Shedding Light on an Especially Violent Week of American Hate

The first question is always the same: can we understand insane acts like the several that made massive news this past week (two senior citizens killed for being black in a grocery store, pipe bombs sent to leading Trump opponents, 11 murdered in a Pittsburgh synagogue)? The course's answer is yes we can. More on that in lecture and section this week.

Two others are, why do people pick the wrong targets? Can detection-like inquiry reduce this problem?  This piece confirms the relevance of this problem in the pipe-bombing case. David Dayen, a prominent financial journalist (author of Chain of Title), starts with this:

Cesar Sayoc, the Donald Trump-loving Floridian who was taken into custody in relation to pipe bombs mailed to prominent Democrats, was foreclosed on in 2009 by a bank whose principal owner and chair is now Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin.

Also relevant: this journalist's Twitter thread about the knowledge problems created by "both-sidesism," which, as we know, detectives like Sherlock Holmes scrupulously avoid.

Slides on Paper 1

Chicago Police

I mentioned Marlowe's description of police brutality and then the Chicago Police Department's perennial problems with this. Then I discovered the New York Times had an editorial that very day on the subject.   It starts like this:

Chicago erupted three years ago when the city belatedly released a video showing that a white officer had essentially executed a black teenager named Laquan McDonald and that the police and city officials lied about it for months. The public’s outrage drove the police superintendent and county prosecutor from their jobs. Last Friday, 12 jurors convicted the officer, Jason Van Dyke, of second-degree murder after less than eight hours of deliberation.

Take a look.

Echoes from the Toronto Drive-By Killings

Some course themes reappeared in this crime. One was "suicide by police"-- the van driver specifically requested that the officer shoot him "in the head."  The second is police killings: this cop did not take the bait.  He shouted repeatedly, "get down or be shot," but he did not shoot, even when the driver charged him with a weapon. The restraint here was remarkable and something I'd like to see much more often in the U.S.  The third is "toxic masculinity," tied directly back to Isla Vista's killer Elliott Rodger.  Alek Minassian's

last Facebook post read: “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

Small world, not in a good way.

See you next time

Emma Gonzalez's Speech about the Parkland School Massacre

when a 17 year old burns down D.C. gun politics.

What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings?

We discussed this briefly in Thursday lecture in the wake of the latest mass killings at a US school, this time 17 in Florida.  The answer to the question is in the chart.  Check out the whole article--where the chart has labels--including the brutal last line.