this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
748 points (97.3% liked)

News

23649 readers
3826 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The six-year-old student who shot his teacher in the US earlier this year, boasted about the incident saying "I shot [her] dead", unsealed court documents show.

While being restrained after the shooting at a Virginia school, the boy is said to have admitted "I did it", adding "I got my mom's gun last night".

His teacher, Abigail "Abby" Zwerner - who survived - filed a $40m (£31.4m) lawsuit earlier this year.

The boy has not been charged.

The boy's mother, however, Deja Taylor, has been charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanour recklessly leaving a loaded firearm as to endanger a child.

In Ms Zwerner's lawsuit, filed in April, she accuses school officials of gross negligence for ignoring warning signs and argues the defendants knew the child "had a history of random violence

The documents also mention another incident with the same student while he was in kindergarten. A retired teacher told police he started "choking her to the point she could not breathe".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MonkRome 164 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (41 children)

It's amazing to me how focused these comments are on the child being "evil" and not the environment that created this situation. A child isn't born believing that shooting their teacher is a viable solution to their problems. At 6 years old you're barely functional. For this to happen they had to exist in a profoundly fucked up environment with no moral compass and access to a lot of information, presented without good context, far above their age. Everyone responsible for raising this kid should be held responsible.

This kid needs years of therapy and support and a loving caregiver. Before the age of 10 children are incredibly impressionable and still undergoing very basic core development, until the age of 25 people are still in development to some level. There are many years ahead where this child can be saved from themselves. There is no reason to call a 6 year old irredeemable.

[–] BigDawg 39 points 1 year ago (10 children)

It can be both sadly. Some kids are born not right. But will usually be ok with good and professional follow up and loving parents. But there are some kids born without the ability to emphasize with others and that never will get the help they need. And they become terrifying in their teens.

[–] IrrationalAndroid 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Empathy is something that is taught. If some kid does not have the ability to have empathy for others, it's likely because they were neglected/abused during childhood, and were not taught such a thing as empathy.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

No, there really are people who are born without the capacity of compassion and empathy. They can learn to mimic it and live by the laws but it needs therapy and people who catch that there is a problem early enough.

It's actually problematic that people immediately jump to the conclusion that the parents did a poor job, because it leads to people not getting adequate help. It also leads to parents not seeking help because they think they just need to be better at parenting when that's often not going to change all that much.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Everything said above can be true in parts or at the same time. Obviously, this kid had access to a gun and shouldn't have. Likely, the kid has other problems at home. Possibly, the kid has a neurological divergence that hadn't been fully investigated.

Fuck the parent for not securing the gun. Fuck the school for not showing more caution. Fuck the teacher for getting shot… wait… (/s on the last one, of course)

But also, how can a kindergartener choke an adult to the point they can't breathe? I'd think anyone who isn't elderly could throw a child that age. I probably don't have all the facts about that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

But also, how can a kindergartener choke an adult to the point they can’t breathe?

Because when you do not feel for other people you can go all in. Most people are not brutal and even unintentionally hold back against others. It is also really hard to defend against a child if you don't want to hurt the child.

My neighbours kid broke one of his mother's fingers at an age before he went to school (so he must have been 7 years old max). If you do not want to seriously hurt a child, how do you defend yourself when they won't let go?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

But also, how can a kindergartener choke an adult to the point they can't breathe? I'd think anyone who isn't elderly could throw a child that age.

I wondered this too, and my only (weak) hypothesis is the teacher was too afraid to hurt the child in return before they realized how serious it was going to get. But I’m also not sure how little 5 year old hands would have the strength, unless they used a rope or other tool.

Edit: the article does say the choked teacher is now retired, so they also could have been fairly old.

[–] MonkRome 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Having actually worked around troubled youth and seen literally 100's of children move through the system, I don't think you could be more wrong than you are. Prior to working with troubled youth I assumed it was more like 50/50 environment/genetics. I'm completely convinced it's almost entirely environmental. In nearly 100% of the cases I've seen troubled children, they had parents that were doing something profoundly wrong. Whether it be neglect, violence, sexual abuse, etc, there was always something extremely concerning. I think it is actually incredibly rare for a child to end up severely messed up without extreme "help" from the parents getting there.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

The problem with your anecdotal evidence is that what you experience can simply be the consequence of children only ending up in the system when they have a troublesome environment.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn't rule out lack of empathy also being potentially biological / genetic. Empathy is based on feeling which is based on chemicals and hormones in your body. It wouldn't be impossible to be born with the inability to produce/recognize those chemicals/hormones.

[–] IrrationalAndroid 3 points 1 year ago

Yes, I agree with this very much.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (37 replies)