Antoine B. Craigwell graduated from Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York with a double major in psychology and journalism. As a journalist, he has written for several publications. His articles have appeared in Fortune Small Business (FSB), the Villager Newspapers in Northeastern Connecticut, The Bronx Times Reporter and The Bronx Times, The Amsterdam News, and recently for The Network Journal, in New York City.
Another shooting in a public place! When the news broke of a shooting in a shopping mall in Omaha, NE, and when order had been restored to pandemonium and chaos, of people running, screaming and ducking for cover, there were nine fatalities, including the gunman, Robert Hawkins. Images released from the Von Maur shopping mall show 19-year-old Hawkins pointing a rifle, people running and some being wheeled through the doors on stretchers, a final telephone call, and a suicide note have all confirmed he was the lone gunman.
Still emanating from authorities in the city are reports regarding the entire incident continue to replay the repeated sound ‘pop-pop’ of 23 rounds being fired against the backdrop of the voice of a 9-1-1 operator quizzing a caller and of people screaming. Television images showed interviews with frightened and traumatized witnesses, whose recollections of the sequence of events have already become altered— undoubtedly, their respective minds have gone into “lockdown-mode” as protection from the memory.
In the analyses and blame pointing, one correspondent on the scene representing a New York-based news radio station, 1010WINS, said that the question being asked is how did the gunman obtain a rifle? Other reports coming out of the mall area speak of people terrorized, fearful and traumatized. Another reporter said that what is being looked at and the questions now being asked, after looking at the trail of evidence Hawkins has left, is what had happened to cause him to want to commit, not only suicide, but murder as well.
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Another shooting in a public place! When the news broke of a shooting in a shopping mall in Omaha, NE, and when order had been restored to pandemonium and chaos, of people running, screaming and ducking for cover, there were nine fatalities, including the gunman, Robert Hawkins. Images released from the Von Maur shopping mall show 19-year-old Hawkins pointing a rifle, people running and some being wheeled through the doors on stretchers, a final telephone call, and a suicide note have all confirmed he was the lone gunman.
Still emanating from authorities in the city are reports regarding the entire incident continue to replay the repeated sound ‘pop-pop’ of 23 rounds being fired against the backdrop of the voice of a 9-1-1 operator quizzing a caller and of people screaming. Television images showed interviews with frightened and traumatized witnesses, whose recollections of the sequence of events have already become altered— undoubtedly, their respective minds have gone into “lockdown-mode” as protection from the memory.
In the analyses and blame pointing, one correspondent on the scene representing a New York-based news radio station, 1010WINS, said that the question being asked is how did the gunman obtain a rifle? Other reports coming out of the mall area speak of people terrorized, fearful and traumatized. Another reporter said that what is being looked at and the questions now being asked, after looking at the trail of evidence Hawkins has left, is what had happened to cause him to want to commit, not only suicide, but murder as well.
As many psychological experts would attest, the act of suicide, by definition, killing the self, is on moral grounds considered a selfish act, is rather a cry not only for attention but help. What should be clear and obvious to everyone today, is that there are a number of people struggling with a plethora of psychological issues, who have not sought treatment and for whom there could be any number of triggers to make them snap.
No doubt the blame game and finger pointing away from the self, the abdication of responsibility has already begun in Hawkins’ immediate circle of family, relatives, friends and acquaintances, and from city, state and federal officials.
In 2007, so far, there have been one too many occasions of psychologically disturbed or unbalanced young men committing acts of violence against those closest to them, to strangers and ultimately to themselves. These shooters are not confined to any particular racial demographic.
A time line of shootings in the U.S. for 2007, reveal: Jan 3, in Tacoma, Wash., Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot a fellow student in the hallway of Henry Foss High School; Feb 8, Prineville, OR., 18-year old male student committed suicide with a gunshot to his head; Apr 16, in Blacksburg, Va., 23-year old Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 faculty and students and wounding 15 others, then killed himself; Oct 10, in Cleveland, OH., 14-year old Asa H. Coon shot and injured two students and two students before killing himself; and now this week, Hawkins in Omaha, NE., shooting and killing 8 people and himself in a shopping mall.
Some questions that should be asked and which are not being asked or addressed: How are the teenage young men and women, coping with the pressures of life as they struggle to grow to maturity? When it is recognized that teenagers have psychological issues, beyond superficial treatment regimens, what is being done to address their deeper issues? What does it say about the society when many of the young people resort to violence against others and themselves as the only option or way out? What are the pressures put on young men and women by their families, their peers, their schools and their immediate society as a whole?
Reports about Hawkins suggest that he was removed from his family’s home, became a ward of the state after he reportedly threatened his stepmother and was confined to a juvenile detention facility. Was he abused in that facility? He was treated for depression and for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) but wasn’t on any medication at the time of the shooting. Why not and who should have been monitoring him and did not?