Whodunit?: 10 unsolved college crimes

http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/02/14/the-10-most-notorious-unsolved-college-crimes/

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Legal Liability for the Virginia Tech massacre: Is profiling worth considering?

Jim Castagnera

Part 3 in a series 

When the police use profiling, it’s condemned as racist. When the customs service does it, it’s similarly assailed as discriminatory and unconstitutional. Still, it’s being done. Travel & Leisure magazine reported in January, “The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently began rolling out a new security program, Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT), at dozens of airports around the country.” Time magazine explained, “TSA employees will be trained to identify suspicious individuals who raise red flags by exhibiting unusual or anxious behavior, which can be as simple as changes in mannerisms, excessive sweating on a cool day, or changes in the pitch of a person's voice.”  Although such techniques invariably arouse the ACLU, should colleges and universities consider adopting them?

Jim Castagnera

Before you answer, consider the case of Dawson College. On September 13, 2006, Kimveer Gill parked his car in downtown Montreal, removed a cache of weapons from the trunk, forced a passerby to carry his extra ammunition, and walked the short distance to the college’s campus. At the main building’s back entrance he opened fire on students standing on the steps. His hostage ran off with the extra ammunition as Gill entered the building and walked to the cafeteria, where he shot two students. Ordering the others in the room to lie on the floor, he fired randomly until police arrived. Taking two more hostages, he attempted to escape until, shot in the arm, he took his own life. The toll: one student dead, 19 more wounded.

Police later found Kimveer Gill’s profile posted on a website called VampireFreaks.com. In the accompanying photo he wears a black leather trench coat and sports a Beretta Cx4 Storm semi-automatic carbine, one of four guns he took to Dawson College. Visit VampireFreaks.com today and you can purchase “cyber-gothic clothing” on a related link called clothing@F---TheMainstream, and read featured interviews with “Velvet Acid Christ,” “Zombie Girl,” and “Grendel.” Gill’s own VampireFreaks screen name was “fatality 666.” His last login was at 10:35 AM on the day of the shootings.

In the aftermath of the Dawson College shootings, the so-called “Goth” subculture came under sharp attack in the media. Hardly a high school or a college on the North American continent is without its clique of Goth enthusiasts in their leather, chains, piercings, tattoos and bizarre hairstyles. Operators of Goth shops and websites found themselves defending the lifestyle and adamantly disavowing violence. Some expressed shock at the 55 graphically violent pictures posted on Gill’s VampireFreaks web page.

Gill also turned out to be a big fan of the video game “Super Columbine Massacre RPG.”  Go to the game’s web site today and you’ll find this statement about the Virginia Tech massacre: “This week, the press is awash with stories about the shooting at Virginia Tech – the deadliest in recent history.  Will we remember this tragedy in a week?  In a month?  In the years to follow?  I certainly hope so. I hope we can learn from such sobering events as Virginia Tech, as Dawson College, Ehrfurt, Columbine and all the other horrific shootings modern society has endured.  So often the potential for another shooting is just around the corner should we forget the lessons history has to offer us.  This process of reevaluation, introspection, and a search for understanding is the value I believe my video game offers to those who play it.” The author, site owner Danny Ledonne is said to have vomited when he learned that Gill was a fan. Presumably Gill wasn’t participating for “reevaluation, introspection, and a search for understanding.”

VampireFreaks and Super Columbine Massacre persist on the web, despite their appeal to the Kimveer Gills out there. No one has definitively proven a clear cause-effect-relationship (albeit the Alabama Supreme Court last year reinstated a $600 million lawsuit against the makers of video game “Grand Theft Auto,” which the plaintiffs blame for the shooting deaths of two police officers and a dispatcher in 2003).

As Goth enthusiasts and video gamers alike point out, tens of thousands of adherents never commit a violent crime. In the absence of a clear causal connection between violence-glorifying cults and games on one hand and campus shooters on the other, academic freedom argues against profiling Goths and gamers as potential threats. And yet … as horrific incidents multiply down the decades, administrators might be forgiven for considering closer scrutiny of students who fall into these categories.

Even administrators who shy away from "profiling" might welcome increased sensitivity among their student bodies.  "Snitching" about suspect behavior may not be cool, but it could be crucial.  A live-and-let live attitude in residence halls is probably no longer appropriate in our post-VT world ... anymore than a laissez faire attitude at our airports would make any sense in this post-9/11 age of international terror. 

 

To read Part 1 in the series, click here.

To read Part 2 in the series, click here.