? Were they married? You don't even know, do you? How utterly pitiful.

Yanno, what about the possibility that the killer's version is nothing but a twisted, sick LIE? Ever think of that?

I fear the day as an educator I am attacked for failing a student. I fear the day I come here to post that event and instead get blamed for it, as Mark L&D was by a poster here.

Q. · Nov 1, 2002

I'd also like someone to address just what they feel the killer's responsibility was in all of this.

Q. · Nov 1, 2002

I'd also like someone to address just what they feel the killer's responsibility was in all of this.

Stargazer · Nov 1, 2002

Originally posted by Susy K
Stargazer honey, where are you? If you sympathize with him please explain to me WHY.

Susy, I empathize with Flores because I experienced some of the same things that he did in nursing school. In my second year of college, I went through the one and only clinical depression of my life, mostly due to the kind of instructor bullying that Flores described and that we have heard about from so many other folks on this board. This depression became a self-fulfilling prophecy as it caused me to begin distancing myself from my friends, roommate, boyfriend, and family. I shut down emotionally. I perceived the whole world in shades of gray.

By nature, I am a problem-solver. But I felt cornered and isolated and couldn't see any way out of my situation. All of you are asking why Flores didn't ask for help. You know what? I didn't either, for the simple reason that it didn't even occur to me. That level of problem-solving was simply beyond my capabilities at that point in time.

So did I get a gun and go shoot my nursing instructors? No, I didn't. But then again, I grew up with loving, supportive parents and had never been in the military, served in a war or had any sort of familiarity with guns. What scares me so much about this story is that, who knows? Had some or all of those factors been different, maybe that could've been me.

I absolutely do not and cannot justify what he did. I cannot follow his mental path the whole way from entering nursing school until the moment when he fired the first shot. But I CAN follow him partway down that path, and that scares the crap out of me. As Helen said earlier, no one chooses to be depressed or mentally ill. And once you're there, it's like pushing a piano uphill to find your way out.

I see some of the same thing happening here that happened when Andrea Yates drowned her children, and it reminds me of what author Gavin de Becker, a former FBI criminal profiler, says about people's reactions to serial murders and other violent criminals. It is much easier to call them monsters, to leap to distance yourselves from them, because it gives you a falsely comforting idea that no matter what, you could NEVER, ever, be like them, and no one you know could ever be like them, and therefore you are safe. And it's simply not true. We are all human. We all have pressures and problems. We all have violent impulses, no matter how well controlled. We are all susceptible to mental illness. And the wrong confluence of genetics, upbringing, socialization, and life experiences could conspire to make any one of us like any one of them.

The saddest and most dangerous part of this kind of mindset is that, if you can convince yourself that this is just an isolated genetic aberration, that there's nothing to be done, that there are no warning signs, that it comes out of nowhere--then we are going to miss learning whatever we can learn from it to try to ensure that it never happens again. That there are identifiable factors, that there are warning signs, that there are supremely f*cked-up systems in place that simply AREN'T WORKING, and need to be examined and changed.

If we can't learn anything at all from this mess to try to prevent this from ever happening again--that, to my mind would be the greatest tragedy of all.