The Worst School Shooting Since Sandy Hook Happened, And No One’s Looking For An Explanation

The worst school shooting since Sandy Hook happened three weeks ago – and the news has all but forgotten about it. Apart from the few updates about victims continuing to die, we’ve somehow accepted the narrative that a popular, attractive boy snapped because of some heartbreak or bullying — and the best thing that we can all do is move on and let the families heal.

Wrong.

Everything plays out in the media now. Everything. The radio silence that has occurred since this shooting is sending a rather loud message to our children — and it’s one that we should be very concerned about.

Should we be happy that this shooter wasn’t vilified in the media like every, single other school shooter in our history was?  Should we be comforted with the image of one of the only surviving victims smiling with a pop star? Should we be glad his ex-girlfriend — the one he sent a gun selfie to before he shot five of his friends and turned the gun on himself — is so nonplussed about being connected to a killer and this tragedy that she keeps an image of him on her public Facebook page and writes loving messages to him that she knows the world will see?

I’m going to say, “no.”

In the days after the shooting, stories began to appear about a heartbreak and a love triangle. The media seemed to be excusing this killer for taking three lives and his own because he was sad about a girl. There were hints of “betrayal” in several news stories. Articles covering the shooting seemed to be memorializing the killer right along with his victims.

In a commentary after the shooting, I pointed out how troubling the message we were sending to young girls and boys was — that heartbreak was an excuse for murder. That girls were tantamount to property, and weren’t allowed to make decisions about their own bodies and love lives without feeling a real fear that there may be repercussions — and that society was only too happy to explain those repercussions away. I immediately began being contacted by “friends” of the shooter.

(Related: Stop Excusing The Actions Of A Murderer By Calling Him ‘Heartbroken’)

Those who claimed to know the shooter were angry that there was some fallacies in the “love triangle” the media was portraying. The story I was responding to was one that talked about a possible involvement between Fryberg and one of the girls that he shot. Anonymous commenters on the internet kept insisting that was false. Fryberg was upset about another girl – and she wasn’t there that day. Same narrative – different girl. The message was still the same — screw over a guy and you may have to fear for your life or worse — be blamed for his violent actions.

Day after day, I check for commentary; for stories about motive. All we have is police saying they may never get to the bottom of it. Why? There are texts. There’s an ex-girlfriend who is still alive. There are plenty of peers who know the ins-and-outs of what goes on between friends. Yet no one has a clue what happened that day? No one thinks there should be some kind of explanation?

The worst school shooting since Sandy Hook, and no one seems to care why it happened.

Piers Morgan wrote a commentary about the shooting after it occurred. He was shocked about how little attention such a tragedy was garnering:

It was the worst gun outrage at a school in the United States since Sandy Hook nearly two years ago.

Yet the following morning, it was like it had never happened.

I studied the front page of the New York Times, which I receive daily at my home in Los Angeles.

There were two stories on Ebola, a feature on abortion voting concerns in Tennessee, and a report on Chinese pop stars joining pro-democracy rallies in Hong Kong.

My second paper, the Los Angeles Times, didn’t have a single word about it on their front page preferring to cover Chinese online phenomenon Alibaba, the cartoon character Hello Kitty, and a feature entitled ”˜BROGA YOGA FOR DUDES’.

America’s other leading newspapers followed a similar patter on their front pages.

The Washington Post not a word, though it did find room to feature a photograph of six pieces of candy.

The Boston Globe 26 words, less than the weather forecast.

Chicago Tribune not a word, though half the front page was devoted to a report on tiny camera drones being used to film sport practice and games creating ”˜safety issues’ at high schools.

Miami Herald not a word.

San Francisco Chronicle 21 words, about 30 times less than its report on World Series baseball match.

America’s mainstream media had collectively assessed a mass shooting at a high school in which six students were shot as not very interesting.

Why? Why don’t we care about this? This is where I will remind readers that this is a blog and this is my opinion:

Fryberg didn’t “snap.” He was very methodical. He took a gun to school. He sent a selfie holding the gun he would use to murder his friends to an ex-girlfriend at another school, he texted his friends to meet him in the cafeteria, and he shot them all at point-blank range before turning the gun on himself. He also had to reload in the midst of it all. Whoever the kid was who everyone thought they knew before this happened, there is no arguing that he was a cold, calculated killer that day.

People are overwhelmingly accepting of the narrative of the heartbroken Homecoming Prince who had a bright future ahead of him. They can accept he may have been distraught according to a very telling Twitter stream, but they can’t accept that the violence he committed and the way we seem to be excusing it sends a very harmful message to girls. It is incredibly tone deaf to not hold someone like this accountable in the court of public opinion.

It has everything to do with the fact we all believe it was “about a girl.” We do not, as a country, have a real problem with men committing crimes against women when they feel jilted. If we did, our domestic violence laws would be tougher, more women would report abuse — and women would be generally safer than they are. As it stands now, 1 in 3 women who is a victim of homicide is murdered by her current or former partner. And 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. For every victim, there is a perpetrator — one who excuses his violence because we’ve all but convinced men that they own women and are owed affection.

So good job, America. We’re excusing domestic violence again, and at the same time sending a message to our youth that this kid is forgivable and practically a celebrity. If that’s not a recipe for copycats — I don’t know what is. We aren’t honoring victims by refusing to talk about this — we’re failing them.

(photo: Twitter)