What do DUers think? Here are the bulletins that got the USM student arrested.

A University of Southern Mississippi student was arrested on Wednesday for "making internet threats" against the university. He's being held on $1 million bond. He's a weird guy, of that there is no doubt. He has a myspace page here: www.myspace.com/smokerfromhell

In media coverage, the UPD chief who arrested him won't say exactly what the student said that got him arrested, only that he made threats and the university police believed those threats credible, and they are certain that the arrest of this student avoided another VT-type incident. When they searched this student's home, in which he lives with his grandmother, they found rifles, shotguns, a mac-10, and a semi-auto handgun.

The student sent out these bulletins to his friends list at myspace. Evidently, one of the people on his friends list turned over his bulletins to a professor on campus, who turned them over to UPD.

The media have not told readers exactly what the student said that caused him to be arrested. But today, on the newspaper's forum, one of the people on the student's friends list posted the bulletins. The student and his friends claim that the student is "misunderstood," and that his bulletins have been taken out of context and forced into the VT context, because, evidently, these bulletins were sent out before the VT tragedy.

Here they are:

First bulletin: (includes a quotation from the Columbine kids)

" I hate you all for not inviting me to all the fun things you did, and don't blame this on me like its my fault, because I tried. "let's not invite that weird looking Eric kid along". **** you... shut up... and die!!!"

"My wrath for january's incident will be god-like. We don't give a **** because we are going to die doing it."

America must face the consequences of it's own mediocrity. The Masters will always value ending thier lives in exchange
for destroying that of the herd. Time and time again America must learn...

just because the stupid people like paris hilton, does not mean people don't have to die for your profits.
credo experto

Second bulletin:

Wake up. you are not safe no matter how many SUV's you own. We don't like your value of commodities. If you **** with us WE WILL KILL YOU. America must get over its placation to the lowest common denominator. The violence will not end. Recogize the value of true independence or die. one at a time.

ad hoc

Third bulletin:

will be performed, in all its drunken splendor, by Charles Yuri Wainwright (himself, the one and only Ubermensch) - social security number , address 159 Eat **** Lane- on April 21 for those that have lost their lives both this year and 1999.
no charge
no responsibility

Fourth bulletin:

remember that the first "school shooter" was your own gracious, god-given government. Don't believe me?
look up Kent State University.
haha

***********************

On the kid's myspace page, someone posted instructions on building a silencer. That would make readers think that, perhaps, this student was asking around about it.

So, what do you think? Is quoting the Columbine killers arrest-worthy? Is the second bulletin the one that got him in trouble? I can't imagine that mentioning Kent State would be an arrestable offense.

What do DUers think?

Everything this kid says is an alarm bell. NOW they should get him some help.
Lee

At a MINIMUM!

If the law is correct regarding individuals losing their right to bear arms if they have been judged mentally unfit or whatever then it might be the thing to do.

Whether that will stop him from fulfilling his hatred in a manner not appropriate that is another matter.

of course now people are taking closer looks at strange rants that were previously dismissed as lame jokes...

some of the things he references are vague, but that "If you **** with us WE WILL KILL YOU." line sticks out--Granted, i don't know who 'you' and 'us' are

"If you fuck with us we will kill you." That is probably why he's in jail right now. Add to that the request for info on silencers and the weapons found in his house. Yeah, I'm thinking that that's what resulted in him being arrested.

good arrest - provided the cops knew he had the means through a legitimate source before they made the arrest. I know younger kids have a really bizarre and shock culture thing going on, my son's friends say some pretty wild shit. But none of them have the means to carry out a massacre and actually think guns and violence is a small-minded way to handle problems.

I'd have to know more about the details behind the arrest before deciding for sure.

Here are some links, if you are interested in reading what's been reported up to this point.

At the university's student newspaper, there are two articles on the front page:

www.studentprintz.com

And these are various articles, in chronological order, that have been in the media since the arrest:

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704190303

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770419021

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770420008

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704200322

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770420008

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704210311

Columbine worship, silencer queries, threats, mini-arsenal, off meds - oh yes, very good arrest.

"State prosecutors told Judge Pat Causey after talking with Wainwright's family, and because the suspect was not taking his medication, he had the potential for dangerous activity."

http://media.www.studentprintz.com/media/storage/paper974/news/2007/04/19/News/Usm-Student.Held.On.1.Million.Bond-2871971.shtml

Thanks for posting that.

Guns are a right of passage, a status symbol, boy toys, all of that. I hate guns and I had several. My spouse's family had dozens. I knew more people growing up who died from guns than from ever other cause combined (well, except "old age).

His arsenal is really not that unusual in Mississippi. Even if all the weapons were his--doesn't it say they were at his parents' house? They may have been family weapons.

On edit: I reread, it says he lived with his grandmother.

Not what you find in most collections in the South...although I'm sure that serious gun collectors have them.

He claims to be a gun collector.

My brother-in-law lives in the south, born in the south. He doesn't have that many guns. I lived most of my adult life in Montana, people there didn't have that many guns. Is he a collector in that the guns were all nicely stored and maintained? Maybe so. Or is that just a bullshit line to cover his motives. More likely.

In any event, if I were to get upset that everybody in the south has an arsenal in their basement, I'd be blamed for southern bashing. Yet here's a southerner that perpetuates that bullshit, and then gets pissed off when people repeat it.

"My wrath for january's incident will be god-like. We don't give a **** because we are going to die doing it."

from the Colorado shooting.

I believe that the first bulletin contains a quotation from Dylan Kleebold--I think that that's part of it.

But I could easily build a case that he's not threatening anyone personally, that he's following right wing talking points about how weak America has become. Our material wealth won't save us, only toughening ourselves will. All that stuff. "We will kill you" sounds more like him saying America will kill all the weaklings that stand in our way. These mass shooters tend to be egomaniacs. "I will kill you, worship the mighty ME!" Stuff like that. Plus, the fact that he sent these to people seems significant--if you are planning a horrendous crime, you don't brag about it. If you brag about it, you want the attention more than the crime.

He sounds like he's a far right-winger mad at the government, threatening that the strong will rise up and destroy the weak. All that Limbaugh/Savage nonsense. Goes along with gun collecting. The line about Kent State is more criticism of the government.

Still, the second email has echoes of the first memo's Columbine quotes: mediocrity and destroying the herd and America must learn sound a lot like the second letter's "common denominator" and "true independence."

The third bulletin would worry my most. That sounds like he's bragging about something he's going to do. The last two lines, "no charge, no responsibility," combined with the line in the first about Masters dying to kill sheep, sound like a threat to kill himself after doing something horrendous.

I don't think the cops are over-reacting, but this guy sounds more like a drunk, half-coherent right-winger to me. And by right-winger, I don't mean average Republican or even average Limbaugh supporter, I mean militia, McVeigh type right-winger. He definitely needs evaluation and monitoring. Easier to apologize to him latter than to the families of 30 victims.

Were those the whole emails, or just part of them?

Here's a link to the forum, so you can see what was posted:

http://forums.hattiesburgamerican.com/viewtopic.php?t=5352

And the tone and humor make the "bulletins" seem less sinister. He has a pretty vivid sense of humor and a love of shocking and the macabre (picking Hitler as one of the people he'd like to dine with, for instance), but he doesn't sound crazy, violent, or scary in that bio.

Having grown up on the Coast in Mississippi and having spent a lot of time at USM (several friends went there), I know how dull it is for a teenager with a sharper-than-average mind. I also know what law enforcement in that area is like. It tends to be less aware, less intelligent, and more prone to grandiose assumptions than bigger town cops.

Overall, his bio sounds optimistic, includes future ambitions and a general sense that he thinks he can accomplish them, and fairly bright. He also likes to write, which could explain why he makes outlandish statements. Reminds me of me at that age, to be honest, although I had a leftist, non-violent bent, rather than his right-wing bent. And I didn't drink. Most of those "bulletins" strike me as drunken ramblings.

Still, he may have changed after writing that. I don't know. We are supposed to live in a country where "I don't know" means "leave him alone until you can prove something," but given what happened Monday, I suspect that rule will be even less observed for the near future than it has been for the last six years. And I'm curious about the third bulletin, especially since there is obviously something missing from the first part. It starts in mid sentence. I wonder if the person who posted it cut out something more damaging than what was posted. That's the post that made me most suspicious. The second one sounds more like a rant about America killing people elsewhere.

Shame. He seems likable from the bio. If he's slipped into some mental illness, I hope they can treat him (I have to say that the nature of the bio doesn't sound like anyone I've known with mental illness). If he's misunderstood, I hope they clear it up soon. If he was really plotting something, I hope they lock him up. How's that, I think I've covered all bases?

Any idea what part of Mississippi he's from?

He lives with his grandmother out in Oak Grove (you know where that is, right? West of Hattiesburg on 98.).

From his blog, it appears that he went to school in NOLA and perhaps lived there until Katrina, and then came back to Hub to finish his education.

Again, this is stuff that the media aren't telling us, so there's a lot of speculation going on...and I'm not in the local broadcast area, so I'm not seeing what WDAM and WLOX are saying about this.

Have you been to the Hub lately? It's growing like crazy. Growing toward the west--won't be long until Hattiesburg and Columbia have adjoining city limits. Columbia's growing leaps and bounds, too.

Yeah, I think something is missing in that copy/paste, too. The date that he cites is today, April 21. But classes aren't going on on campus on Saturdays. Also, the date of Columbine was the 20th.

So, yeah, it's confusing, trying to piece it together.

:) The time I spent in Hattiesburg was in the mid 80s, all on campus, and I haven't been north of Wiggins much in 16 years, probably.

One article says his parents live in Purvis.

if you head out west on Hardy Street--it runs into 98, keep going west a couple of miles, and you're in Oak Grove. Purvis is south of Oak Grove on 11.

http://www.google.com/maps?q=Purvis,+MS,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=image

might be a danger to himself?

The big problem with arresting his is that if he is mentally ill, as suspected, jails are not equipped for the mentally ill. Jail guards/correction officers have no training on how to handle the mentally ill. I'm not sure his posts constitute a crime, they (the parents and the court) are using the jail as a pathetic substitute for our failed/non existent mental health system.

Absolutely agree with that. That's one of the biggest problems we've got with the male justice system. Women usually do get psychiatric care, or at least used to. Men have always been sent off to prison, and its gotten worse since we closed the state facilities too.

http://media.www.studentprintz.com/media/storage/paper974/news/2007/04/19/News/Usm-Student.Held.On.1.Million.Bond-2871971.shtml

So it doesn't matter his sex. He is probably on suicide watch, but that doesn't really do much relative to evaluation and treatment. They check on him every 15 or 30 or 45 minutes depending on the protocol established and then they keep a log, that is the extent of suicide watch.

I don't think most counties have an adequate method of housing mentally ill. But he should still be in the local hospital with a guard, if necessary. Those psych units are locked down and they should be prepared to handle any sort of emergency anyway. I'd like to see us completely revamp our system and separate addicts, mentally ill, various disorders, violent criminals and repeat offenders, from the rest, which means I really don't think there'd be any "rest". Our justice system and the way we think about the dangers humans create in society is all screwed up, in my estimation.

don't necessarily offer the "lock down pysch" units they once did. It is too costly for them and most psych patients don't have health insurance and don't pay their bills.

Reagan's legacy continues to haunt us to this day. Though I agree the mental health facilities had problems, closing them down did not address the problems it just created more problems for society.

You're right about that. Neither hospitals have lock-down psych units. They refer cases like that to Whitfield or, if not violent, Pine Grove in-patient.

and Whitfield is over crowded with waiting lists.

Hopefully this kid will get help.

I believe they would transport the person the 60 miles to the hospital that does, although it's not uncommon for them to routinely transport criminals because we only house very low risk people here. Back in the 80's, Oregon invested in a system of local jails rather than building a new state facility. We were fighting for them to include more treatment facilities instead of just jails, but they insisted they would provide all the therapy necessary through the local jail system, which they try to do, but don't always succeed at. It's slightly better than a straight jail or prison scenario, but not much. Now we are having trouble raising the local money to properly manage the facilities. If the rural parts of the state won't support the taxes, then larger counties have to foot the bill themselves. I suppose it really is very hard trying to manage a society of people from the slightly dented to the completely shattered. I just hope for the best for that guy and I'm glad nobody got hurt.

I just saw that above, in sandnsea's post.

I'm not in WDAM's broadcast area, so I'm not hearing what's being broadcast on the local news about this.

I agree with you, though, that something should have been done. When I read that he had a mac-10, that's when it really hit me that he could have been planning something.

He does need help for his mental illness, but he won't get it in jail. :(

Have you heard anything else that the family has said?

parents advising they court they felt he could be a danger to himself.

I can't find it, but I am almost certain I heard it because the bond amount for the charges didn't make sense to me. I don't see his posts as threats per se, I do see them to be of a concern and that this fellow needs some help (and the guns taken from him).

http://media.www.studentprintz.com/media/storage/paper974/news/2007/04/19/News/Usm-Student.Held.On.1.Million.Bond-2871971.shtml

I think that this kid was toying with the law, pushing to see how far he could get, and...well...the rest is history.

I bet if you search the internet you will find all sorts of rants like his.

And much worse.

:wow:

However, I'm not sure arrest is the proper approach. Counseling and perhaps a review of whatever permits or licenses he possesses for the weapons might be better.

In Mississippi, though, you either get arrested or committed. I read above that his family knew there was a problem...well, they should have had him involuntarily committed, so that he could get help, instead of waiting for the law to handle it. In Mississippi, the mentally ill are incarcerated just like the rapists and murderers are. So he's now out of the grasp of the kind of help he probably needed.

NT

Thanks.

They make FR look like us. :puke:

I read the articles Maddy posted above, and he says he didn't post any threats, that all but one of the "bulletins" were quotes by the Columbine shooters, and the other was a warning against believing what the government says.

"“After the Virginia Tech incident I posted three bulletins (to MySpace). One was referring to if you want to judge the shooting at Virginia Tech, everything you say can be turned around on you by the U.S. government – look at what happened at Kent State (University),” he said, referring to the 1970 fatal shootings of four student activists by members of the Ohio National Guard.

The other bulletins, he said, quoted Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teens who killed 12 students at Columbine High School in 1999."

That would explain why the second bulletin says "We" instead of "I," and it makes the "No charges, no responsibility" line a quote, as well as the threat to kill. It doesn't explain the third memo, though, which must have been written by Wainwright, and is missing part of it.

One of the articles quotes the police chief as saying after speaking to his family, he decided to arrest him. The article doesn't say the family suggested they arrest him.

It also says he is off his meds, but they are anti-depressants: Wainwright, who said he is taking anti-depressants, said he is being well treated in jail.

None of the guns were illegal, the cops said. Maddy mentioned a MAC-10, but none of the articles linked mention that. Even so, if he owns it legally, that doesn't necessarily prove anything.

I'm sure Maddy and the others in the region know more than what's in these short articles. That's just the info I've seen.

-----------------

Summary: I'm less convinced than ever now. He's on anti-depressants, and while depression is a mental illness, it is not of the same nature as paranoid delusion or psychopathy or whatever Cho suffered from. His gun collection isn't any more outrageous than many people's I knew growing up. And the most threatening "bulletins" he claims were quotes of the Columbine killers, which he posted to make people see VT in a different light.

But I haven't seen anything, and he could be lying about the quotes (Mississippi journalists seem to inept to actually confirm the quotes). The article says he's on anti-depressants, but it doesn't say whether that info came from Wainwright or the jail. I'm guessing Wainwright, so that could be a lie. Although, one of his friends posted that on his myspace page, too.

Having defended him, I'd still say the police were right to question him. I'm concerned (yes, I'm suddenly a concern troll!) that they are going to stick to their conclusions irregardless of new evidence, though. I guess we'll see how this plays out. Maybe all this attention will give him proper legal representation and proper psychological evaluation, and then everyone can rest easier.

The first edition of the article stated that an assortment of shotguns, rifles, semi-auto handguns, an SK 47 and a Mac 10 were taken from the house. Five hours later, the article just says that guns were recovered, but no mention of the sk or the mac.

I'm thinking that the person who copy/pasted the bulletins to the newspaper forum probably split one of them into two parts, so that it appears to be four instead of three.

Here's the link to the forum:

http://forums.hattiesburgamerican.com/viewtopic.php?t=5352

One of the articles states, also, that he did not want a public defender. I'm hoping that he has a private lawyer, then...I'm hoping that he's not thinking, "Well, I'm innocent and the truth will out." He needs a defense attorney, pronto.

He's not just ranting, he's making threats, albeit vague, incoherent ones.

"Save a Seal: Club A Liberal"

or

"Liberal Hunting Season".

Seems to me those are threats, too.

Out of all those quotes, I don't think I saw one that was NOT a threat. And quoting those Columbine jerks is a big huge red flag, if you ask me. I think that person needs mental help before it's too late. That's just my $.02 worth.