Failed attack at UCF

[Miles Monroe]

The University of Central Florida student who planned to massacre his fellow students had ordered more than $700 worth of weapons online, including two packages of ammunition, gun shooting DVDs, and accessories for his weapons that arrived on campus after the attack had already been thwarted.

The packages contained even more ammunition for the attack that former UCF student James Oliver Seevakumaran, 30, planned to carry out Monday morning shortly after midnight.

He already had a handgun, assault rifle, high capacity magazines, and four homemade bombs he hoped to use on fellow students after pulling the fire alarm and forcing them into the crowded hallways, according to police.

University Police Chief Richard Beary said today that Seevakumaran had written out a detailed list of the actions he hoped to take Monday night and crossed off the items as he went, including getting drunk at a bar called Mad Hatters and pulling the fire alarm. Police confirmed that he did both.

Full story

This one has me fairly wigged out being my daughter is attending UCF. She roomed at the Towers last year. She normally wouldn't be on campus late on a Sunday night, but as luck would have it, Sunday night was the start of some festival, and the set up a tent city on the mall.... about 200 yards from Towers 1 with a clean line of sight for the most part.

Spoke to my daughter, and though she wouldn't admit it, I could tell she was rattled a bit. I can't blame her...

 

[tshile]

wonder what made him decide to take his own life before taking others.

 

[riggins44]

I know how you feel. My son is attending Radford. Last year a police officer at VT was killed by a kid from Radford. I got an emergency alert on my phone. The kid lived just down the street from Michael.

As a parent, I don't know if it is worse knowing or not knowing about things.

What I wonder is what happened? When I went to school the last thing you worried about was a kid going on a killing spree.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

Man, thankfully this was quelled before it ever began, Pete! I bet that's a relief like no other!

 

[tshile]

What I wonder is what happened? When I went to school the last thing you worried about was a kid going on a killing spree.

What happened is instant information and fame for anything that may gather attention. A shooting at a school isn't a footnote in the crime section of the news paper/local nightly news broadcast. It's 2-3 weeks of 24/7 news coverage. You want attention? What better way... seriously, outside of a massive terrorist attack what gets more attention from our nation as a whole aside from a school shooting at this point?

Yellow journalism has always existed, but given the speed of information, how desensitized we've become as society (thank you internet), and how short our attention span is that form of journalism has taken off as the primary way of broadcasting news.

It brings in ratings which brings in money. Sad but true. You can blame the networks all you want, I choose to blame the people that tune in and drive the ratings up. If no one watched CNN/Foxnews/MSNBC when crap like this happened they wouldn't make any money because there would be no ratings, so they'd quickly show something else to bring the ratings back up.

 

[tshile]

Man, thankfully this was quelled before it ever began, Pete! I bet that's a relief like no other!

Yeah, sorry, I was so shocked by the fact that he decided to not go through with it I completely forgot to mention that.

Hopefully that's the last time your family has to deal with anything like that. Once is too many.

 

[Miles Monroe]

Wish I could sit down with her to get a read on where her head is at. She was so upset over the Newtown tragedy, associating some fear in her choice to become a teacher. Now this situation, due to pure luck, nobody was injured. She likely has seen this guy a number of times, as he worked at a sushi joint she goes to all the time.

I know how stuff like this can change the game for some people, happening where ya live. Not that you think it can't happen here, because in this day and age, we know no place or thing is truly safe from an attack. But when it does happen locally, it still catches you off guard.

She is a bit more like me, putting stuff behind and moving forward. I don't know if I would call my feeling relief. From the moment we knew of the incident, we knew she was safe. It's almost added some fear, where the false sense of security had been, knowing what could have happened.

I'm thankful more then anything else.