Copycat Quotes

"To look for clues rationally in such an irrational document is really a fool's game." - Loren Coleman, as quoted by the Associated Press on April 19, 2007, regarding rationalizations by NBC Nightly News for broadcasting the VA Tech shooter's "press packet."

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, the media more openly discussed the significance of the copycat effect. This is a first, especially for the American media.

A couple days ago, a longtime suicide prevention associate of mine emailed me a short but concise message: "I've thought of you so many times since this last major VA Tech event. Even though the media reaction was as expected it seems this time may have been a turning point. Many more people stood up to say the kinds of things you have been saying for years."

While the wall-to-wall interest is beginning to wane, it might be a good time to collect some of the quotations published in the print and online media about the copycat effect.

During April and into early May, more members of the media found their way to my emailbox and telephone this time around, interviewing me about my 2004 book and my recent comments and predictions, than ever before. Has a heightened awareness occurred regarding insights useful in examining the copycat effect? Perhaps.

Let me review these "copycat quotes," as they have been appearing after the April 16 VA Tech shootings.

The "massacre," as the press was calling it already, had just occurred on April 16, when Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing mentioned The Copycat Effect immediately, and revisited this theme over the next few days, here, here, and here.

During these posts, Xeni Jardin directed a question, with links, to me: "I'm sure 'Copycat Effect' author Loren Coleman would have something to say about the following exchange, which occurred just now on CNN's 'Situation Room' with Wolf Blitzer...." Then she published a snippet of the CNN exchange about the "copycat factor." Xeni followed in the days afterward with more: "'Copycat Effect' author Loren Coleman weighs in with an entry on his blog about speculation that the VA Tech shooting is likely to be followed by 'copycat' events...."

Other mainstream media, as they often do, soon followed Boing Boing's lead, and as it would turn out, the Canadian media's interest from last fall.

On April 18, 2007, a Bloomberg News article, "U.S. College Officials Scramble to Improve Campus Security" was published.

It contained these passages on the national media's attempt to discuss the copycat effect this time around:

Copycat Threat

The attack at Virginia Tech, carried out by [Seung Hui] Cho, 23, born in South Korea and a permanent U.S. resident since 1992, was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. It came eight years after two students killed 13 people and themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

After Columbine, there were 450 copycat threats, plots or shootings, according to Loren Coleman, a suicide prevention and school violence consultant. Schools in seven states were locked down or evacuated yesterday, the Associated Press reported.

"Homicide is just a suicide turned outward,'' Coleman, author of the 2004 book, "The Copycat Effect,'' said in an interview. "If we focus on analysis around the act, rather than to how people feel and react to this, then we have problems.''

Tom Randall and Brian K. Sullivan, Bloomberg News, April 18, 2007

The University of Pennsylvania's student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian printed an April 18, 2007, article, "DPS on high alert for copycat of shootings", which noted:

Caution is necessary, according to Loren Coleman, author of The Copycat Effect. Coleman said that "vulnerable people who are thinking about suicide and murder-suicide" may view the Virginia Tech massacre as "something to model, something to emulate. … We can't let our guard down."

Emily Babay, Daily Pennsylvanian, April 18, 2007

On Thursday, April 19, 2007, Xeni Jardin's "Xeni Tech" program, introduced me as her first guest on the National Public Radio News' "Day to Day." Writing on Boing Boing about her NPR examination, she said in her Boing Boing posting, "VA Tech Killer's Digital Vanity Package":

For today's report, I spoke with Loren Coleman, author of "The Copycat Effect." Coleman believes that by replaying Cho's vanity videos over and over again, the media is perpetuating the cycle that inspired him to commit multiple murders in the first place. In that multimedia material, Cho describes the two teens responsible for Columbine as "martyrs" -- Coleman says this and other details prove Cho was aping and trying to one-up previous shootings, including the one in Montreal last year.

Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing, April 19, 2007

The Associated Press on April 19, 2007, carried widely an article looking at the possible (and dubious) link between one of Seung Hui Cho's photographs and a Korean film, Oldboy. In "VT killer's hammer pose resembles movie", the AP noted:

Loren Coleman, author of "The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines," says that he's gradually coming to see Cho as a "copycat of many things," especially Columbine. In one missive, Cho referred to the Harris and Klebold as "martyrs."

"This in-depth analysis of his manifesto and this document, we may get some hints there, but this was a person that was terribly imbalanced," Coleman said. "To look for clues rationally in such an irrational document is really a fool's game."

Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer, April 19, 2007

After that Associated Press story, the next day the wire service published another article ("Experts Alert for Va. Tech Copycats") in almost 1000 locations around the world. In that piece, once again interest was shown in the copycat effect:

Loren Coleman, a psychiatric social worker in Maine who wrote "The Copycat Effect," said "celebrity school shootings actually increase the suicide rate and increase the violence rate for a short period of time."

...

"These people are psychologically competing with each other to increase the body count," Coleman said.

Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer, April 20, 2007.

A columnist for The Rocky Mountain News, David Kopel, via his blog and column, mentioned "The Copycat Effect" on April 17th and 21st:

The Copycat Effect: Loren Coleman's weblog "The Copycat Effect" (which is also the name of his book) examines the copycat effect of the Virginia Tech murders. He points out that a school attack last week in Oregon (no fatalities) appeared to have been inspired by a recent National Geographic tv special on Columbine. He offers a grim warning of the high risk of more copycat attacks in the next several weeks. Pointing to school attacks in Canada and Germany in recent years, he notes that the problem is not confined to the United States.

David Kopel, April 17, 2007

There is strong evidence that mass killers, including the Columbine perpetrators, attentively study the media attention given to previous murderers. Loren Coleman, author of the book The Copycat Effect, points out on his weblog that one week after Columbine, there was a copycat school attack in Taber, Alberta, Canada. A month later there was a copycat attack in Conyers, Ga. Subsequent Columbine copycats included school killers in Red Lake, Minn.; Santee, Calif.; Dawson College in Montreal, Canada; and this week at Virginia Tech.

David Kopel, "Airing, publishing killer's photos, rants reckless," The Rocky Mountain News, April 21, 2007

The Toronto Star in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, published an article reflecting on the related themes:

"We're helping this man with his propaganda," concurs Loren Coleman, author of The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines. Ever since the shooting at Montreal's Dawson College last fall, Coleman has been warning media of their responsibility. He points out how the number of school shootings has escalated dramatically ever since Columbine, and how, in each instance, there are echoes of the previous killings. [Seung Hui ] Cho, for example, cited Columbine's "martyrs" Harris and Klebold. His poses echoed Dawson shooter's Kimveer Gill's self-portraits.

"Cho really wasn't interested in having people understand him," says Coleman. "He was interested in having a platform."

Antonia Zerbisias, "Need-to-know vs. sensationalism," Toronto Star, April 20, 2007

The New York Post reporter who interviewed me used almost everything I shared for her piece on the 22nd. It turned out to be an extremely factual rendering. She ended it with:

"Cho was an empty vessel and he poured himself full from images off the Internet - the culture of Columbine, Dawson College and terrorism," said Loren Coleman, an expert on school shootings and author of "The Copycat Effect."

"There's a psychological process that these shooters appear to be competing for - the highest body count."

Jill Culora, "Sick Homages From A Student of Psychos," New York Post, April 22, 2007

The Gothamist looked back to look ahead:

The whole idea of copycats brings us to another [WNYC’s] On the Media interview, this one from October in the aftermath of the Amish school shooting. Then, they interviewed Loren Coleman, a suicide prevention consultant and school violence researcher and author of the book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines. He was of the opinion that the media’s over coverage of tragedies, starting with the Columbine shootings have set up a model for the later perpetrators of these violent acts. In the interview Coleman noted, “I think that one of the reasons that I wrote my book, The Copycat Effect, was really to try to begin the debate within the media about how much is too much. The graphic details that we see on the cable wall-to-wall coverage and in some other media really sets up a situation where these vulnerable people have a model in front of them to then plan their outrages in a similar fashion. Since August 24th, these individuals have all been males, they've all been Caucasian, they all have been outsiders, either expelled students or older males, and they all have victimized females - young girls, usually – or authority figures, in the case of principals or teachers or guards.”

If you look at some of the Columbine shooter’s videos, which were only released a few years after the fact and only after much legal wrangling, there seems to be a lot of parallels with Cho’s video. Was the oversaturated coverage of these paste events inspiration? It is probable and it is no doubt that Cho’s desire to be heard from the grave was sent to NBC instead of being squirreled away in the case files as has happened in the past.

Toby von Meistersinger, "Television Watching: How Much Is Too Much?" The Gothamist, April 24, 2007

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

...initial lyrics from "Forever Young" by Bob Dylan

In the wake of the VA Tech shootings, those killed will be forever young, as we have seen before after other school shootings.

Sadly, the current copycat cycle does not appear to be finished, yet.

Keene State

It is almost three weeks and many people are seemingly moving on from the VA Tech tragedy.

Of course, it is not entirely over, in terms of the events to be expected after VA Tech.

A Keene State 21-year-old sophomore, Michael Dyke, shot and wounded his roommate, then died by suicide early on Friday, May 4, 2007 (the anniversary of the Kent State's four dead in Ohio in 1970).

Today's incident occurred at Dyke's apartment near the Keene State campus in New Hampshire. Dyke graduated in 2004 from the public high school, Rivendell Academy, about 80 miles north in Orford, New Hampshire, where flags flew at half-staff Friday.

The shooting occurred on the last day of finals at the college, and two days before graduation. Many students had already left campus. Keene State, part of the University System of New Hampshire, has 5,200 students and specializes in liberal arts, reported CNN.

Meanwhile, school shooting plots, bomb threats, and cases of guns being brought into schools were being addressed from California to New Brunswick this week.

APA: Stop Airing Graphic Cho Materials

Of course, my question to the American Psychiatric Association is...what took you so long?


APA Urges Media To Stop Airing Graphic Cho Materials
  
Today [28 Apr 2007] the American Psychiatric Association (APA) sent an open letter to the news media urging them to stop airing the disturbing writings, photographs and video that NBC News reportedly received from Cho Seung-Hui, who committed suicide after murdering 32 students and faculty and wounding at least 29 others at Virginia Tech.

The letter was signed by APA President Pedro Ruiz, M.D., and contained two enclosures: a World Health Organization report, entitled "Preventing Suicide: A Resource for Media Professionals," and a study from American Behavioral Scientist, entitled "Media Contagion and Suicide among the Young" "Media Contagion and Suicide among the Young" and authored by Madelyn Gould, Ph.D., of Columbia University and colleagues. The full text of the letter is as follows:

On behalf of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and our 38,000 physician members specializing in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and research of mental illnesses, I urge all news media outlets to stop airing the disturbing writings, photographs and video that NBC News reportedly received from Cho Seung-Hui, who committed suicide after murdering 32 students and faculty and wounding at least 29 others at Virginia Tech.

The publicity of the Cho materials not only seems insensitive to the grieving and traumatized families, friends and peers of those murdered and injured, but also seriously jeopardizes the public's safety by potentially inciting "copycat" suicides, homicides and other incidents. Because the scientific evidence in this area is clear, the World Health Organization, in its 2000 report "Preventing Suicide: A Resource for Media Professionals," said: "Glorifying suicide victims as martyrs and objects of public adulation may suggest to susceptible persons that their society honours suicidal behaviour." Indeed, it is evident to many that the Columbine tragedy was a powerful force in Mr. Cho's writings. The media have an important role to play in limiting the power of such tragedies by choosing not to sensationalize them.

Some media have declined to publicize Mr. Cho's materials - a decision we applaud. However, some outlets, including NBC News, continue to use the materials. NBC News issued a statement yesterday in which it announced that, after thorough review, it has "limited our usage of the video across NBC News, including MSNBC, to no more than 10 percent of our airtime." While we trust this action was undertaken with the best of intentions, allowing the Cho materials to continue to constitute 10 percent of airtime demonstrates a lack of understanding of the potential impact the video and audio could have.

The massacre at Virginia Tech is newsworthy and it is the media's job to report on it, but we believe the media have a responsibility to balance the public's need to know against the potential danger of provoking copycat behavior. The APA urges, for the public good, that all media cease airing the graphic Cho materials.

Their press release url: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=69111

Student Hostage Nearly Immolated

Did you know there was a violent school incident on April 24, 2007, only a week and a day after what happened in Blacksburg, Virginia?

An intriguing reaction to the talk of copycats and predictions of further copycats a week after VA Tech appears to be developing within the editorial rooms of the US media: Silence. Don't talk about it. Maybe people won't know there are copycats?

Decades of research and common sense are confirming that the copycat effect exists. You can read several examples on this blog and in my book, of course. Nevertheless, in the wake of VA Tech, the American media appears to be pulling back from exploring the fact that examples of the multiple varieties of murder-suicides and school violence are occurring.

Or are they consciously not reporting on active school violence and will be less graphic during the next school shooting?

Is this the same media that said the people have the "right to know" when justifying the posting of the Cho images, words, and video? Excuse me for being a little confused.

Or are we seeing some subtle differences when events happening are not direct imitations of VA Tech (as if those were the only copycats), or if the examples occur in Canada versus the USA?

Would the media rather report nonstop on the false bomb threats and discovered plots as "the copycats," but overlook the ones that really do occur? Is there an ignoring of the three Houston area murder-suicides and the standoff and suicide in Maine last week, which were certainly part of the copycat contagion seen?

The situation that has been revealed today exclusively in two Canadian news outlets was definitely school violence, and this fact was not lost on the Canadian media. It even has echoes of the Bailey, Colorado, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, hostage incidents within it.

According to The Globe and Mail and CBC News, the disturbing hostage situation took place at the Bois-Joly elementary school. The school is in "the trailer-park community of Place Ferland near Sept-Îles," as the The Globe and Mail referred to the setting, and continued, in part:

As some pupils played in the schoolyard yesterday during the mid-morning recess, a car came crashing through the school fence. A man got out of the vehicle, and students say he appeared to be in a fit of rage, and slapped and pushed six of the children.

A teacher who intervened to protect the children was brutally hit by the assailant, who then forced her into the school.

Inside, the man grabbed a nine-year-old boy and dragged him out, across the schoolyard and to a nearby gas station. There he took a nozzle from one of the pumps and sprayed the boy with gasoline.

"We didn't know if he was armed," principal Louise Bourgeois told TVA news. "He had circulated in the school and left by another door. Was he going to come back? He had just taken one of our students."

A teacher followed the man to the gas station and, along with a man who was pumping gas, pulled the child away from his assailant to safety. Shortly afterward, police arrived and took the 38-year old man into custody.

Ms. Bourgeois said she was shocked by the violence, and the entire staff and student body were traumatized.

According to police, the man was not related to the boy, yet appeared determined to immolate his young hostage for no reason....

The incident, which took place only a week after the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in the United States, has awakened fears that troubled individuals are targeting schools....

Children who spoke to the media said the man firmly gripped his hostage and made his way toward the gas station.

"I stayed in the class when he took the hostage by the neck and yelled to everyone to get out of his way," one of the pupils said.>/p>

None of the children was injured. The Globe and Mail, 25 April 2007

Meanwhile, the only other mention was by the CBC News when noted, in part:

Police said a man crashed his car into the schoolyard fence during morning recess, got out, walked toward the school, hit six children and then dragged a teacher who tried to intervene into the school.

The man then grabbed a seventh child, fled the school on foot with the nine-year-old in tow and headed to a nearby gas station where he doused the boy with gasoline....

The man they have arrested has two children at the same school but is not related to the nine-year-old victim, police said. He faces several assault charges, and a count of forcible confinement, provincial police said. CBC News, 25 April 2007

Cho's Duck: Target Practice?

Cho Seung-Hui, as The Smoking Gun discovered, used the email address Blazers5505@hotmail.com and bought his ammunition clips on eBay. We know what gun store he used to purchase his guns.

The Smoking Gun also posted the eBay pages showing that Cho apparently won the auctions on 37 rubber duckies (36 small ones, one large) from the online auction site.

Some talk show hosts are using this piece of information in warped ways to ridicule Cho, joking about Cho playing with the bright yellow plastic ducks in his bathtub. I have a more sinister possibility for their use. What if the rubber ducks were used for target practice?

As every little tidbit on Cho is rolled out, reporters are making it sound like Cho was engaged in product placements.

We are hearing about every mundane detail on Cho's purchases, of late. Cho used the USPS, not UPS or FedEx to mail his package.

He bought the chains he used to keep the doors closed from Home Depot.

Cho played the song "Shine" all the time.

I'm almost expecting to see a spoof ad on YouTube any day now showing a racially-profiled actor holding up a 9mm Glock and endorsing the gunshops where Cho bought his guns and ammunition.

Would this be a better outcome in the midst of this current deconstruction of Cho's life in the wake of Cho's glorification footage on NBC and MSNBC being shown, instead of a new fatal copycat incident with more deaths in the next few days? Of course it would. Only time will tell, but if history is a guide, I recommend awareness to what is happening all around you.

One thing is certain, this is not a time to laugh-off any potential suicidal-homicial warning signs.

Copycat of Copycats

It is easy to be unhappy with the headlines in the New York Post. Today is no different - "Sick Homages From A Student of Psychos" - but reporter Jill Culora did an excellent job getting all her facts correct after she interviewed me for this story:

Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui plagiarized other school-shooting psychos in a twisted show of one-upmanship. He used the Internet to research and learn from infamous school killers, including Columbine HS's Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Duane Morrison of Bailey, Colo., and Kimveer Gill of Montreal, experts said.

In photos he sent to NBC News, Cho is seen wearing a black baseball cap backward, just as Harris wore in published images.

In others, Cho strikes poses disturbingly similar to those of Gill - who posted photos of himself online before his rampage last September at Montreal's Dawson College that killed one student and injured a dozen.

Gill's profile on the social-networking site VampireFreaks.com shows him pointing a pistol at the camera while holding a hunting knife in his right hand, just as Cho did his photos.

During his death spree, Cho chained doors closed - as Morrison did last year, when he held female students hostage at Platte Canyon HS and killed one. Cho mentioned "martyrs" Harris and Klebold in his videotaped manifesto.

"Cho was an empty vessel and he poured himself full from images off the [cable news and] Internet - the culture of Columbine, Dawson College and terrorism," said Loren Coleman, an expert on school shootings and author of The Copycat Effect.

"There's a psychological process that these shooters appear to be competing for the highest body count."Jill Culora, New York Post, Sunday, April 22, 2007.

Copycats In Dangerous Times

For those that have my book, The Copycat Effect, you will note that it is dedicated to my maternal grandmother, Nellie Gray, who was killed in a murder-suicide on Valentine's Day 1940. Yesterday ended with another murder-suicide, on the anniversary of Columbine. It was another murder-suicide in a week that began with the VA Tech murders-suicide. What did the cable news and other media outlets do with it? They let us know for hours and hours, with helicopters overhead showing a building, a SWAT vehicle in mud, and "danger" that there was a police standoff at NASA in Clear Lake near Houston, Texas. Another suicidal person in Clear Lake had taken the world media stage, I said to myself. (In my book, I write of Clear Lake, Texas, as a primary suicide cluster of the 1980s.)

Commentators filled air-time with speculations yesterday about this Clear Lake event being horrible to watch, as it unfolded in the wake of VA Tech. But they kept it on television until it ended with the discovery of the suicide of the man and that he had killed a male hostage three hours earlier. And that he had held a woman alive in the meantime.

Apparently the media remain unconscious to what they are doing. Let's see, the VA Tech tragedy and the NASA standout/murder-suicide are news events being squeezed in between the Anne Nicole Smith and Imus "news" and the Baldwin cellphone rants to his daughter. News as entertainment. But death news tends to be copycatted in many forms. College campuses are not the only sites we have to worry about.

Copycat situations have occurred on school and universities - in almost 30 states since Monday. But as I wrote and consulted about long ago, the school shootings set off other "rampage killers" too. Look and be aware beyond the schools.

I would not be surprised to see a "going postal" situation next week or another school shooting Monday or Tuesday, and then more throughout the whole next month. Right now the repeating action with be diffused and diverse - but the real events will be intense. The bar has been set higher by the media hype, and the results may be more brutal. Those bombs that did not go off at Columbine will be handled by youth who understand technology better. We are in dangerous times.

Here's what I wrote about the events triggered right after a large event such as VA Tech, in my book The Copycat Effect:

---------
p. 135
The copycat effect is a highly volatile phenomenon, spreading much like a match fire set to gasoline dripping across a service station lot. Individual violent acts portrayed in the media tend to spawn further events in the days and weeks that follow, though the subsequent events may be murder-suicides, mass murders, or mass suicides regardless of the precipitating event. Copycat murders and murder-suicides are real.

pp. 138-139
Publicity about a celebrity murder and murder-suicide serves as the spark to send a vulnerable, questioning, suicidal person in one of many directions. How the individual copes with the stresses leading to suicide, of course, varies from individual to individual, but by adding a model of behavior to the mix, via the media, pushes some people in a specific behavioral direction....[California sociologist] David Phillips has found an increase in both suicides and murder-suicides following other well-publicized suicides and murder-suicides, including in unrecognized aircraft accidents. Similarly, sociologist Steve Stack’s 1989 study, the first ever on the effect of publicized mass murders and murder-suicides, showed the interplay between the media, murder, suicide, and murder-suicides. Stack explored their impact on lethal aggression by focussing on the stories of mass murder-suicides and mass murders that aired on two or three of the network news channels (ABC, CBS & NBC) from 1968-1980. Stack found that mass murder/suicides are significantly associated with increases in the suicide rate. He also noted that one special type of mass murder, publicized gangland mass murders, were associated with increases in suicide.

p. 163
It became clear by the late 1990s that reports of workplace violence were not always just followed by other copycats of workplace incidents a day or a week later, but sometimes by other forms of mass and rampage violence as well. For example in the first week of November 1999, two workplace shootings on a Tuesday and a Wednesday shook the United States, which was already reeling from a long string of office and school killings for the year. In Seattle and Honolulu, the families of nine victims grieved as observers debated how to keep violence out of public settings traditionally considered safe. In Honolulu, seven people were shot to death when [a] Xerox technician...walked into a second-floor meeting room of the Xerox's offices and opened fire. He shot all the victims at close range with a 9mm handgun. In Seattle, the next day a gunman shot and killed two men and wounded two others in a shipyard office. Wearing a dark trench coat over camouflage clothing, the gunman had walked into the Northlake Shipyard building and proceeded down a long hallway and into a back office before wordlessly opening fire and shooting all four men in the room with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun. Two 9 mm guns, two Pacific Rim cities, two days of killings. Ten days later, another school shooting occurred in New Mexico.

p. 164
One type of copycat event was reinforcing another...

When such clustering occurs, with its mix of violence types, the copycatting is spreading from one type of incident to another....The violence is everywhere and the media is gobbling it up, unconsciously spreading it in the process.

420

What does "420" mean? April 20th? Or something deeper?

High school student Jeff Weise, an Ojibwa, killed ten, including himself, at the Red Lake Ojibwa Reservation in Minnesota, on March 21, 2005. A great admirer of Columbine, it was discovered that Weise left references to Columbine throughout his online presence. For example, he employed a username, which translated to "Abandoned 420."

Columbine and 420

Obviously, one meaning of "420" is directly linked to the Columbine date, as "4/20" is April 20, the anniversary of the Littleton, Colorado shootings. This date is also Adolf Hitler's birthday. The Columbine shooters, Klebold and Harris were extremely conscious that it was Hitler's birthdate, and often spoke German to each other, while walking around in long black trench coats, videotaping themselves.

Copycat Weise left messages on such sites as nazi.org. Weise wore a dark trench coat to school all year round, and had a swastika fascination, a symbol used by both First Nations people and Nazis. In one of Weise's online profiles, he noted that two of his favorite movies were Elephant and Zero Day, based on the events of the Columbine High School massacre.

Jeff Weise virtually haunted the Neo-Nazi Internet forum of the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party under the aliases NativeNazi and Todesengel (German for "Angel of Death"). He admired Hitler, his posts revealed. Weise also alleged online that his school was warned in 2004 that someone was going to "shoot up" the school on April 20, the birthday of Adolf Hitler and the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, and that the school authorities "pinned" the threat on him.

But Weise sometimes would sound almost typical. For example, on one of his user info pages, he said he was "nothin' but your average Native American stoner" and mentioned that he used marijuana. After Columbine, one oft-repeated story circulated that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were upset by an unfounded accusation made by an anonymous classmate that the two had brought marijuana to school, prompting a search of their property. Harris and Klebold were said to have found the incident humiliating.

The Other Meaning of 420

The use of "420" for almost four decades is related to the use of marijuana.

4:20 or 4/20 (pronounced four-twenty) is a term used in North America as a discreet way to refer to cannabis and, by extension, a way to identify oneself with cannabis culture. Phrases such as "420 friendly" sometimes appear in roommate advertisements, indicating that the current occupants are tolerant of cannabis users.

It is widely accepted that in 1971, a group of teenagers at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California, calling themselves The Waldos, used to meet every day after school at 4:20 p.m. to smoke marijuana at the Louis Pasteur statue. The term became part of their group's salute, "420 Louis," and it eventually caught on more widely. Many cannabis users continue to observe 4:20 as a time to smoke communally. By extension April 20 ("4/20" in U.S. dating shorthand) has evolved into a counterculture holiday, where people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis. Source: Wikipedia

It was the research of Steven Hager, editor of High Times, who found the term 420 originated at San Rafael High School in 1971, among the Waldos. A quote from one of the Waldos in the article notes, "We did discover we could talk about getting high in front of our parents without them knowing by using the phrase 420."

Adolf Hitler, marijuana, Columbine: For copycats, 420 appears to have served as a reflective mirror. For the rest of us, 420 may reflect a dangerous combination that has resulted in terrible memories that now reach beyond the mere date of April 20th.

P. S. - Please give me the intellectual respect to understand this is not an anti-drug message, but one about awareness of the twilight language behind code words like "420" in one shooter's message. To think this is as an anti-marijuana blog is as illogical as thinking I am going to let myself get involved in the quicksand of a pro-gun-control vs pro-gun debate. Blaming drugs, guns, video games, and the long list of candidates seems to ignore what's happening in the imprinted mind of the suicidal potential school shooter.

Columbine

Columbine School Shooting, April 20, 1999

There were 15 people killed in the Columbine High School massacre.

Remember all the names of those who were lost to the violence:

* Cassie Bernall, 17
* Steven Curnow, 14
* Corey DePooter, 17
* Kelly Fleming, 16
* Eric David Harris, 18
* Matthew Kechter, 16
* Dylan Bennet Klebold, 17
* Daniel Mauser, 15
* Daniel Rohrbough, 15
* William David "Dave" Sanders, 47
* Rachel Scott, 17
* Isaiah Shoels, 18
* John Tomlin, 16
* Lauren Townsend, 18
* Kyle Velasquez, 16

Columbine & VA Tech

NBC News got a package in the mail. I'm sure you've heard the news. Columbine is now confirmed to be part of the mental process of the VA Tech shooter.

NBC's and MSNBC's unfolding of this story demonstrates they have rather wholehearted published the VA Tech shooter's photos, some of his words, and his video. The way they have teased the public (e.g. "Turn in at 6:30 to see the exclusive video"; "See different photographs on MSNBC following NBC Nightly News"; "There will be more revealed on The Today Show in the morning") is so obviously a draw for higher rating. This is about the bottomline, when news becomes entertainment, a grab for more ad revenue. Death sells. If it bleeds, it leads.

This is exactly the level of glorification of school killers that I have recommended against for several years now, and brought to together in my book.

The Columbine killers, I was not surprised to hear, were noted in the VA Tech shooter's materials. Cho Seung-hui called Columbine's Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold "martyrs". Harris and Klebold live on in their videos and got them broadcast; why won't the newest shooter wish to get his images shown to the world too. NBC fell right into his master plan.

Of course, not acknowledged by the graphic wall-to-wall cable networks is what a central role they have in triggering copycats. On "Hardball," on April 18, 2007, Chris Matthews made an under-informed remark about the "copycat effect." Matthews challenged the notion of the copycat effect by saying aloud that there had not been any copycat's of Columbine since Columbine. He said that it was odd that there had been a skipping of the eight years since Columbine, saying VA Tech was unique apparently, as if his facts were correct.

What Matthews and others could find if they looked is that there is a clear history of Columbine copycats. This trickle down through the years, with some of the most concrete elements of direct links and copycatting to be found between Columbine, Santee Red Lake, Dawson College, and VA Tech.

Just read about the direct copycats that happened immediately after Columbine:

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed one teacher and 12 students and wounded 23 others at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Focusing their attack on the cafeteria, Harris and Klebold spoke German and worn trench coats, as they reenacted scenes from Matrix and The Basketball Diaries in the nation's deadliest school shooting. They had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves. Harris and Klebold appeared to have deliberately chosen the anniversary date of Hitler’s Birthday for their attack. At one point, Harris and Klebold had considered the highly important date of April 19, too – the anniversary of Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing – but transportation problems forced a delay in their plans. They finally carried out their attack on the 20th – speaking German and “honoring” Hitler. (They had also discussed that after the attack, they would hijack a jetliner, fly it from Colorado, and crash it into Manhattan. This was two years before the terror of 2001.)

In the wake of the shootings in Littleton, the nation’s schools were under attack by copycats. Some 400 related incidents were reported in the month following the killings. “Across the nation after the 1999 Columbine tragedy,” noted Court TV’s Katherine Ramsland, “other kids called in bomb threats, wore trench coats to school, or used the Internet to praise what Klebold and Harris had done. Only ten days later, on April 30, people feared the eruption of some major event because that day marked Hitler’s suicide in 1945. Schools in Arizona, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, and DC closed to investigate potential threats. It wasn't Paducah, or Jonesboro, or Springfield that they wanted to imitate; the mantra was ‘Columbine.’”

One week after Columbine, on April 28, 1999, one student, Jason Lang, 17, was killed, and one wounded at W. R. Myers High School in Taber, Alberta, Canada. This was the first fatal high school shooting in Canada in 20 years. The shooter was a 14-year-old boy. Exactly a month after Columbine, on May 20, 1999, at Conyers, Georgia, six students were injured at Heritage High School when classmate Thomas Solomon, 15, opened fire. No one died. Witnesses reported that Solomon placed the revolver in his mouth as if to shoot himself, but he did not pull the trigger.

On November 19, 1999, Victor Cordova Jr., 12, shot and killed Araceli Tena, 13, in the lobby of Deming Middle School in Deming, New Mexico. At Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, on December 6, 1999, four students were wounded as Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at Fort Gibson Middle School.The Copycat Effect, pages 175-176

But for MSNBC's Chris Matthews and others who have so quickly forgotten what they have talked about on their own shows in the recent past, there are other shooters who have joined the cult of Columbine before they have untaken their shootings.

The Santana High School, Santee, California, was the site of a school shooting on March 5, 2001, when fifteen-year old student Charles Andrew Williams opened fire with a pistol, killing two fellow students, and wounding 15 others. Williams told friends he was going to "pull a Columbine."

Let's not forget that Columbine happened on Hitler's birthday. On April 26, 2002, on Rudolf Hess's birthday, Robert Steinhäuser, killed 16 people plus himself at his Erfurt, Germany high school. He had files on his computer, which contained information about the Columbine Massacre. Steinhäuser had outdone the Columbine total (which may have been one of his goals).

Jeff Weise, at the Red Lake Chippewa Reservation in Minnesota, a Native youth who identified more with the Columbine shooters than his own people, picked Monday, March 21, 2005, to kill his grandfather (whom he lived with), his grandfather's girlfriend, and then went to the high school to kill seven. He turned the gun on himself, dying by suicide. The death toll was ten. He used a .22 handgun, 9mm Glock 17, and had a shotgun. Weise would reference Columbine over the internet, with the username which translated to "Abandoned 420." In an incident mirroring what took place during the Columbine shootings, one eyewitness said that Weise asked a victim if he believed in God before shooting him.

Forgotten today is that many near-Columbines were discovered in 2005 (the same year, reportedly, that Cho Seung-hui's contacts with mental health and law enforcement reached its first peak). According to Canada's National Post on March 18, 2005, New Brunswick's Saint John and Harbourview high schools were disturbed to discover three teenage boys, aged 15 to 17, had in mind a well-planned massacre for April 20 (Columbine High School massacre's anniversary date, of course). Other Columbine-like plots were also discovered in March 2005 in Colorado and California. During mid-March 2005, news reports furthermore told of Utah's Uintah High School where four students had a serious plot to carry out a Columbine-like raid, and of a Oregon, Illinois, school, where two 15-year-old sophomores and one 14-year-old freshman who exploded two homemade bombs nearby.

James Scott Newman, a 14-year-old boy opened fire, injuring two students at a Reno middle school on March 14, 2006. Newman planned the shooting for a week by "Research[ing] the Columbine High School shooting on the Internet, and this further inspired him to do the shooting," reported law enforcement investigators.

On August 29, 2006, in Hillsborough, North Carolina, one was dead (father of teenage shooter) and two wounded (two students) at the Orange High School. After killing his father at home, the shooter showed up in a trench coat, with guns, pipe bombs, in a copycat of Columbine. Asked by police why he went to Orange High School, Alvaro Rafael Castillo, 19, responded: "Columbine. Remember Columbine."

The most obvious recent copycat event that closely serves as a bridge between Columbine and VA Tech, which Chris Matthews should have hardly forgotten, is the Dawson College campus shooting of September 13, 2006, in Montreal, Quebec. Kimveer Gill, the 25-year-old shooter, a self-described atheist Goth Columbine copycat, with an Indian Sikh heritage, wearing a trenchcoat, dark clothing, and a strange looking haircut, came to Dawson College, fully armed. He had with him a Beretta Cx4 Storm carbine, a Glock 9mm handgun, and a Norinco HP9-1 short barreled shotgun. He appeared to target what students call the "Jew Caf" and opened fire, killing Anastasia de Sousa, 18, and wounded 19 other students. Police fired upon him, and then Gill turned the gun on himself. Gill was obsessed by the Columbine massacre. He mentioned online being a fan of several computer games (e.g. Super Columbine Massacre) and movies (e.g. Natural Born Killers, Matrix).

Death sells. If it bleeds, it leads. What was NBC thinking?

Based on the coverage I am seeing on television, should we expect more school shootings in the next month. Yes, there will be more copycats - first the bomb threats, then the discovery of plots, and hopefully not, but probably some actual shootings too.

VA Tech Shooting

Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing has a good overview of the Virginia Tech shooting today. It appears 33 dead are confirmed, including the shooter (described in some reports as an Asian male with a black hood).

Sadly, I saw this coming.

In an article based on an email I sent to a Canadian TV reporter Bridget Brown on September 18th and her followup interview, CTV noted that Expert predicted 'cluster' of school shootings, on October 3rd, 2006.

In that article, I was quoted as noting the psychological process that these shooters appear to be "competing for the highest body count." Sadly, we've seen that come true today.

Also, the news item from last fall noted: "He says that while the Pennsylvania shootings may not be the last in this cluster, the copycat crimes will likely slow down as we near winter. He says spring, and the anniversary of Columbine, could be enough to spark another cycle of tragedy." Again, my prediction of a reigniting of the school shooting wildfire during this very week was revealed today.

Interestingly, I am been interviewed by Canadian media today, and will be on the CBC tomorrow. The media north of the border seem less threatened by what I've said in The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines. I was interviewed after the Dawson College schooling last fall frequently by Canadian television and radio stations, less by American programs.

Xeni Jardin wonders how I would feel about what I am hearing on the American cable news networks. To listen to CNN and MSNBC is to watch the news people stumble through this story.

These cable news people certainly should be aware that there is a copycat effect going on here. They have been reporting on this for ten years now, and can't see the legacy between wall-to-wall coverage and what happens when you elevate Columbine the way the media has.

Specfically today, there is something over-the-top being heard in some of the reports that this shooting today is the "deadliest" in American history. Also, incorrect information is being shared. These newspeople are misreporting on the profiles and the changes in it. Cable news earlier this afternoon misrepresented that this is an American-only problem. During the early evening, I just watched a report on CNN saying that the few historical non-American school shootings have been done by adult non-students.

Of course, this is simplistic. The American cable networks are ignoring Taber, Alberta (1999) to Erfurt, Germany (2002), and several in-between international events where the shooters have been relatively young people. The US media outlets are also forgetting that most of the fall 2006 American school shooting incidents involved outsiders, non-students and adults.

Last fall, as I told all that would listen, there was a shift in the overall North American shooter profile. It moved from one of mostly Caucasian males who were members of the student body to "outsiders." It began in earnest with the the youthful South Asian immigrant who became happier as a member of the cult of Columbine before his attack at Dawson College, and the two adult alleged sexual molesters who victimized young females in Bailey, Colorado and at the Amish school in Pennsylvania.

Will more of these happen? Probably.

There was a Columbine copycat shooting last week (April 11) in Oregon (with no deaths) in which the shooter said he got the idea after watching National Geographic's April 7th showing of "The Final Report: Columbine."

This VA Tech shooting comes days before the Columbine anniversary on Friday, April 20th.

I would definitely say we are going to be entering a period for the next month of many threats, many plots, and a few shootings.

Don't let your guard down. Awareness is key, communication is important, and quick response is a must.

Gresham Copycatted Columbine

New accounts from Gresham, Oregon, have noted that a Tuesday, April 10 school shooting appears to have been triggered by the shooter's viewing of the recent National Geographic Channel's "The Final Report: Columbine."

That individual, Chad Antonio Escobedo had watched the Columbine documentary and decided April 7 that he would do a shooting at his school because he was angry, according to the new court documents, as reported by KPTV, KATU-TV, and Oregon newspapers.

A 15-year-old boy charged with attempted aggravated murder after a shooting shattered some windows at a high school told police he was influenced by a television documentary on the 1999 Columbine shootings in Colorado.

Chad Antonio Escobedo appeared Wednesday afternoon in Multnomah County Circuit Court to face two counts of attempted aggravated murder along with two counts of assault and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon.

Ten students suffered minor injuries from shattered glass in the Tuesday afternoon shooting at Springwater Trail High School in this Portland suburb.

According to an affidavit filed by Deputy District Attorney Christine Mascal, Escobedo started forming the plan Saturday because he was "angry" at a teacher who had left messages at his home, telling his parents he wasn't doing well in school.

Another teacher is "mean" to students, he told police.

Escobedo also said he was angry at his mother because she would not let him live with his biological father in Eastern Oregon, the affidavit said.

The court document — which mentioned the Columbine influence — said that Escobedo left his house Tuesday morning [April 10th] carrying his stepfather's Winchester .270-caliber bolt action rifle and three boxes of bullets in the rifle's carrying case. He told police he hid the weapon in tall grass near the school before heading to class.

During lunch, he showed a bullet to several friends and told them he would shoot at the school. Instead of returning to class after lunch, he retrieved the rifle, put a bullet in the chamber and fired at what he thought was the classroom of the teacher who left messages at his house, according to the affidavit.

Coincidentally, the principal at Springwater — Larry Bentz — was principal at Thurston High School in Springfield when a student killed two other students and injured 25 in a shooting spree nearly a decade ago.

"When I hear lightning never strikes twice in the same place, I might question that," Bentz told KATU-TV in Portland.

But he said the circumstances were different in the shooting that broke windows at Springwater on Tuesday and the deadly rampage by Kip Kinkel at Thurston in 1998. Kinkel was sentenced to 112 years in prison in the Thurston shootings.

"I don't think there's any point in comparing the two events," Bentz told KATU.

Some of the Springwater students told KATU that Escobedo had warned them he was going to shoot at the school but they did not take him seriously or report him to a teacher or administrator.

Debbie Sanderson, the mother of a Springwater student, told KATU that Escobedo called her daughter and confessed to the shooting before police took him into custody.The Associated Press, April 11, 2007

The Final Report: Columbine

National Geographic Channel will broadcast their hour-long documentary, The Final Report: Columbine about the April 20, 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, on Tuesday, April 3, 2007, at 10 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

The program will also be repeated on Saturday, April 7, and Tuesday, April 10, 2007.

Here is their overview of the program:

It was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history: the Columbine High School massacre. On April 20, 1999, two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, carried out a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado killing 12 students and a teacher, and wounding 24 others before committing suicide. Did they have a methodical plan? What warning signs were missed? As the eighth anniversary of this tragic day approaches, The Final Report investigates the full story with the help of former students, journalists, FBI special agents, the district attorney and the killers’ own diaries and home videos.National Geographic Channel

The writing credit is given to Charles Fitzgerald, who previously has been a television producer/writer for documentaries including "LA Riots" (2006), "Iran: The Next Iraq?" (2005), and "American Justice" (4 episodes, 2004-2005).

The narrator is the well-known voice actor and narrator Tom Kane.

School Shooting Seasons

A deadly trend has developed in recent years. If there is a significant series of school shootings in the autumn, the copycat behavior contagion effect appears to trigger a ripple of incidents that occur in the spring. Based on such an acknowledgement of history, I have to be open about telling you, there may be terrible times ahead.

Here is my prediction of what to expect in the next two months: There will be new school shootings with increased violent outcomes by "outsiders." Plots will be discovered, and students, especially girls and women, will be targets, victimized by adults using the vulnerable landscape of schools to work out their bloody and brutal homicidal-suicidal plans in a greater mirror of the scenarios of last fall.

During the spring of 2007, school professionals and paraprofessionals, law enforcement officials, and mental health personnel should be aware we are entering the most active "School Shooting Season" since 9/11. From the end of March through the end of May, this window of time could be very deadly. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

If past patterns are repeated, however, these next two months could ignite wildfires of deadly outbursts in school settings that are similar but radically more violent than in recent memory.

For the years 1996 through the spring of 2006, the specific trend was of a suicidal member of the student body of their own school or university taking out their rage on their fellow classmates. This is documented extremely well within my book, The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines (NY: Paraview Pocket - Simon and Schuster, 2004).

In several cases, the student shooter would end up dead, often by their own hand. In general, this pattern was repeated over and over again, with the fall-spring repeats occurring during high profile examples of the copycat effect.

Last fall 2006, something shifted. In the nine school shootings' most publicized situations, individuals from "outside" the school or college systems came into the schools to victimize young people. Indeed, it is true that in the lesser noted cases by the media, the shooters were former students, and suspended or expelled students. These "students" were still outsiders.

To the point, however, the events that got the most publicity were of adults coming into schools to use the easy targets there to achieve their suicidal fate. This was especially true with four extremely violent incidents that received the most wall-to-wall television coverage and thus had the deepest copycat impact.

The wave of fall violence began on Thursday, August 24, 2006, in Essex, Vermont, with two dead (two teachers) and three wounded (two teachers, plus the shooter who turned the gun on himself). The shooter was a male, all victims were female. Christopher Williams, 26, of Essex, attempted to kill his former girlfriend, first-grade schoolteacher Andrea Lambesis. The dead were Lambesis' mother, Linda, 57, the first victim, and veteran Essex Elementary School second-grade teacher Alicia Shanks, 56, of Essex, slain in her classroom at the school at about 2 p.m.

The shootings occurred on Wednesday, August 29, 2006, in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with one dead (father of teenage shooter) and two wounded (two students), when the shooter showed up in a trench coat, with guns, pipe bombs, in a copycat of Columbine at Orange High School. Asked by police why he did it, Alvaro Rafael Castillo, 19, responded: "Columbine. Remember Columbine."

On Thursday, September 7, 2006, in Paris, France, a 19-year-old man was detained after opening fire with a pistol at a school in Paris. There were no injuries. The next day, Friday, September 8, 2006, also in Paris, France, a 16-year-old boy fired a shotgun inside a school in the southern outskirts of Paris, lightly injuring a teacher and a student, police said.

The first incident that got the most direct, visual coverage, in Canada and the USA, however, happened on Wednesday, September 13, 2006, in Montreal, Quebec. Based on the pattern I see behind this shooting, Quebec was a logical next location (near Vermont and French-linked). Kimveer Gill, the 25-year-old shooter, a self-described atheist Goth with an Indian Sikh heritage, wearing a trenchcoat, dark clothing, and a Mohawk haircut, came to Dawson College, fully armed. He appeared to target what students call the "Jew Caf" and opened fire, killing Anastasia de Sousa, 18, and wounded 19 other students.

Police fired upon Gill, and then Gill turned the gun on himself. Gill was obsessed by the Columbine massacre. He mentioned online being a fan of several computer games (e.g. Super Columbine Massacre) and movies (e.g. Natural Born Killers, Matrix) with violent themes that have been played out in several school shootings. Videos of helicopter footage over Dawson College after the attacks reminded viewers of Columbine. Repeats of Dawson students running across the street were shown, while cable news narrators talked about Columbine and screened reruns of Columbine footage from 1999.

In the following days, Columbine plots were discovered across the country, with the media pinpointing plans for violence on Thursday, September 14, 2006 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, at Green Bay East High School and exactly a week later on Thursday, September 21, 2006 in Montgomery, Alabama, at Robert E. Lee High School.

On Wednesday, September 27, 2006, the horror of school shootings returned to Colorado in the tragic unfolding of a pattern that would not wait long to be repeated. On that date, in Bailey, Colorado (39 miles from Columbine), Duane R. Morrison, 54, (DOB 7-23-1953) walked into an English classroom at Platte Canyon High School, and took six young female students hostage. After releasing four hostages, one at a time, the students told the police that sexual assaults were occurring. As the situation neared a 4 p.m. deadline and discussions broke down, a police SWAT team blew open the door to Room 206 with explosives. Morrison fired a handgun at entering SWAT officers, and then at 16-year old Emily Keyes, fatally wounding her. The gunman then killed himself. The last hostage was saved. (A suicide note from the shooter was found on September 28th.)

The next day, on Friday, September 29, 2006, at Cazenovia, Wisconsin, a recently expelled student Eric Hainstock, 15, arrived at school at 8 am with a shotgun. A custodian, teacher, and students wrestled the shotgun away, but Hainstock broke away and pulled out a revolver. Principal John Klang, 49, was then shot with a handgun, three times, once in the head. Klang later died at the hospital. Hainstock was arrested alive.

Sadly, in the end of the fall school shooting series, the blueprint of Bailey, Colorado was used on Monday, October 2, 2006. At Nickel Mines, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Charles Carl Roberts, a 32-year-old milkman, entered a one-room Amish school (usually attended by 27 students) early at the beginning of the school day. He brought into the school three guns, a stun gun, two knives and 600 rounds of ammunition - as well as restraints, boards, and other items to molest or sexually abuse the children. He told the boys and adult females (some with infants) to leave; one girl apparently escaped with the boys. He took ten hostages, all young females. Then, after the police arrived, he began shooting all of the girls, killing five.

Roberts is said to have died by suicide when he shot himself. He left behind suicide notes for his wife and children; he told his wife this was "self-hate" because he had molested two extremely young female relatives 20 years ago (when he was 12 years old).

Unfortunately, we only have to look to what happened last fall 2006 to see what we might expect in this current School Shooting Season, this spring 2007. I hope not, but ignoring this pattern will not make it go away.

As the US Secret Service found in their study of school shootings, the vast majority, 80% of these shooters, are suicidal. Frankly, I think all of them are suicidal. Homicide, as Freud said, is suicide turned outward, and that's exactly the model that is being followed. Suicide is also homicide turned inward. The new wave of homicides-suicides are not just the ones occurring via suicide bombers in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries. We only have to look to the coming news here in America to see that something sinister of a similar nature is happening closer to home.

10 Years Ago: Heaven's Gate

Comet Hale Bopp had a devastating effect at the end of the 20th century. Within hours of the Hale-Bopp inspired Heaven’s Gate suicide episode, researcher Brad Steiger, myself and others were on the air speculating that the cult, led by Marshall Applewhite, had it origins in “The Two,” the original “Bo and Beep” UFO cult of the 1970s.

The bizarre story of Heaven’s Gate begins in 1972 when Marshall Applewhite met a psychiatric nurse named Bonnie Lu Nettles. She introduced him to astrology, mysticism, and mediation. Over time and in various guises, they take on the different names: as “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon” in 1973, as “Guinea” and “Pig” in 1974, then later that year as “Bo” and “Peep,” and finally as “The Two” in 1975. Before long, they had gathered a cult around them, but fearing assassination, split up the group and went “underground” in 1976.

That year Brad Steiger’s book about “The Two”, UFO Missionaries Extraordinary, was published. In 1982, a NBC-TV movie was broadcast about Bo and Peep entitled The Mysterious Two, starring John Forsythe and Priscilla Pointer.

Nettles died of cancer in 1985, and five years later Applewhite began to rebuild his group into what would become known as Heaven’s Gate. By the mid-1980s, he was using the name “Do,” and if not already, would soon become a eunuch. A half a dozen of his male followers would follow his lead and get castrated. By 1993, Applewhite (as “Do” or “Doe”) used the media again to gather his flock, placing ads in USA Today. In February 1997, once Hale-Bopp was clearly “speaking” to Applewhite, he and several members of his group showed up at a book signing for Lee Shargel. Applewhite conveyed to Shargel, the author would later tell ABC-TV, that Applewhite thought Shargel’s science fiction novel Voice in the Mirror contained messages from aliens to Applewhite for his group.

On March 22, 1997, 39 members of Heaven’s Gate (21 women, 19 men) consumed phenobarbitol, some suffocating with plastic bags, and all dying by suicide. All were dressed exactly alike in black clothing, down to their black shoes with their ddidentical white Nike check-mark logo. The 39 had packed tote bags and each had one $5 bill and 75 cents in quarters in their pockets. The deaths occurred in shifts, so those that remained could correctly arrange the bodies and place the purple triangular shrouds on the bodies. The police found the corpses at their Rancho Santa Fe, California compound on March 26, after being alerted by Richard Ford, an ex-member who has received a Federal Express package of two videotapes from Applewhite.

When the story broke, the media was in a fog about the cult and were looking for simple answers about “how this could have happened.” But there were no simple solutions to the Heaven’s Gate incident. Reporters jumped from one factoid to another rumor without regard to the complexity of the story or how its various elements tied together. They shied away from the twilight language of dates and astrological connections related to the event that were key to deciphering the clues as to why this happened and when. While many of these little twilight details were conscious on the part of the cult members, others were only known to the leaders, and still a few more seemed to work on a purely subconscious level. More attention to the twilight language involved in such episodes could provide advance warning of future mass suicides and murders.

The Heaven’s Gate cult watched closely for subtle signs from the cosmos. But the moment their suicides occurred was extremely important in Marshall Applewhite’s delusional system. The Hale-Bopp Comet’s closest approach occurred on Saturday, the 22nd of March 1997. For the Heaven’s Gate cult, this was the “marker” they were waiting for. They believed a spaceship was following behind the comet, speculation that had begun to circulate via the Art Bell show and on the Internet previously. (It would later turn out the controversy was begun by photographs that had been faked; there was no “companion” with the comet.)

Heaven’s Gate was not just concerned with spaceships and comets. They were also very attuned to the calendar and March 1997 was a very hot month. There was a solar eclipse on March 9th. March 20th was the Spring Equinox. March 22nd was the closest approach of Hale-Bopp. Then there was a lunar eclipse on March 24th. At the same time, the 23rd was Palm Sunday, the 28th Good Friday, and the 30th Easter Sunday.

One of the Heaven’s Gate relatives explained the “timing” issue. Suzanne Sylvia Cooke was one of the 39 people who died by suicide on March 22. Her husband Wayne told CBS’s "60 Minutes" that he wished he had had the courage to follow the other members of Heaven’s Gate. He said: “They left when a comet came. A comet has significance, historically. They left in the Easter Week. That has significance historically. They left by laying down their bodies, that has enormous impact. Obviously a stage is being set by the next level for this world, for others, to examine this.”

Wayne Cooke’s network broadcast interview was a suicide note to the world but few understood that. On May 6, 1997, Cooke and another ex-member of Heaven's Gate tried to “exit their vehicles” in an Encinitas Holiday Inn Express four miles from the cult's Rancho Santa Fe mausoleum. Cooke was found dead with a plastic bag on his head.

The other former member, Chuck Humphrey of Denver, was found unconscious but alive and was taken in critical condition to Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas. Both two men had been found with small tote bags next to them, dressed in the same black outfits as their Heaven’s Gate mates, wearing black Nikes, with purple shrouds next to them, and a five dollar bill and three quarters each of their pockets. Like those who went before, they both ingested phenobarbital washed down with vodka. Cooke said in his videotaped “exit statement,” which was sent to family members and CNN, that he wanted “…very much to join my classmates and my teachers ... I've never doubted my connection with them.” He concluded his comments by saying “Goodbye” with a smile eerily similar to the expression Applewhite had on his face in a video repeatedly shown by the media after the Heaven’s Gate bodies were found.

At a San Diego news conference after the March mass suicide, Humphrey, 56, said, “I left the group because it had been 15 years, because many of the things we were told were going to happen didn't... I got tired of waiting.” In his “exit statement” he erroneously states: “By now you should be aware that I ... too have exited my vehicle... I do not pretend to have accomplished my task of overcoming this human vehicle and gaining the degree of control I would have liked, but nonetheless, I know who I am and that I must go back with them whether I am ready or not... I'd rather gamble on missing the bus this time than staying on this planet and risk losing my soul.” Humphrey felt like a failure because his exit plan had misfired.

Humphrey and Cooke were not alone. A week after the Heaven’s Gate episode, Yuba County deputies checking out a trailer in a remote canyon near Marysville, California (population 9,900) discovered the remains of a man who had gassed himself to death. The victim was identified as Robert Leon Nichols, 58, a former roadie with the rock band Grateful Dead. Nichols was last seen alive on St. Patrick’s Day. Nichols was lying on his back in bed with a clear plastic bag over his head, and had hung a model spacecraft, made of silver foil, from his ceiling. A hose ran under the bag to a propane tank and a 3-by-3-foot purple shroud covered his upper torso. Nichols reportedly left a suicide note that said, in part, “I'm going on the spaceship with Hale-Bopp to be with those who have gone before me.”

The New York Post pointed out that the Nichols note was dated 10 a.m., Thursday, March 28, 1997, two days after the Heaven’s Gate 39 bodies were discovered but several hours before the public was told how the cultists died and that their bodies were covered with purple shrouds.

On May 7, 1997, as researcher Antonio Mendoza quotes Dick Joslyn of Tampa, a former member of the Heaven's Gate cult, at least six other cultist might also be interested in trying suicide. Joslyn, who had been in contact with Chuck Humphrey, the cultist who survived the latest passage to the “next level,” said his friend had grown frustrated by the lack of attention given to the group's ideas. “He was a little discouraged by the inability to get the word out. He made it clear to me that when his work was done, he would go too.”

Another former member who goes by the name of Sawyer said that Humphrey, one of the brains behind the Higher Source web design team, “was supposed to spread information about the ‘next level’ and maintain the Internet site.” When someone “commandeered” the site and Humphrey could no longer work on it, he tried to kill himself.

The New York Times, meanwhile, was whipping up anxieties by quoting Aaron Greenberg, a former Heaven’s Gate member from Oregon, who said that he knew of 60 to 80 members who might be ready to die by suicide, and that about 1000 people had passed through the cult. The media alleged, through Greenberg and others, that two groups of surviving Heaven’s Gate followers – one from Canada and the other from New York State – were converging on a secret site in the southwest. Greenberg claimed: “This is not a good thing. Remember what they say in the videotapes: ‘Come join us, the time is now, the window is small.’”

On May 16, 1997, Charles Humphrey, fully recovered from his suicide attempt, persuaded a judge to release him from a psychiatric facility so he could write a book and go on the speaking circuit. But Humphrey failed to get the media to pay attention, so on February 20, 1998, Humphrey, who saw himself as one of the remaining Heaven's Gate members on spaceship Earth, died by suicide in a tent in the Arizona desert.

The cultist was found with his head sealed in a plastic bag and pipes running to a car's exhaust pipe and a tank marked “carbon dioxide.” He was dressed in black sweatpants and a black T-shirt with a patch on the sleeve that read “Heaven's Gate Away Team.” Like those who went before him, he wore a pair of brand new black Nike sneakers, kept a purple shroud next to him, and carried a five-dollar bill plus three quarters in his pocket.

On March 22, 1997, just as the Heaven’s Gate 39 were dying by suicide, a documentary film about the Order of the Solar Temple cult aired on French television, and, in what was probably not a coincidence, five members of the Order of the Solar Temple killed themselves that day in a “Christic Fire.” The Order of the Solar Temple, founded in 1986, keyed their suicides to the equinoxes and solstices of the year.

The above is a passage from Chapter 7: "Cultic Copycats" in The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines (NY: Paraview Pocket - Simon and Schuster, 2004).

Zodiac To Cause Copycats?

A major motion picture directed by David Fincher [Alien 3 (1992), Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002)] opens across the United States on March 2, 2007, from Paramount Pictures. It stars, among many, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Edwards, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Brian Cox, Chloë Sevigny and Bijou Phillips. It is based on the self-named serial killer who terrorized the San Francisco area during the late 1960s.

The Zodiac murdered five known victims near the Solano County communities of Benicia and Vallejo, near Napa Valley's Lake Berryessa, and in San Francisco, California, between December 1968 and October 1969. The Zodiac may have murdered others. The Zodiac claimed as much.

On August 1, 1969, three letters written by Zodiac were received at the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and theSan Francisco Examiner. The letters continued being received by the media through 1974.

The Zodiac was never caught and never identified.

Will the new movie cause a Zodiac copycat killer? As documented in The Copycat Effect, some movies have resulted in violent mimics. Minor and television movies, of which there have been a few about the Zodiac, have had little impact on triggering copycat behaviors in violent humans. Major motion pictures appear to have created copycat waves of violence. Recent examples I detail include A Clockwork Orange, Natural Born Killer, The Matrix, and American History X. (I do not advocate censorship, but awareness, and deal with that approach, in depth, in the book.)

The impact of the Zodiac in cinema may be widespread, even when the name Zodiac is not used. For example, the fictional "Gemini Killer" in the movie The Exorcist III (1990) was loosely based on the Zodiac killer.

Movies about the Zodiac have increased lately. Zodiac Killer, (2005, director Ulli Lommel) is about a cat-and-mouse game between the real Zodiac and a young copycat in 2002 Los Angeles.

The Zodiac (2005, director Alex Bulkley) concerns a fictional detective in Vallejo obsessed with investigating the real Zodiac during the timeframe of the real killings. Bulkley's film has been shown often on cable television during the opening months of 2007, probably due to the upcoming Fincher release. It is an intriguing Bay Area mystery, with occult overtones. Strangely, the one suspect they show they tried to track down lived at an address with the street number 2323.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that the original real Zodiac has already resulted in one alleged imitator, the New York Zodiac copycat. Between March 9, 1990 and June 10, 1994 in New York City, a Zodiac copycat murdered three people and wounded five others with a zip gun. He also wrote letters to the police in a fashion similar to the San Francisco Zodiac. The killer knew the astrological signs of his victims.

On June 18, 1996, Heriberto Seda was arrested for shooting his 17-year-old sister in the back, and was later identified as the New York Zodiac. In June 1998, he was sentenced to 236 years in jail, and will not be eligible for parole until 2082.

One of the most famous quotations from the San Francisco-area Zodiac is: "I am waiting for a good movie about me."

Will Fincher's Zodiac cause the Zodiac, if the killer is still alive, to resurface to communicate?

Will this new 2007 movie result in a copycat Zodiac?

Trolley Square Mirrored Montreal?

Someone asked me overnight, if I would consider the Salt Lake City shootings a copycat of the case in Montreal at Dawson College?

I had to honestly answer that as far as the copycat effect, well, yes, perhaps, maybe, not exactly. The act may fit more comfortably within the context of the greater Columbine cult that still colors most mass shootings by "young people."

The Trolley Square shooting may only compare to Montreal in terms of them both being violent cultural "outsiders" who put the mantle of Columbine on themselves to channel their vulnerability and rage.

Kimveer Gill (July 9, 1981-September 13, 2006), the shooter at Dawson College, was an an Indo-Canadian born in Montreal, whose parents were part of the Sikh community in the Quebec
area. Through Vampirefreaks and other sites, clearly he was obsessed with Columbine. Gill wore a trenchcoat and one of his nicknames was "Trench."

Gill's weapons of choice: a Norinco HP9-1 short barrelled shotgun, a Beretta Cx4 Storm carbine, and a Glock 9mm handgun. He fired 60 times. (There has always been a rumor that Gill first targeted the locally called "Jew Café" at Dawson College. People have been reluctant, beyond right after the shooting, to talk openly about this aspect of the incident.)

Sulejman Talovic, who was responsible for the Trolley Square Mall killings, was an 18-year-old Bosnian Muslim refugee. It is too early to tell what kind of clues he left behind. But his wearing of a trenchcoat
might have been symbolic, as well as his choice of weapons: shotgun, a .38-caliber pistol, and a backpack full of ammunition. Talovic reportedly fired over 50 times. (Why a Muslim attack in a highly Mormon area?)

At almost exactly the same time (6:45 PM Mountain Time) that the Trolley Square Mall shooting were moving into high gear, the Philadelphia Navy Yard shootings (reportedly 8:30 PM Eastern Time) were occurring. That location is associated with the Philadelphia Experiment incidents, as a researcher friend brought to my attention.

Two trenchcoated shooters, with a "foreign" outlook, who both end their rampages by killing themselves: They were cultural mirrors of the Columbine killers (who were pseudo-German, wore trenchcoats, and died by suicides in the end). One hundred percentage of school shooters and rampage killers, I feel, are suicidal. They have nothing to lose by the time they start shooting. Both Gill and Talovic followed the Columbine model rather closely, except for their change of settings. I wonder if Talovic didn't really like Valentine's Day (most of his victims were in a greeting card shop).

UT/PA Shootings

Monday night, February 12, 2007, in Salt Lake City, Utah, at about 6:45 PM Mountain Time (8:45 PM Eastern), and at the Navy Yard, Philadelphia, at 8:30 PM Eastern, two mass shootings occurred.

The Utah event involved a 18-year-old gunman wearing a trenchcoat who opened fire on shoppers at the Trolley Square shopping mall, killing five and wounding four others before police fatally shot him, was armed with several rounds of ammunition and was carrying two guns. Detectives were trying to figure out what sparked the young man's rampage.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, an armed man opened fire during a company board meeting inside a commercial building at the Navy Yard, killing three men and critically wounding a fourth before turning the gun on himself. It happened during a meeting of the board of directors of a company called Watson International. The board was meeting at 5131 S. 11th St. in a structure known as Building 79, a former Navy procurement office that, like many of the warehouse-type buildings at the former Navy base and shipyard, is now home to private businesses.

Police have identified the three men who were fatally shot during a company board meeting last night inside a commercial building at the Navy Yard.

They are:

* Mark Norris, 46, of Piles Grove, N.J.; president and CEO of Zigzag Net, the building's primary occupant.
* Robert Norris, 41, of Newark, Del., vice president of business development for Watson International, the company having the meeting.
* James Reif, 42, of Endicott, N.Y.

Building 79's primary occupant is Zigzag Net Inc., a Web site development company involved in advertising. It was unclear last night what the relationship was between Zigzag and Watson International, but officials indicated that they might have been business partners.

It is too early to determine if a copycat effect will occur, as several factors have to be figured into such an equation such as the forthcoming Valentine's Day superstorm hitting the East Coast and the continuing and overwhelming media attention to the recent sudden death of Anne Nicole Smith.

I have written elsewhere of how "Watson" appears to be a hot twilight language name.

Freddie Prinze + 30

From my book, The Copycat Effect (Simon and Schuster, 2004):

"...highly publicized celebrity deaths, such as Freddie Prinze, who at 22, died by shooting himself in his head on January 28, 1977, produced higher rates among individuals who were about the same age, ethnicity, and gender as the famed suicides. After Prinze’s death, several young Latino males took their own lives using guns. These suicidological studies indicated that suicide stories were not and are not precipitating suicides that would have occurred anyway, but are actually creating additional suicides that would not have happened without the media accounts."

More Saddam Copycats: Turkey & Yemen

Tracking the news that there have been "more copycat hangings" is not an easy task, as some articles are declaring a low number, forgetting about some past incidents, but at least one article in the Malaysian media talked on January 9th about "almost a dozen" (without backing this up with complete data).

In that context, I've search some more and here are more details on a new copycat in Turkey, and multiple copycats in Yemen.

In Turkey, 12-year-old Alisen Akti hanged himself on Wednesday, January 10, 2007, from a bunk bed after watching TV footage of the Saddam hanging videos. His father, Esat Akti, told a newspaper in the southeastern province of Mus that his son had been affected by the televised images, according to Associated Press writer Anna Johnson.

"After watching Saddam's execution he was constantly asking 'How was Saddam killed?' and 'Did he suffer?'" Akti was quoted as saying. "These television images are responsible for my son's death."

In Yemen, at least two young boys died and another was injured in apparent imitations of Saddam's hanging.

One of the cases involved a 13-year-old junior high school student who hanged himself after watching Saddam's execution on television, a Yemeni security official said.

The breakdown of "known copycats," thus, would be Algeria (12-year-old), India (15-year-old), Pakistan (9-year-old), Saudi Arabia (12-year-old), Turkey (12-year-old), USA (10-year-old, Texas; and 16-year-old, Pennsylvania); and Yemen (two young boys, including one that was a 13-year-old). All of these have been discussed, in more detail, on this blog.

"Copycat Hangings...Almost A Dozen"

The Malaysia Sunon January 9, 2007, claims that "more copycat hangings" have occurred numbering "almost a dozen."

In an article entitled "New video of Saddam's body emerges, more copycat hangings," in one section, it mentions the two incidents not detailed before:

International condemnation followed the videotaping of the execution and events leading up to it. A tragic side-effect is that almost a dozen children have now died around the world in attempting to work out how the execution was done. The latest incidents include a 12-year-old boy in Saudi Arabia who reportedly watched the execution on television and then tried to simulate the event. In Algeria a group of schoolchidren accidently hanged a 12 year-old Algerian boy in the western village of Oued Rihou. In describing the tragedy, local government radio said, "U.S. policy in Iraq has made an innocent victim in Algeria." Days earlier a young woman hanged herself in her parents apartment in the western Algerian village of Oran, "after she was traumatised by images of Saddam's hanging," a family member said.

Saddam Copycats: 8+

There has been at least eight hanging deaths of young people who have copycatted the Saddam execution videos.

Reporters Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad and Damien McElroy in the UK, on January 9, 2007, have noted via The Telegraph that a dramatic increase has occurred in Shia hostages being hanged in the streets of Iraq in revenge for Saddam's execution. It is an awful trend, with over hundred hostages being hanged throughout Iraq, some 200 hostages taken. Their article is mostly concerned with those events.

Additionally, at the very end of their article they write:

Seven children are reported to have died worldwide after seeing video footage of the execution of Saddam, many in "play" hangings. In the latest incident a boy of 12 hanged himself in north-east Saudi Arabia on Sunday, the Al-Hayat newspaper reported. His death followed similar hangings in Yemen, India, Algeria and America.

The reporters and Al-Hayat probably are unaware of the reported copycat death of Bobby Martin in Pennsylvania, and its seems, of the one in Pakistan, so I consider the total is at eight or nine or above. Here is my reconstruction of the timeline of hangings:

Saturday, December 30, 2006 - Iraq - Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging at dawn. Within minutes, Arab and Iraqi news sources are showing video of the preparations leading up to the hanging, the noose being placed around his neck, and then still photographs of his body.

Sunday, December 31, 2006 - Worldwide - Broadcast media show video taken of Saddam's hanging, via wall-to-wall coverage on cable news and news programs. More graphic footage from a cell-phone appears within hours of the execution on YouTube and other internet site, showing Saddam falling after a level is pulled.

Sunday, December 31, 2006 - Webster (near Houston), Texas - Sergio Pelico, 10, dies by hanging from his bunk bed after watching the news of Saddam's death, mimicking the tape he had watched with several family members. Local time in Texas is Sunday, but the Monday hanging of Mubashar Ali probably had already taken place.

Monday, January 1, 2007 - Multan, Pakistan - Mubashar Ali, 9, becomes the first copycat mentioned in some Mideast media, when he dies by hanging after tying a rope to a ceiling fan. Ali and his sister had been watching the Saddam footage on television and were imitating the hanging, according to their father.

Wednesday, January 2, 2007 - Kolkata, India - Moon Moon Karmarkar, 15, dies by hanging from a ceiling fan after watching the scene of the Saddam hanging over and over again, then not taking any food on Saturday and Sunday to protest the hanging. She was found dead early in the day.

Wednesday, January 2, 2007 - Harborcreek (near Erie), Pennsylvania - Robert Joseph “Bobby” Martin, 16, dies by hanging by stepping off a loft, after may have been viewing the Saddam video during a New Year's Eve party he gave for friends.

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - Hafr Al-Bath, Saudi Arabia - Sultan Abdullah Al-Shammari, 12, dies by hanging from a rope that he had attached to a iron door in his home, while re-enacting the widely publicized execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The Arab News reports that Sultan Abdullah Al-Shammari is copycat #4, but the Martin hanging apparently is not being counted. The UK's Telegraph mentions a total of seven children having died, mentioning India and America, but not Pakistan, then two additional countries as the locations of copycat incidents:

Yemen.

Algeria.

Certainly eight, if not more, of these copycat hanging incidents have unfortunately occurred. The wide and graphic dissemination of the footage of what has become the "public" execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, through the copycat effect, without media moderation or parental supervision, has to be logically considered as the root of this wave of deaths.

Saddam Copycat #5

The Arab News is reporting on Tuesday, 9, January, 2007 (20, Dhul Hijjah, 1427) of another Saddam execution video copycat hanging. This appears to be the fifth one revealed in various local and international media.

Please note in the article posted below, this newly reported incident is said to be the "fourth." But the source appears to be unaware of what we posted here today, of the fourth copycat, last January 3, 2007, in Harborcreek, Pennsylvania, when Bobby Martin, 16 years old, died by hanging who may have been watching the video during a New Year's Day party, (see Saddam Copycat #4).

12-Year-Old Saudi Boy in Copycat Hanging

Arab News

Hafr Al-Batin — A 12-year-old Saudi boy hanged himself on Sunday re-enacting the widely publicized execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

His brother found the boy, Sultan Abdullah Al-Shammari, hanging from a rope that he had fixed on an iron door in their home in Hafr Al-Batin, a small town 400 kilometers north of Riyadh, Okaz newspaper reported yesterday.

By the time Sultan was taken to a nearby hospital he was dead. Two of his younger brothers were watching the apparent accidental hanging.

A police investigation is under way to determine whether the accident was a case of parental negligence.

This marks the fourth youngster that has died imitating the hanging of the former Iraqi strongman. A 10-year-old boy in Houston, Texas, last Thursday hanged from his bunk bed, in a death that was ruled accidental. On the same day, a 15-year-old Indian girl committed suicide by hanging after becoming depressed and expressing outrage over the execution of the former dictator.

A nine-year-old Pakistani boy hanged himself from a ceiling fan on Jan. 1 trying to copy the scenes from the widely distributed video clip of the execution. That death was also ruled accidental.

Saddam Copycat #4

Another young person has died by hanging, in possible imitation of the Saddam execution video.

This occurred on Wednesday, January 3, 2007, in Harborcreek (a section of Erie), Pennsylvania, when a 16 year old died by hanging when he stepped off a loft (apparently with a rope around his nexk).

The young person's standard death notice was published in the Erie Times-News from January 4, 2007 and January 5, 2007.

It reads, in part:

Robert Joseph “Bobby” Martin, 16 of Erie, died Wednesday, January 03, 2007. He was born in Erie, September 28, 1990, a son of Thomas O. and Wendy Mangan Martin. Bobby was a 10th grade student at Harborcreek High School where he played on its Jr. and Varsity football team as both running back and line backer. He also was the assistant on the girls varsity basketball team. He was a member of St. Peter Cathedral, enjoyed the outdoors, school and his many friends.

According to one local resident who left a comment here, Bobby Martin was a popular football player and honors student. He "had a New Year's Eve party for friends and two days later was dead. One cannot help but think that viewing the Saddam video again and again and again and again planted the seed."

Nevertheless, it is unknown if he did view the footage.

Saddam Copycats #2 & #3

The Saddam execution video was shown so often on television and made so available on the internet, that it became a graphic model of behavior for young people to attempt to copycat. Telling in the following stories - and the one posted earlier - are the indications that direct copying of the videotape occurred. The ages of the young people - 9, 10, and 15 - are close enough to have been reflective of the modeling taking place. Furthermore, in the non-American incidents, the behavior contagion was even repeated in the copying of the use of ceiling fans. The copycat effect has been a factor, at least during this short window of contagion. Little restraint seems to have been taken by even the mainstream media who played most of the "official" and "cellphone" footage of Saddam's hanging, over and over, for days.

(Note: I expanded my comments here thanks to a blog by Dave LaMorte. His remarks reminded me that I wanted to come back and be a little more reflective. The above paragraph was added on January 7, 2007. Many people have found there way here due to Xeni Jardin's Boing Boing posting, of course.)

On Monday, I posted here about the death of Mubashar Ali, 9, who hanged himself in Pakistan, on Sunday, December 31, 2006, while copycatting the execution of Saddam Hussein.

Two more copycat hangings of young people have occurred in the wake of the widespread broadcasts of the Saddam hanging video on cable and satellite television, and the entire video on such outlets as YouTube. In Texas, Sergio Pelico, 10, was found Sunday, December 31, 2006, dead from hanging from his bunk bed in an apparent copycat of the Saddam death. In India, early on Wednesday, January 3, 2007, Moon Moon Karmarkar, 15, hanged herself from a ceiling fan.

I am posting extracts from the source articles on the Pelico and Karmarker deaths for archival reasons, as they have a tendency to disappear quickly.

Texas Boy Dies Mimicking Saddam's Hanging
Cops: 10-Year-Old Hung Himself From Bunk After Watching News About Execution
Houston, Jan. 4, 2007

Quote
"I don't think he thought it was real. They showed them putting the noose around his neck and everything. Why show that on TV?"
 
(CBS/AP) Police and family members said a 10-year-old boy who died by hanging himself from a bunk bed was apparently mimicking the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Sergio Pelico was found dead Sunday in his apartment bedroom in the Houston-area city of Webster, said Webster police Lt. Tom Claunch. Pelico's mother told police he had previously watched a news report on Saddam's death.

"It appears to be accidental," Claunch said. "Our gut reaction is that he was experimenting."

An autopsy of the fifth-grader's body was pending.

Julio Gustavo, Sergio's uncle, said the boy was a happy and curious child.

He said Sergio had watched TV news with another uncle on Saturday and asked the uncle about Saddam's death.

"His uncle told him it was because Saddam was real bad," Gustavo said. "He (Sergio) said, 'OK.' And that was it."

Sergio's mother, Sara Pelico DeLeon, was at work Sunday while Sergio and other children were under the care of an uncle, Gustavo said. One of the children found Sergio's body in his bedroom.

Police said the boy had tied a slipknot around his neck while on a bunk bed. Police investigators learned that Sergio had been upset about not getting a Christmas gift from his father, but they don't believe the boy intentionally killed himself.

A 9-year-old Pakistani boy also apparently hanged himself re-enacting Hussein's execution with the help of elder sister by tying a rope to a ceiling fan and his neck in his home, Agence France-Presse reported.

The boy's father said his children attempted to imitate the hanging while other family members thought they were playing in another room.

Clinical psychologist Edward Bischof, of California, said children Sergio's age mimic risky behaviors they see on TV — such as wrestling or extreme sports — without realizing the dangers. He said TV appeared to be the stimulant in Sergio's case.

"I would think maybe this kid is trying something that he thinks fun to act out without having the emotional and psychological maturity to think the thing through before he acts on it," Bischof said.

Family members held a memorial for the boy Wednesday in the apartment complex activity center. Gustavo said the family is trying to put together enough money to send Sergio's body to Guatemala for burial.

"I don't think he thought it was real," Gustavo said of Saddam's hanging. "They showed them putting the noose around his neck and everything. Why show that on TV?"

++++

"Kolkata teenager hangs herself over Saddam's execution"


Kolkata, Jan 4 (ANI): Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's execution has had a mixed reaction in India. While the government expressed its disappointment over his execution, the Left and some sections of the Muslim community accused the US of masterminding the Iraqi leader's killing, and there were the Shiatte population in different Indian towns who expressed jubilation over the hanging.

But nowhere, probably not even in Iraq did an ardent supporter of Saddam express his or her loyalty and sorrow over the execution by taking his or her own life.
So it was quite surprising that a 15 year old girl from Kolkata's suburbs to kill herself in response to Saddam's execution, even though the city is well known for its anti-US feelings and stance.

According to a report by a foreign news agency, the girl, Moon Moon Karmarkar hanged herself for wanting to "feel the pain Saddam did during the execution".
"She said they had hanged a patriot. We didn't take her seriously when she told us that she wanted to feel the pain, Saddam did during the execution," the girl's father Manmohan Karmakar was quoted as saying.
According to Manmohan, Moon Moon had become extremely depressed after watching Saddam's execution on television.
"She kept watching the scene over and again and didn't take food on Saturday and Sunday to protest the hanging," he said.
Police superintendent Pravin Kumar while confirming the suicide, said the girl had strung herself up from a ceiling fan and was found dead early on Wednesday.
Saddam was hanged for crimes against humanity at dawn on Saturday....(ANI)

Saddam Video Copycat

January 1, 2007 opens with the news of the death of a nine-year-old who died by hanging, as he attempted to imitate the widely broadcast Saddam Hussein execution video. This press account, "Boy hangs himself 'like Saddam'", includes the details of the young person's death and the realizations from some media critics that the video being shown is graphic:


Multan - A young boy who tried to copy hanging scenes from the execution video of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein died in central Pakistan, said police on Monday.

Mubashar Ali, 9, hanged himself, while re-enacting Hussein's hanging with the help of elder sister, 10, after tying a rope to a ceiling fan and his neck in his home in Rahim Yar Khan district on Sunday, said a local police official.

The father of the deceased boy said that his children had been watching the video of Saddam Hussein's execution on television and attempted to imitate the hanging as other family members thought they were playing in another room.

"My wife and sister rushed to rescue Mubashar when children cried for help from the adjoining room, but he died due to hanging," said Alamgir Paracha, father of Mubashar.

Police said that the death was accidental and a case of parental negligence.

"It was an accident which happened due to carelessness of parents," said district police chief Sultan Ahmad.

Images of the fallen Iraqi dictator with a strap around his neck, surrounded by executioners in balaclavas, were repeatedly telecast by Pakistani television channels at the weekend.

Commentators and the media across Europe had expressed shock and unease on Sunday at graphic television pictures showing the last moments of Hussein just before his execution.

Self-Immolation Attempt

Italian activist's TV suicide try foiled

An Italian fathers' rights activist says he tried unsuccessfully to self-immolate on live television to call attention to dads unable to see their kids. The ANSA news service reported Saturday that Nicola De Martino, who was recently re-united with his son after a 12-year separation, tried to set himself on fire Thursday night while appearing as a guest on the current affairs show, "Dieci Minute," or "Ten Minutes" on state television station RAI. ANSA said that the show's host, along with the distraught man's 18-year-old son "looked on in horror" as De Martino doused himself with gasoline and then threatened to light a match. Host Maurizio Martinelli and the studio crew frantically managed to wrest the lit match from De Martino's hands. He was then led away from the stage.