Sunday, October 6, 2013

Chicken Soup comments on Columbine Principal Frank DeAngelis...

Media coverage and analysis of just about every mass shooting since Columbine includes an interview with Frank DeAngelis. As far as I can determine from watching or reading these interviews, not once has DeAngelis commented on his efforts to minimize our society's production of new killers nor has he admitted that community sanctioned bullying was a precipitating factor. Mostly he talks about his faith, how bad he feels about Dave Sanders, his PTSD, his divorce, the advice his "counselor for maintenance" gives him, and his commitment to stay at Columbine until those in kindergarten in 1999 finished high school. I'd never heard him say anything substantive until he slipped, perhaps unintentionally during a September 16, 2013 interview with Washington Post's Nia-Malika Henderson after the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.

In response to Henderson's inquiry about gun safety and mental health, DeAngelis stated that Harris and Klebold did not come out of their mothers' wombs hating the world. "What happened between the time that they were born and April 20, 1999?"

And that's as close as he got to admitting that the environment at Columbine High School might have precipitated their homicidal rage.

You can find the interview here.

11 comments:

  1. I don't trust DeAngelis. In an online article that I read recently, he claimed in an interview that the coaches at Columbine came down hard on athletes who bullied other students; yet over the years since the massacre others have said that jock privilege has always been the reality at Columbine. So, I find his claim to be extremely hard to believe. I don't remember when he gave the interview. Sorry I don't have a link. I haven't watched the video to which you posted a link. I don't think I could stomach hearing his voice.

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  2. Frank DeAngelis is a disgusting and depraved enabler of bullying of the lowest kind.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/june99/columbine12.htm

    It shames me that Dave Cullen feted and heroized, and that the public ate all of that.

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  3. I remember at the old SCMRPG board that a guy claiming to be from Columbine claimed that nothing had changed.

    Also, a girl from Columbine said the same thing in a YT video.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVr0Q1kPpTc&feature=youtu.be

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    1. Why would that surprise anyone? The social hierarchy that inspired the massacre is unlikely to have changed much.

      Go Rebels!

      Once a Rebel, always a Rebel.

      etc., ad nauseum...

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  4. Why would it change? Nobody (besides Mark Ames and a few news articles) have really held Cullen's trollish feet to the coals where they belong.

    The embrace of Cullenbine is quite sad- though joyous for DeAngelis. It's no wonder he granted Cullen full access to the school and wanted to cheer for him on Oprah!

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  5. Also, props to Brooks down and Jeff Kass. It's sad how blind all but a few are to the truth of Columbine.

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    1. Actually, Kass said that he believed that bullying wasn't the primary motivator for the massacre. You must be thinking of someone else.

      Bill

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  6. http://www.khou.com/news/neighborhood-news/Texas-City-8th-graders-found-with-new-kind-of-meth-227252421.html

    “They’re not all bad girls,” said Danielle Allgood, a parent at the school. “I mean one of them I’ve known for quite some time. I mean I would have never expected it. She didn’t seem like a bad girl. She’s always been very sweet, very respectable, very involved in sports.”

    http://pastormark.tv/2013/06/18/7-reasons-why-sports-are-good-for-kids

    Some more recipes for you to experiment with.

    Also, you interview Izzy before- why not try interviewing a popular athlete? Maybe not NFL, but there's gotta be a message board jock-full of jocks just dying to brag about themselves.

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  7. Jocks want to talk about their amazing feats of athletic achievement, not how to solve society's problems.

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    Replies
    1. Well, shame on them for doing that. Am I glad that I gave up idolizing long ago after noticing how nasty and biased they are to nerds?

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    2. When the audience stops showing up...

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