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Two Virginia television journalists fatally shot in on-air attack[READ OP]

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General Manager of WDBJ discussing the killer:

"Angry man"

"Quickly became....gathered a reputation as a man difficult to work with."

"Looking for things to take offense to."

"Eventually after many incidents of his anger...we had to dismiss him."

"Did not take it well...had to be escorted from the building."

"None of his accusations could be corroborated in any way."

"Talked to everyone...diverse workplace...we got nothing about it."

"EOCC dismissed his claim out of hand...and that was that."

Not taking any sides here, but I'm having a hard time believing this. Those quotes he claimed was stated would be on par on what an average day is like at a workplace. No way he just pulled "collared green grill" out of his ass. Come on.
 

Sanjuro

Member
The guy probably felt like the world was out to get him and nobody would listen, and this was his only recourse.

I'm interested in finding out if he was seeing discrimination where there was none or if he was driven to acting like a fucking evil scumbag due to legit issues within the workplace.

Let's just say we go by some of his unconfirmed racist claims that are going around for the moment. None of them are any sort of comments that directed specifically at him. From all the other reports coming out, it sort of connects to the "gathered a reputation as a man difficult to work with / Looking for things to take offense to."
 

Axass

Member
Ban guns.

The spanish el huffington post posted the same screenshot. Kind of a stupid to single them out

Here in Italy they're showing the video on live TV, only it cuts off after he points the gun at her, but you can still hear the audio afterwards. It's just journalists being journalists, nothing to do with Russia.

saw the video
3ee46c37f4c225772e6ebb80f9737bba19be2f1aaa12ee358c3f08fe736e344f.jpg


if you are curious, even then don't watch. I am going for a long walk, see my girlfriend later hold her tight and spoil her today. Fuck the world.

That's my life mantra.

Yeah, same. A group of us were watching it and my stomach turned when he held the gun up. He was way too close for comfort. They told me it wasn't graphic and the first shot still missed her though, then the camera goes dark?
You don't see actual wounds, just people running away, still shocking.
 

Jackpot

Banned
Yo - AGAIN - there are friends of the victim in this topic. Arguing the degree to which their deaths matter is insensitive as fuck. Have some respect.

Arguing how much it matters in the context of global media coverage of shootings is perfectly valid. The fact that outlets are lowering the bar and setting a precedent by showing grisly footage of a murder from first-hand perspective, and giving disproportionate amount of coverage compared to past shootings to rope in the morbidly curious for ratings under the pretext of news is important.

You are not some moral arbiter who gets to dictate what people can and cannot post.
 

braves01

Banned
The guy probably felt like the world was out to get him and nobody would listen, and this was his only recourse.

I'm interested in finding out if he was seeing discrimination where there was none or if he was driven to acting like a fucking evil scumbag due to legit issues within the workplace.

Yeah, I hope investigators look very carefully to determine whether he was actually being discriminated against by the station since I think that's relevant in some respect to where he was at mentally. Was he just borderline paranoid schizophrenic seeing racist plots against him everywhere he went, or was there some substance to his allegations?
 

Cc23830

Member
Why anyone would voluntarily want to watch the video is beyond me.

to be honest, I have absolutely no idea why I watched the POV video, but the fact that at 18 seconds he called her a bitch and then waited for the camera man to turn the camera back towards her makes me think all his anger was directly pointed at her.
 

Squalor

Junior Member
Let's just say we go by some of his unconfirmed racist claims that are going around for the moment. None of them are any sort of comments that directed specifically at him. From all the other reports coming out, it sort of connects to the "gathered a reputation as a man difficult to work with / Looking for things to take offense to."
The racist comments, whether being verified or not, don't justify killing two people.
 

Lost Fragment

Obsessed with 4chan
The guy probably felt like the world was out to get him and nobody would listen, and this was his only recourse.

I'm interested in finding out if he was seeing discrimination where there was none or if he was driven to acting like a fucking evil scumbag due to legit issues within the workplace.

We live in a society that is fundamentally racist.

We also live in a society where many, many people are dumb/crazy as hell and go out of their way to be offended by things.

So I'm sure that the dude experienced legit racism during his life. It's impossible not to if you're black. But considering that this dude just straight up murdered 2 people on live TV and is, thus, demonstrably out of his goddamned mind, I don't think he deserves the benefit of the doubt, and I don't think "yeah but were those motherfuckers racist?" is a very appropriate conversation right now.
 
Why anyone would voluntarily want to watch the video is beyond me.

a description serves just fine, really.
hell, knowledge that it happened at all is just as well.

As others said, morbid curiosity. But also -- and I wouldn't blame you for calling f'ed up for this -- the POV video made it feel 'more real' to me. Without that video I probably would have just given this a cursory glance, maybe thought about it for 15 minutes. Perhaps I'm just desensitized to stories of deaths, but the POV video really cemented the reality of it to me. But I know I'm probably abnormal, so I wouldn't go as far as to recommend others watch it.
 

antonz

Member
Not taking any sides here, but I'm having a hard time believing this. Those quotes he claimed was stated would be on par on what an average day is like at a workplace. No way he just pulled "collared green grill" out of his ass. Come on.

That is from 15 years ago at another station. He was fired from WDBJ 2 years ago so timeline is certainly an odd one. I mean Alison was barely out of college at that point and Adam I guess worked there and had a run in with him and complained to HR.
 
Why anyone would voluntarily want to watch the video is beyond me.

I did and I still can't tell you. I didn't enjoy it. In fact I think its screwing me up.

Ok, part of me wanted to know what it would be like in that situation. Could I avoid death in that same situation? I'm pretty sure the answer is no.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Arguing how much it matters in the context of global media coverage of shootings is perfectly valid. The fact that outlets are lowering the bar and setting a precedent by showing grisly footage of a murder from first-hand perspective, and giving disproportionate amount of coverage compared to past shootings to rope in the morbidly curious for ratings under the pretext of news is important.

You are not some moral arbiter who gets to dictate what people can and cannot post.

You sound like a clueless robot. Have some respect.
 

Jetman

Member
Why anyone would voluntarily want to watch the video is beyond me.

A lot of my coworkers were trying to take some comfort in how They would survive that situation given the whole picture. The reporters were totally focused on the story, so I can see how they didn't see him, but from what I saw he literally walked within 4 feet of them, gun out, pointed point blank. They were thinking the reporters should have seen the guy, but fuck man, who expects that? News feeds like that always have passerby's and curious people milling about.
 
Not taking any sides here, but I'm having a hard time believing this. Those quotes he claimed was stated would be on par on what an average day is like at a workplace. No way he just pulled "collared green grill" out of his ass. Come on.

When you post things like this, you become part of the problem.

Also you saying 'Not taking any sides here, but...', reminds me of a racist saying 'I'm not racist, but...'.
 

Squalor

Junior Member
That is from 15 years ago at another station. He was fired from WDBJ 2 years ago so timeline is certainly an odd one. I mean Alison was barely out of college at that point and Adam I guess worked there and had a run in with him and complained to HR.
Some higher-up at the station also said Alison was hired a year ago, and he was fired two years ago.

But she apparently interned there beforehand, so it's unclear at this time if he actually personally knew her.
Good thing I didn't suggest that then!
Good thing I didn't suggest that then!
 
Not taking any sides here, but I'm having a hard time believing this. Those quotes he claimed was stated would be on par on what an average day is like at a workplace. No way he just pulled "collared green grill" out of his ass. Come on.

Dude, and there's no reason to think he didn't make those things up. We don't know.

So let's stop speculating.

Exactly what you think I'm saying. No racism was hurled towards his way? At all?

And we have to ask - why does that matter? One evil wouldn't even begin to necessitate another.
 
Some people feel that the only way to understand evil is to face it. Others are just morbidly curious.

I'm in the first camp, minus the 'evil' label. I didn't WANT to watch a video of people dying, and it continues to disturb me, but I think the 'truth' of such an event only becomes understandable if we examine all the evidence. The video is simultaneously less horrific compared to what was in my imagination when I heard the news, and more horrific in the blunt directness of his point of view.
 
Sure he wouldn't.

You are confusing the quotes from a different station 15 years ago with the one he was recently fired from.

They guy may well have been fired from a racist workplace 15 years ago, but this station was investigated by the EEOC and didn't find any corroboration of his claims, even from other minority employees.
 

Onemic

Member
We live in a society that is fundamentally racist.

We also live in a society where many, many people are dumb/crazy as hell and go out of their way to be offended by things.

So I'm sure that the dude experienced legit racism during his life. It's impossible not to if you're black. But considering that this dude just straight up murdered 2 people on live TV and is, thus, demonstrably out of his goddamned mind, I don't think he deserves the benefit of the doubt, and I don't think "yeah but were those motherfuckers racist?" is a very appropriate conversation right now.

My thing right now is, who the hell cares if they were? Him killing two innocent people automatically supersedes any discrimination he might have faced in the workplace
 

Zabant

Member
The racist comments, whether being verified or not, don't justify killing two people.

Of course not, and I doubt anyone would argue that.

But if they're legitimate then the killings are a god awful symptom of a much bigger problem that has only gotten worse within the US in the past few years.

If this guy is mentally ill, there's a good chance that the racism he experienced along with the recent media coverage of cops shooting black people was what finally broke him.

Basically, it's a fucked up situation from whatever way you look at it.
 

Ayt

Banned
The guy probably felt like the world was out to get him and nobody would listen, and this was his only recourse.

I'm interested in finding out if he was seeing discrimination where there was none or if he was driven to acting like a fucking evil scumbag due to legit issues within the workplace.

I'd say you already have your answer based on his actions.
 

Zombine

Banned
This news truly hurts me. I am so passionate about this industry and all the hard work these people put into their jobs. There isn't a lot of money in the field; enough to just get by and live a modest life, but the passion that you have for your job is what keeps you going. These are just two people who loved what they were doing, and they were punished for it. Just at a complete loss right now.
 

Pastry

Banned
Some higher-up at the station also said Alison was hired a year ago, and he was fired two years ago.

But she apparently interned there beforehand, so it's unclear at this time if he actually personally knew her.

His Twitter had something along the lines of this:

"Allison made racist comments"
"They still hired her after that?"

So it seems like something happened before she was hired and he was just holding an insane grudge.
 

Jackpot

Banned
You sound like a clueless robot. Have some respect.

Thanks for your great insight.

Maybe if you were really interested in helping friends of the victim instead of appointing yourself their moral guardian, you'd be more concerned about how footage of their friends' deaths is being breathlessly passed around by the media like a leaked sex tape.
 

Squalor

Junior Member
His Twitter had something along the lines of this:

"Allison made racist comments"
"They still hired her after that?"

So it seems like something happened and he was just holding an insane grudge.
I know, but that doesn't mean she said it to him.

Maybe she said racist stuff when she was an intern before she got hired as a reporter. Then they hired her, so he was upset about that.

Either way, nothing excuses what he did.
 
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