What made Robert Hawkins do it? Who is responsible? Is there an epidemic going on?

Question

He had plenty of run-ins with authority, and was well-known to ‘the system’:
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10203459

One Citizen Observes:
“The mentally ill become dispensable in a society that only values wealth and beauty (and youth).

I think it is also interesting to note that people are confused and want to know "Why Von Maur." The answer is really quite basic - Von Maur is the nicest store in Omaha. It represents affluence to many in this city.

I am guessing that Robert Hawkins felt alienated and isolated from other people. He felt the sting of poverty (which is why his parents put him in the system - it was the only way that they could get help for him). Status is important to teenagers, and classism is alive and well in this city just like is most everywhere. Kids can be merciless if you don't wear the "right clothes" or drive "the right car."

The sad thing is that he felt no hope (and angry with people he felt had mocked him and judged him). It is tragic that he felt he had no options left.

Therapists can only do so much. In a culture that glorifies violence, it is hard to help kids get it through their heads that no one can push reset like they do in video games. Until we address our preoccupation with violence (in the movies, in video games, in music...), we will no doubt see more mass murders like this. These tragedies are symtomatic of a very sick society.”

Agree or Disagree? What do you think?

Do they perceive life as a 'video game'? Too much video, not enough connection to the real world?

Transcription of Hawkin's suicide note:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071207/ap_on_re_us/mall_shootings_transcript;_ylt=AsyvRMZjFydbMr7iPxHANEJH2ocA

Answer 1

I think it is very hard to draw a generality from a specific, and in this case, we have the usual array of third hand opinions related to us by journalists who obtain statements from police who have interviewed psychologists and so on.

It is very easy to paint up a picture of the angry, broken disillusioned young man, separated from his girlfriend, who has lost his job. There are millions like him, yet very few do what he has done. For whatever reasons he did it.

And yet for all that, I agree that social alienation, success defined by acquisition, idolization of celebrity lifestyle turns us away from community and from valuing friendships and what we offer to community into people who dream impossible dreams. And are alienated by our failures. In Australia we see it as rising suicide rates, perhaps in the US people turn their anger outward more. In any case the desire for destruction is much the same, however it expresses itself.

I do not think our societal models are healthy. The majority of school leavers have average results, earn median wages, settle into a relationship, struggle to meet a mortgage payment. Spend a good deal of their income provisioning against ill health and a retirement they dream of. Working so hard they have almost no hours left to themselves after their jobs and basic chores like housekeeping are finished. Enjoy their 20 days holiday a year.

Its enough to make you weep.

I once heard someone brag "Kalahari Bushmen spend 17 hours a week just getting their food"

I replied "what do you think they do with the rest?"

The silence was very telling. Which society is really advanced? The one where a woman can spend 17 hours a week getting her food and spend the rest as she most enjoys it, or the society that creates a caste of people who aspire to an ideal most will never reach at the expense of embracing their own humanity and recognising the humanity of those around them.

Who is responsible - He is responsible. We are also responsible. People who do what he did - they are the canaries in the mine. They warn us that our culture is heading for implosion.

Answer 2

I think we have a whole society of people running around looking for something to make them happy. When happiness comes from within. And I don't have much faith in psychiatry or therapist, even though I have a psychologist in the family. Thats not saying that he didn't have any mental illnesses,. But I have seen first hand what the medical profession wants to do with everyone who has an issue or a problem. I lost my husband and 9 year old daughter in a car crash in 1999. My 15 year old son was the only survivor. When they told me at the hospital they were all there ready with some medication, which I refused. I needed to be alert for my sons needs at that moment,. all drugs do is delay having to go through the grief and pain. The point is, that is life. Its full of dissapointments, heartaches,. and pain. BUT its also full of joy and love and happiness. I made a concious choice to feel blessed that I had, had them at all in my life, rather than dwell on their passing. I had the tools within me to get through it. This poor boy was in pain. We teach kids everything else, but how to deal with life. This boy needed the tools to help himself get through things. he needed something he wasn't getting. I think I read that he felt he had been a dissapointment that nothing was going to change. With all the therapist and treatment he got., let alone what drugs they had him on, This was the end result? No one could help him? Who dropped the ball here? If drugs were the answer, we would have a whole nation of really happy people since many seem to be on a antidepressant now. I don't beleive drugs are the answer. I am not religious, but I am spiritual in beleiving in a higher power, and having faith. This boy took a permanent solution to a temporay problem. His life he felt was a mess and he didn't see it getting any better. He somehow couldn't see that everything passes and things change. Saying this I do know also that there are some individuals who cannot be helped.. I cannot say for sure if he was one of them,. but I don't think this was the answer either. Do I think TV and video games play a role? Probably a part of what he saw and what he knew about directed him towards the path he took,. There is much to be looked at in this case. We will probably never know the full reasons why he did what he did,. But lets pray to god that something has been learned here before we have another mass murder. And lets try and help the next Robert hawkins before its too late.

Answer 3

He clearly was mentally ill, just like Cho Seung Hui, the young man who committed the shootings at Virginia Tech was. The problem is that we as a society don't want to deal with mental illness. We would rather pretend it doesn't exist or throw drugs at those with mental problems. Until we are ready to deal with this serious problem, there will continue to be more people like Robert Hawkins. It's only a matter of time before the next one strikes again.

Another individual who also was mentally ill was Andrea Yates, the woman who drowned her five children. If she had gotten the help she really needed instead of being medicated so she was like a zombie, this tragedy probably could have been averted.

Answer 4

I feel like the system did fail him. Knowing what we know about his chemical dependency (and the fact that he was discharged despite his problems), we can surmise that his mood disorder was not well under control. My guess is, he was likely extremely bi-polar, and his chemical addiction masked the symptoms to some degree. However, psychologists should have been aware of this. He shouldn't have been discharged without getting both of those disorders (the chemical dependency and the bi-polar condition) under control. He probably seemed to be doing better during the onset of a manic phase of his condition. Then the manic phase topped out, and when it did, he exploded with violence. This is not unusual for the extreme mania in the bi-polar condition. Psychosis and delusions are not uncommon in this phase. Neither is assaultiveness, recklessness, and delusions of grandiosity. And when you add chemicals to that, it's like throwing a match into a gas tank.

Of course I don't know for sure if this is what in fact played out. But it could be. But any way you look at it, he was not well enough to be released.

EDIT: If he did have severe bi-polar disorder, medication would have been appropriate, though it is not always effective for everyone, and certainly the med would have interacted with any other chemicals he might have been using.

Answer 5

Nothing justifies murdering innocent people.

However, nothing justifies the "treatment" that this human being received from his parents or from a system all too ready to diagnose and dope up children. It is disgraceful. How can a society not experience the effects of such practices, sooner or later?

Why do we assume that this unfortunate person was the only one exhibiting deviant, antisocial behavior in his circle? Each person's choices can and do affect those around us, including innocent people. In this particular case, the buck does not stop with the person who (out of his head, most likely, after years of rejection and psychotropic "therapy") commited this nonsensical act of random violence. So, who else may be responsible?


Ronald Hawkins, Robert's father, sent his child away from home at age 14, to be left to the mercy of "the system"--an unstable environment pervaded by troubled, often violent people. Hawkins' second wife--who didn't stick around until now anyway-- accommodated this decision(!). Is this maternal or paternal instinct?

If a single mother threw her son into the system because a new husband didn't get along with him, the public would think she was a heartless, unnatural loser who cared about a man more than her child, not commend her for taking the time to occasionally visit her child in exile.

Ronald and wife #2 produced two more children to add to an already troubled household. People shouldn't even treat their pets this badly. Have a rambunctious dog? You don't send him to the pound to make room for two more. And we're talking about a human being.

Oh yes, Robert's mother? Out of the picture.

Human beings are not disposable. Perhaps the system would not have spent so much money (which seems to be their beef) if so much of it had not gone into drugs designed to "fix" a child who was having trouble adjusting to losing his birth mother, frequent and disruptive relocation, and the introduction of a new mother-figure who would eventually advocate his placement into the system. (Perhaps the child instinctively sensed this possibility in her demeanor, provoking his hostility towards her--who knows?)

How could those drugs have affected his cognitive processes and behavior in the short and long term? It is not always easy to determine whether a person is mentally ill or under the influence of medication, which may have been prescribed to them either unnecessarily or in incorrect dosages. Doctors are not infallible.

And the same system which wholeheartedly endorses the administration of mind-altering, spirit-killing pharmaceuticals to children is hypocritical enough to call attention to the younger Hawkins' use of marijuana.

Could any sentient being exist in such an environment and not be depressed, have problems paying attention, impulsive and agitated? THE ADULTS IN HIS LIFE ACTED UPON THESE SAME CHARACTERISTICS; THE DIFFERENCE LIES IN THEIR EXPRESSION.

That child stated what he wanted: to be at home with the mother and father who brought him into this world. His was a reasonable, natural desire. The situations that those people chose to create for him were neither reasonable nor natural.

Failure to thrive in a negative environment is not a mark of psychosis. It is a result of the accurate perception of one's situation.


If the people you love and trust the most tell you through words and actions that something is "wrong" with you and subjugate your mind and spirit to psychotropic drugs, you are absolutely intelligent, sane and reasonable to feel worthless and hopeless.

If you are drugged and treated as disposable and a source of trouble from the time you are four years old, why should you be cursed for acting out the script that your family and society wrote for you?


http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=27...

Answer 6

There's an illuminating look at this issue in the book "We Need To Talk About Kevin". It's not a warm and cuddly read, but it is worth while.

The author (Lionel Shriver, a woman) has also given a couple of fascinating interviews on the subject.

I'm not sure I see things entirely her way, but she has done a lot of research into this (something I don't think I could bear to do) and has arrived at some interesting conclusions about the role of the media (and by extension the wider society who use the media for 'entertainment' and vicarious thrills).

Best wishes.

Answer 7

This is indeed a very sad case which made headline news over here in The UK.
Who really knows what make a young person do something like this.
He obviously had a very troubled life and felt that there was nothing left for him in this life.
It must be dreadful for the families of those he murdered- how on earth do they carry on?
No amount of medical help could have prevented this.
This young man had a death wish.
Very, very sad.

Answer 8

oppositional defiance disorder is a diagnosis expressly given to children. it is defined largely by the same behaviors and thought patterns exhibited by sociopaths. what is really telling is the note. he does not care that the general public will remember him as a monster and does not realize that his friends and family likely will too. though he apologizes repeatedly he doesn't seem to sincerely grasp the feelings of others.

i believe he had neglectful parents. don't get me wrong. i'm not knockin' them. i don't know the circumstances of his family but abandonment is very difficult for young men to cope with. they feel impotent. the shootings were a way of punishing those who had let him down and his final act of suicide was as much about being in control of his own destiny as his sense of hopelessness.

Answer 9

So he was messed up in the head so WHY does this give people like this "the right" to go kill others? If he was that bad off WHY didn't he off himself FIRST instead of killing others first? So he had problems - WHO doesn't? STILL doesn't justify shooting people just because you've had a bad day. You may now vote thumbs down...

Answer 10

I don't blame video games. He just belonged in an institution.