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Pennsylvania shooter who killed 8 was family’s patriarch, father of toddler killed says (apnews.com)
submitted 1 week ago by [M] to c/wildfeed@sh.itjust.works
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A man whose toddler was among eight people killed in a mass shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania, said Sunday that the gunman was a grandfather who never seemed distressed or out of the ordinary.

“I think that was a front for him,” Julius Windham said as he stood at a memorial to victims of Friday’s shooting, including his 1-year-old daughter Amarianna, her pregnant mother and the woman’s 5-year-old son and unborn baby.

“Him every day, him smiling and being just — you would think of nothing like that would happen,” Windham said.

The 45-year-old gunman took his own life. Authorities have not released his name, but Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah said he was related to seven of the victims. The eighth was a friend of the pregnant woman, he said. Police have not made their names public, either.

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[–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

Hard to fit in an education and/or financial security when you’re raising a family in your early twenties.

There's a lot of people who raise families in their early twenties that don't murder all of their family members.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    That's universally true of anything that happens about 1000 times over 50 years in a country of 250 million people or more. But emotional immaturity, lack of education, bad role models, and strong feelings of failed expectations are things you will see more of if you're more worried about survival than you are about personal development and the odds of things not turning out well increase. From the typical traits linked to family annihilators, it looks like he would fall under the disappointed or savior types, given the comments in the article. More emotional development would help with those, and more personal success would reduce the odds of him responding in this way.

    Do I think having a better education or more maturity before having kids would have helped? I'm no psychologist, and it already looks like there are a number of reasons people make this very unlikely choice, so who can say? But choosing harder paths tends to lead to harder outcomes.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 week ago

    Categorising the Killers: Four Types of Family Annihilator

    Self-righteous: The killer seeks to locate blame for his crimes upon the mother who he holds responsible for the breakdown of the family. This may involve the killer phoning his partner before the murder to explain what he is about to do. For these men, their breadwinner status is central to their idea of the ideal family.

    Disappointed: This killer believes his family has let him down or has acted in ways to undermine or destroy his vision of ideal family life. An example may be disappointment that children are not following the traditional religious or cultural customs of the father.

    Anomic: In these cases the family has become firmly linked in the mind of the killer to the economy. The father sees family as the result of his economic success, allowing him to display his achievements. However, if the father becomes an economic failure, he sees the family as no longer serving this function.

    Paranoid: Those who perceive an external threat to the family. This is often social services or the legal system, which the father fears will side against him and take away the children. Here the murder is motivated by a twisted desire to protect the family.

    In all of these cases masculinity and perceptions of power, sets the background for the crimes. The family role of the father is central to their ideas of masculinity and the murders represent a last ditch attempt to perform a masculine role.

    "The family annihilator should be seen as a specific category of murderer, for a crime which appears to be increasing," concluded Wilson. "To begin solving this problem the role of gender must be recognised, acknowledging that it is mainly men who will resort to this type of violence."

    There's quite a bit that goes into these types of murders.

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