I am not sure what to say about this. I have been asked if I am going to put up a blog about it like I did the Sandy Hook Shooting I am just so sick of school shooting and all of the war happening around the world lately. I try to keep this place more upbeat but lately, even the entertainment world is full of hate and vitriol. It can really wear on the soul of any of us who still have one.
This is from the website of the small, rural college, “UCC is a dynamic, ambitious and forward-looking institution in one of the most picturesque settings in the country, nestled between beautiful tree-studded hills and overlooking a large bend in the North Umpqua River. Natural volcanic rock and rustic, cedar shake architecture grace the 16 campus buildings located on 100-acres six miles north of Roseburg. Easy access to Interstate 5 and mild year-around climate complement the scenic beauty of the campus. The world-famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival is located 90 miles to the south and University of Oregon, with its top-ranked athletic teams and its world-class teaching and research facilities, is 60 miles to the north.”
So we can chat about today’s shooting here if you’d like or you can avoid it if you like as well. So far it sounds like 12 people dead with around 20 more people wounded, some quite seriously. The shooter made it to at least two classrooms in the science building before be he was “neutralized.” It’s unclear if the shooter was killed or not.
This is all just sad.
And here goes the Internet arguing about the second amendment again. UGH.
Guns are as guilty of killing people as the hands that hold them so dear.
Have been to that school and Ashland’s Theatre plays many times…this is shamefully what I worry about now. The world is utterly out of control and moving even faster in that frightening direction. And no body is at the wheel! I seriously want to get off the ride but can’t bear to leave loved ones behind.
RIP
My son, who has fought to overcome schizophrenia and clinical depression for 11 years says to me, “Now that I am recovering, there is no room in my heart for bitterness or hate. There’s only room for love.” He has his music theory class at the local junior college this afternoon. Part of me is thinking maybe I’ll ask him not to go, but no–he’ll go and hopefully his kind good nature will help the world a little bit there. And I’ll go to work and try to do the same. Love you, Tamara and everyone on this blog.
Today, I can’t help but remember what drove me to and hooked me on this site. Awhile back, I had become somewhat unhinged over the lack of humanity in our world. After finding this site, it turned out to be like someone was slowly talking me off the ledge. I honestly started to love this site and the people that come here. This blog has turned out to be the highlight of my day, most days. I can easily visit some of Tamara’s older posts and just laugh my ass off. If all people could learn to laugh…..we would not be thinking about the million and one horrific injustices in our everyday lives. We’d be too busy laughing. So lisamia, I too love Tamara and everyone on this blog. Thanks for reminding me.
Welcome, AKA Riley and agree 100% about laughter.
You really have a great heart.
The trauma hospital that some of the victims are being taken to in Eugene is a very good facility. I have had two relatives treated there over the years and we could not have asked for better care. Prayers for all involved.
Prayers for the victims, families and the community.
I don’t know why I can’t take a break from this story. One girl on Twitter who is being pursued by Media got up and tweeted a photo of her giant chocolate birthday cake. Then an hour later posted about the shooter on campus and people were running everywhere. She says she if fine physically and being evacuated.
I live in Oregon and work in law enforcement. I have to go to work now and deal with the aftermath of this tragedy. I too want to call my kids and have them come home from school. Our state seems to have way more of these types of shootings, despite having very liberal, anti gun beliefs (for the most part). For me, and where I work, we have been swamped with much more violent, unstable people and I am baffled as to why. I have been working for many years in this field and I cannot recall a more dangerous time for the public and for us. This is just so sad. My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Hopefully, justice will be done.
@yrakme, Heartbroken for my beloved Oregon. I remember the Thurston High school tragedy many years ago. That school is just a few miles from my step-mother’s home. Along with prayers for the students, employees and families, I send prayers for our brave law enforcement officers and first responders.
@Yrakme So sorry that this has happened in your community. Be safe. And thanks for all you do to help the situations. You’ve very brave.
I do not mean to disparage Oregon, but since you mention it, I have noticed a lot of bad people from there. I started paying attention when my nephew moved there to go to law school at U in Eugene.
Some people I found out about were not current news makers. Some were in movies about serial killers from Washington state or Oregon in recent decades. Several were ID channel stories. I’d guess on a per capita comparison, it is exceptional. I asked my Seattle friend if the gloomy weather affected people’s disposition. She thinks there is as much sunshine and happiness as in Illinois where she lived for 40 years. (Not that this is the sunshine state.)
There is just too much killing and death everywhere. Schools seem to be where a young person can get inside to do maximum damage for maximum attention.
These things happen somewhere else. I cried for the kids at Sandy Hook. Reynolds HS, too close to home. But this… I graduated from Umpqua Community College in 1984, with a transfer degree in Accounting (the old fashioned way.) My son was in Daycare there. Snyder Hall was taking Business Law, And Business 101. My God, this is home. I walked those paths. Drank gallons of coffee in the cafeteria. Home. Praying, just Praying.
So sorry to hear this, TinLizzy.
I just have to break my lurking silence to say a few things.
Tamara, I appreciate you commenting on this event.
I am an Oregonian of 15 years and have lived all over the state, including Eugene, which is near Roseburg. The details you gave are pretty much what it’s like. My best friend reports for Reuters and is down there right now. It sounds awful.
In response to Dawn.
There are bad people everywhere. However, it is true that there are a lot of people up here with vitamin d deficiency…and that does contribute to one’s mood. As someone w/ a history of mental illness I noticed an immediate but not intense improvement to my mood when I started supplements.
I don’t think it will keep anyone from shooting up a school though.
Also, while the coast and central valley of Oregon are very blue and hippie/hipster/whatever cliche comes to mind, there is a strong red element in the rest of the state. Farmers and loggers in central and east Oregon do not always agree with the rest of us. There are also a lot of libertarian types who believe in marijuana, social freedoms, and being able to use their guns.
It’s an interesting day for my state.
Thanks for delurking. The good news for you is that the kid is not even from Oregon.
Thank you yrakme for what you do. I have had family in law enforcement for many years and I never worried as much about their safety as I do the past few years. I am praying for your community, and for you to be safe.
Home sick with a fever and a bad cough, and while I read this and have certainly read the headlines, I’m not sure I’m up for the details yet. It brings up a lot of personal baggage frankly. Like TT, I’m a former teacher, and I was teaching high school when school shootings became part of the national conversation/experience. The Moses Lake, WA shooting at a middle school, Kip Kinkel at Thurston High School in Oregon – and my horrible last year of teaching, I turned in my resignation/notice I would not be back the following year the morning of April 20, 1999 – the day of the Columbine Shooting. (My school’s non-reaction to that was a big indication that it was a right decision to leave)
Yes, I believe in more uniform gun laws, but what frustrates me is that there is never a discussion of mental health and the reforms that are needed in both treatment and policies, as well as needing to get rid of the social stigmas surrounding mental illness.
Sorry you are sick, Erica. And I believe that all teachers seem to take this sort of thing hard. I quit high school position mind year for safety reasons (knife fights in my class). It really wasn’t even the rampant violence as much at the administration’s lack of interest in stopping it. Every year on the last day of school it was a tradition for the students to damage cars in the faculty parking area. I mean why didn’t they have police out there at the school for the last day?
went back to teaching college which at the time felt safer. It wasn’t. /sigh
Andy yes, this is a mental health problem. As are most of the crimes in the US.
Thanks, TT. Oh… I think you and I could probably fill a whole thread on what a disinterested/inept administration does to teachers. It is unbelievable that they wouldn’t have police out there – even for their own cars!!!
Didn’t have kids pull knives, but I had a couple that in hindsight, could have easily pulled a Sandy Hook or Columbine.
One of those kids we couldn’t help, because the parents kept refusing the suggestions that he be tested, evaluated, etc. Seriously – he was one of those that you could see the whites around all of his cornea when he stared at you. He did some nasty shit in my class – towards two girls, but included me in some of his comments and gestures (behind my back).
Superintendent insisted that in house detention during my class period for 3 days was enough – trust me, the other schools I worked in would have been considering expulsion. They certainly wouldn’t have put him back in the same class with the two girls and me.
I knew someone high up at the state union office – and some at the administrative level knew it. I think that is why they took my calm assertion that I would be contacting the union to hire an attorney for me, and possibly the two girls, as his entering my class again would create a hostile work environment for all of us.
Funnily enough – his parents suddenly decided to home school him for the rest of the year.
Onions. Fields of onions.
If you want to lose all faith in humaniy, here is an image of the shooter bragging about his plans on 4Chan (trust me you don’t want to know what that is, it’s like reddit for really disturbed people)
https://i.imgur.com/tDxuCsA.png
Again, clicking the link may cause extreme sadness and increase your anxiety about THE WORLD.
This cannot be true. Dear God.
I’m floored by those who encouraged him & gave him advice! The shooter behind last years Isla Vista massacre was also a frequent commenter on that site.
To be fair, only some of the 4chan community would be considered ‘window lickers’. A lot of the community are decent, it just isn’t as heavily moderated as other sites. One string I have been keeping an eye on is a group of posters who have decided to work with the fbi to track down a serial killer who posted photos of some of his victims bragging about a month ago.
A bit off topic, but not all of Reddit and 4chan is horrible.
Oh my God. Just looked at this thread. How horrible and the comments. My God, what is happening in this world. I wish the end would come if this horrid stuff keeps happening. Sick for all . It can happen anywhere at anytime. So sad.
Opting out personal cheese barely on the same plate as the cracker. Love and prayers for those in need. Sweet mercy.
Prayers for the victims and their families. I honestly mean that yet how many times do we have to keep saying this? It’s just all so sad and unnecessary. We can do better.
Every day I listen to different new outlets talking about how the infrastructure in this country is falling apart and how we need to deal with it because well it’s falling apart. I agree that it is. But, more importantly, the infrastructure of humanity is falling down and that needs to be fixed before we do ANYTHING else. Mental health is becoming the number one problem in this country because of so many reasons. Yet we choose to blame inanimate objects and not the people behind them. Why or Why can we not learn? When? Is this not a form of domestic Terrorism? So sad, so sickening. Let’s get outraged that these people are falling into the cracks of society and taking down as many people as they can with them. Prayers, love, hope, forgiveness to all of us. We need it….
I’m sending my thoughts & prayers for every family member or friend who today has joined that horrible club of “we lost someone to this type of violence”. And for each one of them who will stand in front of a camera or a senate or a rally and plead, “Finally, can my loss be the one that makes change happen?” I pray for their strength in the midst of the crazy.
Oregon is a beautiful state, full of lovely people from the broadest spectrum of conservative and liberal.
Read your post and turned my TV off. I will not watch or listen again.
There is a solution but it will not come to pass until those that carry weapons stop living in fear and allow a some type of control or others get together to do it.
No one said to take their guns away.
Most of my family has rifles,.
We all want a form of control on who can buy what and when after strict testing.
We do not fear losing our weapons, we fear the crazies at the gun range.
A state to state gun control option would be a start. Seriously, like we did pro choice.
If it comes up for a vote, I will be there.
This type of tragedy will happen again like it gas before.
Tamara, I live in Irving, TX where “clock boy” caused all the uproar, yesterday at the same school he attended got a bomb threat call. Parents are scared to death to send their children to school. This world is going mad! Prayers for all the families in this tragedy.
I live in Southlake and wondered if that was the same school. How scary for kids and parents in that community. What is wrong with our society!?!
Amie – nothing is wrong with our society.
The laws on who can buy a gun needs to be changed plus
no need for for lrg magazines. Only used for mass killings.
No hunter uses them.
Nothing will change!
This is heartbreaking. It’s not just a gun issue. It’s guns, it’s knives, it’s chemicals, it’s driving a car into a crowd, hell its bags of manure from Home Depot into a bomb. What is wrong with people to go out and do something like this?’
Prayers for all involved… As the wife of a LEO I know that this will be hard on them as well. Thank you Tamara for always providing us a safe place to talk, thank you for also updating as you did even when it had to cause anxiety for you as well. The work you do for us all is wonderful. Hopefully this will not mark a season in which we have copycat crimes.
I will not be surprised if this individual has been prescribed highly addictive psychoactive drugs (especially the antidepressants such as Paxil, Zoloft, etc.) since a very young age. It seems to be a very common thread in almost all of these types of shootings.
I am at a loss for words. All I can do is shake my head and pray for everyone.
God help us all.
Wonder why they are not releasing his name. Could they be trying to scrub his social media/internet history prior to doing so?
Aussie news is ‘reporting’ he may not even be a student or ‘member’ of that community. Maybe they have not identified him for certain and his ‘motive’ yet.
Horrible news. My thoughts are with the victim’s families.
The one glowing achievement of John Howard (aussie PM in the 90s) was the regulation of gun control in Australia. I just hope that something can be done for the USA.
The people who do these acts are broken, they are disturbed and I feel like the media help play a part in the madness. We have a 24 hour news cycle that follows these types of stories and gives the assholes who do them so much fame and for those who are already treading a fine line with reality it is attractive. They can cause massive damage to others because they feel hurt and they do not care who they take out as long s they make others suffer. The father of the Marysville pilchuck shooter from last year was just sentenced to prison because he wasn’t supposed to have any fire arms, and the local news here spoke to the one friend who survived the shooting. He stated that Jaylin wanted to take all his friends with him so they all wouldn’t be sad and alone. These shootings are a societal problem as well as a mental health one. also, the Sheriff or Police chief down there just gave an interview and said 10 dead, and 7 wounded. my heart hurts for the families
PLEASE DO NOT NAME THE SUSPECT HERE! THE INFORMATION HAS BEEN OUT FOR SEVERAL HOURS! DO NOT POST HIS NAME HERE NOR IDENTIFYING INFO, NOR SUGESTIONS ON WHAT TO GOOGLE. THANKS.
In other news, LEO is pretending like they don’t know how many dead there are. It is not what they are saying to CNN. That is weird.
Also weird is that the killer is from.. I forget. Minnesota? Michigan? It’s been awhile since I read the info. He appears to have no ties to CO. Speculation is he was in an online relationship with someone there.
Listening to CNN try to explain 4Chan is a bit of humor in this whole nightmare. And the robot thread on 4Chan especially.
T.T you are a truly compassionate woman who I believe is so talented & so sensitive to the plight of others. Kudos for running this blog with an iron grip.The window lickers are not to be tolerated & have no place on your site. Keep on being you. xoxo Regards, warm ones sent your way.
Thanks Marc. That is the smartest thing you’ve said all day. Albeit, it wasn’t a high bar for you today. What? You didn’t think I noticed? 🙂
xoxo
tt
Shortly after the Sandy Hook mass murders, the press jumped the gun, and misidentified the shooter as his brother. I couldn’t imagine the horror of something like that happening.
My mom & bro in law with his family moved to Roseburg this year. He transferred from Pt Angeles to become GM of 7 Feathers casino truckstop facilities. They thought they were moving to a quaint family oriented slow community. News of past shootings have already had an negative effect on
their children…and now this happened so close to home. Fortunately, my niece had already transferred from UCC up to EWU to fall classes. Thank God.
It’s a miracle that someone here always has a connection to every national tragedy.
BTW I believe we will find out that the killer worked at a gas station. I’m serious.
I think I may have dated the Zodiac killer back in the 70s. 🙂
I know it’s a small world. I just hope the shooter didn’t work at a local truckstop facility!
I’m trying not to read much about it. A self-preservation thing; we have not really recovered from the shooting at Delta State a few weeks ago. My husband is a college administrator. Never thought I’d worry about him going to work. All TT readers that are LEO, you have my deepest respect and heartfelt prayers. ❤️Love to all the rest of you readers. And especially TT ❤️ Take care out there.
This day has been insane. I’ve been through documentation one two different people. The second person was on the 4Chan site, was recently distraught, posted a you tube about being rejected by the robot rejects and was in Seattle two days ago. Now news media has disclosed a name that is not him. That means either main stream media is wrong or that guy is still out there. And I’ve read about the guy main stream media is going with who is 26 not 20 like we have heard all day. IF main stream media is wrong that means their guy is still out there. All three people I’ve read about today are fully capable of something like this. They only killed one of the three today. It really doesn’t matter which one. There are two more.
As doctor phil says, for every rat you see, there are 49 you don’t. Scary.
Our local news didn’t even lead with this story. Their big headlines were the Royals baseball game, and some local kid who was shot in the arm by a BB gun. This story was 3rd.
This whole thing is driving me nuts. Killing, maiming and generally hurting others is the new norm.
And there seems to be no escaping it.
This shooting is the leading story in Australia. Weird.
The second leading story is how Obama used UK and us as an example of how to be a safer country etc.
I’ve read dozens of comments today from pro gun advocates referencing Australia. Their argument being Australia doesn’t have a problem with gun violence because (as if by law) every single person over the age of 18 owns at least 1 gun. Maybe they read that on Twitter. ?
Are they being ironic? Because it is like the opposite. My dad is pretty high up in the Australian army and even he never brings a gun home. Or drives around civy life with a weapon.
So many idiots in this world.
A top news site has been updating the story for at least 8 hrs & they’ve changed the headline at least 1/2 dozen times re the # of “confirmed dead”. It’s gone up & down all day (it’s currently 1/2 of what they were reporting earlier). Makes you wonder where they’re getting these confirmations from.
Twitter….I’m not even joking. Gone is ‘real’ journalism. Instead anyone with a Twitter account is a ‘reporter’.
I am commenting only because of your comment about how interesting it is that your posts always bring out people from the area affected. I also live in Oregon – Springfield – and am watching the news crews across the street from my house who are covering the most seriously wounded who were transferred to the hospital I live by. This is what is common between us all. We all have some experience that brings us together. For the most part I believe we agree on the problem, but cannot find a solution. I certainly have my opinions on guns and their part in these types of tragedies. But my opinion really doesn’t matter. I just hope we all at some point in time can collectively come up with a plan for a solution. As for this shooting, it’s hideous. So was the Thurston High School shooting our community experienced in1998. There is no worse example of horror than the Sandy Hook child murders. My gut tells me we start to compare the shootings and become numb to the victims to some degree because we compare to our worst example. That really scares me.
lisa, nice comment, hugs up there.
Portland Oregon resident, and I am just heartbroken this happened again. Something has got to change. I can’t watch the news, and I am scared to death to send my 16 yr old back to school, for fear of a copy cat, but we can’t teach are children fear, it’s a confusing time, and I’m overly tired. Thanks for putting this up Tamara Tattles.