Insight to a Killer

The following paragraphs gave me more insight into Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland, Florida killer, than all the news reports combined.

I Tried to Befriend Nikolas Cruz. He Still Killed My Friends.

By ISABELLE ROBINSON
MARCH 27, 2018

PARKLAND, Fla. — My first interaction with Nikolas Cruz happened when I was in seventh grade. I was eating lunch with my friends, most likely discussing One Direction or Ed Sheeran, when I felt a sudden pain in my lower back. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of my 90-pound body; tears stung my eyes. I turned around and saw him, smirking. I had never seen this boy before, but I would never forget his face. His eyes were lit up with a sick, twisted joy as he watched me cry.

The apple that he had thrown at my back rolled slowly along the tiled floor. A cafeteria aide rushed over to ask me if I was O.K. I don’t remember if Mr. Cruz was confronted over his actions, but in my 12-year-old naïveté, I trusted that the adults around me would take care of the situation.

Five years later, hiding in a dark closet inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I would discover just how wrong I was

Isabelle Robinson's account of Cruz throwing an apple at her captures the sadistic mind of the future killer. We have all faced an aggressive act from a hostile person. Maybe that makes Ms. Robinson's commentary so poignant. Most of us have never faced the barrel of an AR-15, or any firearm for that matter. 

Cruz's depraved act, attacking an innocent student with a hard-thrown apple, seems easier to grasp at that level. That he would return years later an open fire with an assault rifle seems only like the same act-- on steroids. Or on semiautomatic weapons...

Cruz's recent Adoptive Parents:

We haven't heard much about the Snead family, James and Kimberly Snead, the adoptive parents to take Nikolas Cruz into their house in recent months. The Snead claimed to know nothing about the serious suspicions surrounding Cruz.

The Sneads encountered Nikolas Cruz very late in the process. They had a son of their own, a Douglas HS student who was in the building when Cruz gunned down his former classmates and teachers.

The Snead family offered a few comments, reported by CNN, and they proved upsetting. :

The Sneads allowed Cruz to bring his firearms into the home, but they made him buy a locking gun safe, they told the Sun Sentinel. James Snead thought he had the only key to the safe, but he now believes Cruz kept one for himself, he told the paper.

They said they told Cruz he needed to ask permission to take out the guns.

"This family did what they thought was right, which was take in a troubled kid and try to help him, and that doesn't mean he can't bring his stuff into their house," Lewis, their attorney, told CNN.

Unfortunately "his stuff" included an AR-15.

Isabelle experienced the unvarnished Nikolas Cruz five years before the tragedy. Her article makes a strong case for Cruz's classmates not having played a role in his unraveling. Cruz had unraveled years earlier, and most likely his downfall began in the cradle. Cruz sounds like a dispassionate robotic killer. He had a penchant for hurting people-- whether with an apple or bullets. 

The thing that makes me wonder— how a recent addition to your home, in this case an adoptive young man with a troubled history—arrives on the scene with his personal AR-15 and red flags don’t go up.

The Sneads didn’t take notice… Neither did the rest of the country until the Douglas High School students took action.

America's Kids Under Siege (guns and social media)

Maybe you remember your high school days? Peer pressure was intense, no doubt about it. Something about adolescence makes everybody want to fit in, to conform, and to win the love and approval of friends and family. The desire for success leads kids to go out for sports teams, dress in the coolest fashions and learn the lingo of the peer group. Today's kids face several new enemies (1) the social network, and (2) maniacs carrying powerful weapons on to campus.

The social network poses a bigger threat for young people.

It is very unlikely that a crazed individual will enter your kid's high school with the goal of mowing down a group of innocents. Parkland, Florida proved that it does happen. Television brought us there immediately.

Parkland, Florida felt different. We all went to high school. We could relate to being in the classrooms and the thought of an intruder with an AR-15 boggles the mind. Gun lovers complained about FBI's inept performance in not following leads and they have a point. I liked the father who appeared at Trump's White House gathering and said "9/11 happened just once. We were determined that it never happen again." He spoke angrily about why previous mass shootings did not cause enough outrage to bring the school shootings situation to a halt?

We are unlikely to see any changes in gun control laws. Gun owners do not want to be denied just because a few nut cases get out of hand and mow down the citizenry. They have a point, I suppose, and worry constantly that someone "will come and take away the guns." Not sure we have any evidence of that and I wonder where the fear comes from?

The mass shooting of a campus began in Austin, Texas-- my hometown with the infamous Charles Whitman climbing to the top of the tower on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. That was 1966--

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the University of Texas Tower with three rifles, two pistols, and a sawed-off shotgun. The 25-year-old architectural engineering major and ex-Marine—who had previously complained of searing headaches and depression—had already murdered his mother, Margaret, and his wife, Kathy, earlier that morning. He fired his first shots just before noon, aiming with chilling precision at pedestrians below. “The crime scene spanned the length of five city blocks . . . and covered the nerve center of what was then a relatively small, quiet college town,” noted executive editor Pamela Colloff in her 2006 oral history of the shootings. “Hundreds of students, professors, tourists, and store clerks witnessed the 96-minute killing spree as they crouched behind trees, hid under desks, took cover in stairwells, or, if they had been hit, played dead.”

At the time, there was no precedent for such a tragedy. Whitman “introduced the nation to the idea of mass murder in a public space,” wrote Colloff. By the time he was gunned down by an Austin police officer early that afternoon, he had shot 43 people, thirteen of whom died.

(Texas Monthly)

We've had many years to learn from the Whitman massacre. 

The Vietnam War lead to demonstrations-- and a social movement-- a movement based on peace, love and equality. Times were different. That was the television era. The medium has moved from television to the cellphone. Everybody looking into their own phone....

What matters?

                                                                                

Which of these stories matters the most to you?
* Hope Hicks, Communication Director leaves Trump's White House
* Jared Kushner loses Top Secret security status
* Barbra Streisand cloned her dog
* Arctic temperatures surge-- in the dead of winter

You can probably guess which one got my attention. Read these three paragraphs from The Guardian:

Arctic warming: scientists alarmed by ‘crazy’ temperature rise

by: Jonathan Watts Global environment editor

Tue 27 Feb 2018 10.15 EST

An alarming heatwave in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.

Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north.

The north pole gets no sunlight until March, but an influx of warm air has pushed temperatures in Siberia up by as much as 35C above historical averages this month. Greenland has already experienced 61 hours above freezing in 2018 - more than three times as many hours as in any previous year.

Back to the blog…

You have got to admit there is cause for concern. Each of the three paragraphs tells an amazing story—more interesting, alarming and cause-for-concern than all the Jared Kushners… Hope Hicks and Barbra Streisand puppies combined.

We gravitate to the mundane, the minutiae, the Trumpian drama, the politics and gossip of the moment while our world crumbles, or melts, around us.

There is a psychological condition to explain this behavior, no doubt Call it “denial” or call it “rationalization” … but don’t call it late for dinner. That’s a little humor.

The Parkland, Florida horror deserved our attention. Even if nothing changes.

Or maybe the young people can make a dent in reality—and will influence the debate. Their protests will have to match Vietnam-era revolutionary action to have a chance to budge the corrupt congressmen and senators. I’m not sure the AR-15, scary as it is, threatens young people the way Vietnam threatened the health and well being of that generation.

Trump is an attention-grabber, maybe the best in the biz. But this Arctic story posed no threat to Trump. Because nobody cared. Nobody asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders about Arctic temperatures. She would tell us something along the lines about some days are hotter than others. Maybe add “Just like in Arkansas.”

We’re not in Arkansas anymore.