Today, like many other Americans, Po and I have been thinking about the tragedy at Ft. Hood – and how it brings back the memory of similar events such as the massacre at Columbine. But that raises a question: while the events feel similar, are they actually? It was a question I directed to Dave Cullen. Dave was a reporter at Columbine, on the day of the shooting, and he's been covering its aftermath ever since. The result of ten years of research was his haunting New York Times
bestseller, Columbine. Here are Dave's thoughts.
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Is Ft. Hood like Columbine? That’s the gist of the question I’ve been asked repeatedly the past 24 hours, in various incarnations. It’s a natural question, which has been running through my own head incessantly. My brain is about to bust with all the apparent parallels to Columbine, Virginia Tech and 9/11, and the startling differences to each as well. But the only responsible answer to that question is I don‘t know yet.
If we have learned anything from these tragedies, is that we won’t get a firm handle on why for weeks, months or even years. At this distance from Oklahoma City, we were convinced it was the work of Arabs or Muslims, and what was the difference between those two anyway? The Columbine killers’ journals--far and away the most revealing evidence--were released in 2006, more than seven years after the murders.
The Ft. Hood perpetrator appears pretty transparent. The “obvious” factors include:
- His religion
- His ethnicity
- The ridicule he endured for each
- His profession as a soldier
- His profession as a psychiatrist
- His exposure to guns
- Relentless exposure to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in his patients
- Opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
- Imminent deployment there
We have heard a lot of facts related to each of those factors already. I expect that most will turn to be true. Historically, we get the what right pretty fast. But we have a terrible record on why. An oddsmaker could reasonably predict that some of those items will prove relevant and others true but unrelated to the crime. The problem is predicting which is which.
If we guess now, the myths will be us forever. Ten years after Columbine, most of the public still believes it was about jocks, Goths and the Trench Coat Mafia. No, no and no. It wasn‘t even intended primarily as a school shooting: the failed bombs were supposed to be the main event. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not loners, outcasts or misfits, nor were most of the school shooters. Most shooters do not fit the profile we have come to accept, because no accurate profile exists. Eric and Dylan don’t even fit a profile of each other: they were dramatically different boys in both personality and motive. They set the bombs and pulled the triggers for very different reasons.
With Columbine, speculation turned into accepted fact remarkably quickly. Most of the major myths solidified within the first 24 hours. Since then, journalists have shown great restraint. I was stunned by the coverage following Virginia Tech and most of the shootings: we learned that lesson and treaded lightly about motive. This week, it’s harder for me to assess the coverage, because I’m watching from Helsinki, where I’m attending an academic conference on school shooters. But I have been reading the blogs and the papers and watched video segments from each of the three big cable news networks, and so far, they understand the danger.
It’s OK to pose questions about all those bullet points above. Any good journalist is digging to unravel what was driving this man. All those look like good leads. It’s smart to ask the questions now. It’s smart to collect data toward the answers. But it’s foolish to start drawing conclusions.
