Bizarre Bulldozer Story

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Bizarre Bulldozer Story
54
Sat, 06-05-2004 - 12:42pm
Residents of this mountain tourist town of 2,200 described a bizarre scene as the bulldozer slowly crashed through buildings, trees and lampposts, with dozens of officers walking ahead or behind it, firing into the machine and shouting at townspeople to flee.

"It looked like a futuristic tank," said Rod Moore, who watched the dozer rumble past within 15 feet of his auto garage and towing company.

One officer, later identified as Trainor, was perched on top, firing shot after shot into the top and once dropping an explosive down the exhaust pipe.

"He just kept shooting," Moore said. "The dozer was still going. He threw what looked like a flash-bang down the exhaust. It didn't do a thing..."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040605/D830SQHG0.html

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 4:52pm
<>

I just heard that he left notes in his garage that said he was surprised that no one bothered to stop him. Apparently, he was working on the project for over a year. It is very sad that no one in the community cared enough to notice. This should be a lesson for all of us.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 4:54pm
>>>"My point is that when we and our loved ones are not physically threatened, only a very very few of us do not have the resiliency cope with whatever situation we face in a more responsible manner than Heymeer"<<<

And how would you know this, since it's an impossibility to know precisely just how much any one individual can handle until that breaking point is arrived at, as well as the fact that it's impossible to know precisely what situation will develop to bring an individual to that point? We aren't all given X-amount of determination, with various respective situations each requiring Y-amount of that determination and resilience before a breaking point is reached.

We all have our weaknesses and strengths, each in a totally unknown quantity as is our ability to cope. You can't really say that "most people wouldn't do this" when it's impossible to *know* how many people have simply never quite come to that point or been subjected to stresses which would in fact exceed their ability to cope. You don't know until it happens or doesn't happen, with any given situation.

You might can say that you *believe" very few of us don't have sufficient resiliency, but that's only a guess until such time as each and every one of us have been what we personally view as being victimized beyond repair or resolution and we either succombed to rage or didn't.

As most of us said before, we're talking about the *potential* for such acts, and you (generic) simply cannot say with any real assurance or objective confidence what anyones potential is where strong, violent emotion is concerned because emotion is neither logical nor entirely predictable.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 4:55pm
I was wondering how long it would be before someone brought that up. Even guessed it would probably be you somewhere along the way.

~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 4:58pm
"If that were the case, it would be relatively common."

Suicide, or turning that rage or black despair inward on oneself, *is* relatively common. Far more common that acts of terrorism, homicide or the like.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 5:03pm
"It is very sad that no one in the community cared enough to notice."

Noticing what he was doing is one thing, knowing or guessing what he had in mind was another. People build all sorts of eccentric, odd contraptions all the time without having mass or criminal destruction in mind for their creation. And then you have to factor in just how many people knew about this thing in the first place.

I don't think it's quite as simple as "someone should have done something" without knowing more about him, his community, and the actual knowledge level or awareness of those around him.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 5:42pm
<>

I understand your point and it is valid. I just can't help comparing this with people who threaten suicide in an cry for help. It is so easy to be isolated from the community these days.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 6:39pm
<>

Come now, with billions of people on the earth and thousands of years worth of human history, its safe to say that most people's so-called 'breaking point' is either so far beyond what any of us are likely to encounter in our lives as to be practically meaningless or when most people at some dark moment in their lives do reach their 'breaking point' they don't violently kill or destroy themselves or others. Once again, just for clarity, I'm not speaking of crimes of passion and fits of blind rage.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 6:55pm
<>

Yes, we do, but when we reach it, it is very few of us who react with death and destruction.


If you are a parent, I trust that if some day you reach your breaking point, you are not going to shoot and kill your family. Some people do, but thank heavens that is a very small percentage not because children don't drive their parents to their breaking point, but because most people are simply not capable of killing their children no matter how desperate they are.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 7:04pm
If you want to say that his situation was so far beyond what practically anyone in human history has ever experienced, fine. I don't buy it.

chao

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 7:05pm
Individual reactions to situations are just that, individual reactions, and destruction (both personal and public) is a relatively common reaction to situations which reach or exceed our individual breaking point. Something near 30,000 people commit suicide (death and destruction to self) each year when that point is reached, so I would hardly characterize that as being "very few of us".

Again, this isn't about the *likelyhood* of someone taking such action, just that the potential for doing so exists in all of us to some greater or lesser degree. And nobody can say with confidence where that point is, because until you reach it you don't know where it is or how you'll react. You can guess, you can believe what you would and would not do, but you can't *KNOW* until it happens.

~mark~