Shooting at U. of Arkansas

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Monday August 28 5:24 PM ET
2 Die in Arkansas Campus Shooting

By MELISSA NELSON, Associated Press Writer

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) - Two people were shot to death Monday at
the University of Arkansas in an apparent murder-suicide on the first day of
the fall semester.

``We believe the two persons killed are a faculty member and a graduate
student, but that remains to be confirmed,'' Chancellor John White said in a
statement.

Two university police officers were sent to Kimpel Hall after a 911 call about
noon. They spoke briefly with a man behind the locked door of a faculty
office before hearing a gunshot, Capt. Brad Bruns said. It wasn't immediately
clear who made the emergency call or what had prompted it. Both bodies
were found inside the office.

White didn't indicate what department the victims were believed to be from,
but the section of the building houses offices for the English department.

Students and faculty were evacuated from the building after the shooting, and
classes there and in an adjacent building were canceled

``We're trying to deal with a situation that seems horrific and trying to control
everything we can and bring this to resolution as quickly as possible,''
university spokesman Roger Williams said.

Kimpel Hall houses faculty in a number of departments - communication,
drama, English, foreign languages and journalism, Williams said.

Journalism department chairwoman Patsy Watkins many of the 50- to
60-student classrooms on the floor would have been filled at the time.

Students left the building in an orderly fashion, saying they had been told to
leave, Watkins said. ``All we've been told is that shots have been fired,'' she
said.

Kimpel Hall is shaped like a T, with classrooms along the long end of the T
and offices across the crossbar.

The 15,000-student campus is in the northwest part of the state. Both
President Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton taught law there in the
mid-1970s.

-

On the Web: http://www.uark.edu
 
This is a follow up on yesterdays shooting.

Tuesday August 29 6:04 AM ET
2 Die in Arkansas Campus Shooting

By MELISSA NELSON, Associated Press Writer

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) - A University of
Arkansas graduate student recently dropped from a
doctoral program after a decade of study and the
English professor overseeing his coursework were shot
to death in an apparent murder-suicide.

Associate professor John Locke, 67, and James Easton
Kelly, 36, were found dead in the professor's office Monday, the first day of
the fall semester.

Police hadn't determined a motive for the shootings and were awaiting a
medical examiner's report to determine who fired the shots, said university
police Capt. Brad Bruns. The .38-caliber revolver found at the scene
belonged to Kelly, he said.

Student Drew Terry said he was sitting outside Kimpel Hall with friends
around noon when people began fleeing the building, frightened by shooting
inside.

``People were scattering everywhere, the whole area was full of people
running around out here,'' he said.

Bruns said police had a brief conversation with one of the men before the
final shot was fired. The man told them he was injured and that he did not
want them to enter the office, Bruns said.

He said a police negotiator never got a chance to talk with anyone in the
office on the second floor of Kimpel Hall, a classroom and office building
near the heart of the 15,000-student campus in northwestern Arkansas.

``I heard one gunshot followed by a ... man's voice saying, `No, I didn't do
anything,''' said Bethany Edstrom, a graduate student who was in a nearby
office. ``Then I heard a second shot.''

Kelly was dismissed from the doctoral program Aug. 21 because he
habitually enrolled in and then dropped classes. The university said a
committee of six professors voted to drop Kelly from the program. Locke
was on the committee but abstained from the vote.

The committee allowed Kelly to continue his studies as a non-degree student.

Chancellor John White said Locke enrolled as a doctoral student in the
university's English program in 1990 and later switched to comparative
literature.

``All of us at the university are all deeply upset,'' White said.

Randall Woods, dean of the arts and science department who worked with
Locke for 30 years, said he knew of no problems between Locke and any of
his students, including Kelly.

Police said Kelly has no criminal record and there was no indication on his
university record of discipline problems.

As students walked to classes Monday afternoon, they had to skirt police tape surrounding Kimpel Hall.

Locke was interested in oriental mythology and religions and studied Zen Buddhism, said James Whitehead,
professor emeritus of creative writing. Whitehead and others said Locke's death was unfathomable.

``It's as if he was walking to school on a cloudless day and got struck by lightning,'' Whitehead said.

A forum was planned for Tuesday afternoon for students to discuss the shooting.
 
Another professional humanities "student" makes good.

Gee. Perhaps someone might have noticed that his behavior in the past ten years was irrational and possibly dangerous.

Nah. That would be judgmental -- something no contemporary campus would ever allow itself to be.
 
Yeah, like you want to get letters from mathematicians in the mail.

Some psych majors blew up something at Stanford quite a few years ago.

A math Ph.D. beat his prof to death.

An engineer candidate hide a gun in the meeting room and hosed his committee.

Not just the humanities, my man!
 
Considering the psychological abuse that most graduate students endure, I am surprised that terrible incidents such as this one do not happen more often. Make jokes if you please, put every time an idiot, child, madman, or distraught individual resorts to violence with a firearm to solve his problems, we are one step closer to the end of private firearm ownership in the U.S.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that no one knows what to do when it comes to these problems. People want easy answers when there are none. Yet, the easiest, banning private firearm ownership, remains the most attractive because people precisely do not know what to do, so they latch on to something woefully inadequate because prohibition at least seems somewhat logical (and logic always impresses the simpletons).

Merely insisting that a person be responsible for his actions is not enough; it is another inadequate easy answer. It is time to get some new ideas. Yet, considering that three-quarters of the U.S. population is under-educated while subsisting on a diet of beer and porno, I am not optimistic about our future. Al Gore and his hit squad on civil liberties are waiting to take over (kissing their wives and espousing family values as they kick in America's doors). When they do, thanks to the democratic process, you can expect to be living in paradise for socialists, pacifists, and fools in short order.

Enjoy. I am sure the thrills of pro wrestling and football will keep Americans sufficiently distracted from the royal screwing they are getting. As the insensitive guy says to the female rape victim: "Relax and enjoy it."

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We have never been modern.
 
Holding an individual responsible is the key. The alternative of controlling private lives is far too intrusive, cumbersome and oppressive. It's been tried and works only through fear - not a healthy thing to promote in a healthy society. It's better that citizens respect the law and obey it than fear it or, as we are becoming, apathetic and scornful of it.
 
The grad student who killed himself took the ultimate individual responsibility for his criminal action, but it does not make any difference because the next misuse of a firearm is already a done deal.

There are almost 2 million individuals in prison in the U.S. who are taking responsibility for their actions, but, as I write this, more crimes are being committed.

Granted, the crime rate is supposedly down, and many credit more people in prison for it being so, but the fact of the matter is no one knows why crime has dropped in some areas of the U.S. I doubt the crime figures anyway. I suspect that politicians cook the figures to protect their jobs.

Punishment (which is what people usually mean when they say individual responsibility) deters no one except those who are not inclined to commit a crime to begin with.

The remainder are the human debris who figue they have nothing to lose. The lure of quick riches, the temptation of revenge, and the lust for cheap sensation drive people to crime. There is also the fact that much violence is the result of substance abuse or the misuse of pharmaceuticals I would not be surprised if the grad student had been screwed over by a regimen of prescription anti-depressants.

Dealing with these problems in a positive manner rather than demanding more punishment may well have an impact.

Of course, if you were to say that it is too expensive, too time-consuming, and, well, all too confusing, then I would say, yes, I agree, but there is more to the world than what our minute particulars of experience may teach us.

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We have never been modern.
 
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